Ibsen: unorthodox -- and intriguing
By FRANK SCHECK
Last Updated: 10:01 PM, March 18, 2011
Posted: 9:31 PM, March 18, 2011
"It's not often that a production of Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House" begins with a Purim party. But that's the case in "A Doll House," presented by 24/6: A Jewish Theater Company. Transplanting the action to the modern-day Orthodox Jewish community might seem like a loopy idea, but it works surprisingly well in director Yoni Oppenheim's condensed adaptation..."
A Doll House in The Buzz section of The Jewish Week - March 18, 2011
There are no Jews in Henrik Ibsen’s classic, “A Doll House,” but that hasn’t stopped the intellectually ambitious director Yoni Oppenheim from making it into a very Jewish play. Oppenheim, co-founder of the contemporary troupe 24/6: A Jewish Theater Company, a group for Jewish actors who don’t perform on Shabbat, adapted Ibsen’s production by re-imagining its main characters as Jews. Instead of focusing on a Christian wife who saves her husband from financial ruin by surreptitiously borrowing money – which if made public, would embarrass them both – he makes them Orthodox Jews. Oppenheim, who has a master’s degree in Ibsen studies from the University of Oslo, is making a deliberate claim...Ibsen’s original 1879 play has often been called the first feminist play, but it may also be seen as a wrenching, timeless, and in Oppenheim’s adaptation, universal account of personal sacrifice.
Front Page Article in The Jewish Week - December 10, 2010
New Theater Troupe Dark On Sabbath
Company called 24/6, first of its kind here, to focus on Jewish-themed plays.
The 24/6 team: Yoni Oppenheim, Jesse Freedman and Avi Soroka.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Ted Merwin
Special To The Jewish Week
It may be largely a Jewish invention, but the theater in New York has never run on a Jewish schedule. Jewish theater artists have often had to choose between keeping the Sabbath and building a career on the stage, where weekend performances are not just the norm, but the box office bread and butter.
Now comes 24/6, the first theater company in New York that will not require its members to rehearse or perform on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons.
The company offers its debut workshop performances this weekend at The Sixth Street Synagogue, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in the East Village, with “The Sabbath Variations: The Splendor of Space,” a collection of six short plays fittingly inspired by Abraham Joshua Heschel’s writings on the Sabbath.
The company was founded by three 20-something observant Jewish theater practitioners: Yoni Oppenheim, Avi Soroka and Jesse Freedman. All three have extensive backgrounds in theater; Freedman is a performance artist and magician who trained at the New School, while Oppenheim graduated from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and Soroka has stage-managed productions all over the United States. Oppenheim and Soroka met at the Yeshiva University High School; they brought in Freedman partly because of his experience with a similar Sabbath-observant company in Baltimore, the Jewish Theatre Workshop, housed at the Jewish Community Center on Park Heights Avenue.
But while the Baltimore company, which is now in its sixth season, has presented a wide range of classic plays such as Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” and Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” 24/6 has dedicated itself, at least at the outset, to presenting works with Jewish themes.
Oppenheim told The Jewish Week that he and his co-founders started a series of salons last year to discuss a story in Heschel’s seminal book, “The Sabbath,” in which Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and his son, Rabbi Eleazar, hide in a cave after telling the Romans that only the unremitting study of Torah will produce eternal life; the two are ultimately brought by God to an appreciation of the Sabbath as the appropriate time for rest and reflection.
The salons became the springboard for almost two dozen theater artists, including actors, directors, and even a puppeteer, to craft their own contemporary responses to the story. These range from the tale of a Japanese salaryman who needs to be planted in the ground to keep from working himself to death, to a father-son story that takes place on the father’s deathbed as the son assails him for his selfishness, infidelity and inability to stop talking on his iPhone.
Not being able to rehearse or perform on the Sabbath typically puts theater artists at a distinct disadvantage in terms of honing their craft and finding opportunities to work. In unusual cases, producers have exempted actors from performing on the Sabbath; witness Dudu Fisher’s contract for “Les Miserables,” both on Broadway and in London’s West End, that excused him from Friday evening performances and Saturday matinees. The current Long Island production of “Jekyll and Hyde,” starring David Yudell, actually shutters its doors on the Sabbath to accommodate the star’s observance. But these are the exceptions rather than the rule.
Indeed, Soroka pointed out, when actors are first starting out, “they generally need to build their resume by working with little companies, and the hardest thing is to get your foot in the door with the first company.” In the highly competitive world of the theater, “We’re trying to create a place for observant Jewish actors to build a resume as reputable as that of non-observant Jews and non-Jews. At the same time, we’re giving Orthodox Jewish theater artists an opportunity to follow their passion.”
The inaugural production about the Sabbath, Freedman explained, “gives the company an opportunity to explore every nook and cranny of our mission.” Their dedication to Jewish observance will enrich the work, he insisted, since “strong convictions make great theater.”
By contrast, too many theaters in New York, he said, “embrace nihilism or the ideology of the month in order to get themselves noticed by being wild.” 24/6, by contrast, embodies the “creative tensions between the religious and secular world.”
Gerald Sorin, who directs the Jewish studies program at SUNY New Paltz, lamented that American Jewish identity is “too often reduced to pro-Israelism, Holocaustism, anti-anti-Semitism, political liberalism, or some combination thereof. These things alone without nourishment from the knowledge of — even if not the strict observance of — Jewish religion, cannot sustain Jewishness in America.”
He noted that theater once played a vital role in American Jewish life, during the heyday of the Second Avenue Yiddish stage. Through theater, Sorin said, observant Jews may be able to “create a niche for themselves in American culture, and get Jewish secularists to become part of their audience.” If so, “there is a greater chance for mutual understanding and some repair of the regressive fragmentation in the contemporary Jewish American community.”
One artist who is benefiting from 24/6 is playwright Ken Kaissar, the author of the play “If Not, Now,” about the father and son in the hospital room. Kaissar, who was born in Israel but grew up in Indianapolis, has penned plays about the Arab-Israeli conflict, contemporary Jewish identity and other Jewish themes. He said that his latest work “draws comparisons between the value of the temporal life and the value of the world to come.”
Kaissar, who identifies as a Sabbath-observant Conservative Jew, said that he is gratified to be involved with a company of “like-minded Jewish artists who connect to my work on a visceral level and are concerned with the same questions and ideas that I’m occupied with.” The new company “gives us another performance venue so that we don’t have to have that deal-breaking conversation about not being able to work on Friday night and Saturday.”
What will happen when Kaissar and the others try to find success in the larger world beyond 24/6? Kaissar said that he is not concerned, since he sees 24/6 as an “end in and of itself,” adding that “not all theater professionals are trying to get to Broadway or get to the movies.”
While Kaissar said that for the present, the company could do tours of JCCs and synagogues, he expressed the hope that in 20 years, 24/6 could “have a huge subscriber base” and grow into a major nonprofit company like Playwrights Horizons and the Manhattan Theatre Club.
In the meantime, Kaissar and his fellow artists will work toward greater acceptance and respect within the theatrical community for the needs of those who observe the Sabbath. “The traditional dark night for the theater is Monday night,” he said. “Why shouldn’t Friday night be the dark night?”
“The Sabbath Variations: The Splendor of Space” runs Saturday, Dec. 11 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Dec. 12 at 6 p.m. at The Sixth Street Community Synagogue (325 E. 6th St.) in the East Village. For reservations, email [email protected] with your name, number of tickets and date of performance. There is a suggested donation of $10 per ticket.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new_york/new_theater_troupe_dark_sabbath
Company called 24/6, first of its kind here, to focus on Jewish-themed plays.
The 24/6 team: Yoni Oppenheim, Jesse Freedman and Avi Soroka.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Ted Merwin
Special To The Jewish Week
It may be largely a Jewish invention, but the theater in New York has never run on a Jewish schedule. Jewish theater artists have often had to choose between keeping the Sabbath and building a career on the stage, where weekend performances are not just the norm, but the box office bread and butter.
Now comes 24/6, the first theater company in New York that will not require its members to rehearse or perform on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons.
The company offers its debut workshop performances this weekend at The Sixth Street Synagogue, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in the East Village, with “The Sabbath Variations: The Splendor of Space,” a collection of six short plays fittingly inspired by Abraham Joshua Heschel’s writings on the Sabbath.
The company was founded by three 20-something observant Jewish theater practitioners: Yoni Oppenheim, Avi Soroka and Jesse Freedman. All three have extensive backgrounds in theater; Freedman is a performance artist and magician who trained at the New School, while Oppenheim graduated from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and Soroka has stage-managed productions all over the United States. Oppenheim and Soroka met at the Yeshiva University High School; they brought in Freedman partly because of his experience with a similar Sabbath-observant company in Baltimore, the Jewish Theatre Workshop, housed at the Jewish Community Center on Park Heights Avenue.
But while the Baltimore company, which is now in its sixth season, has presented a wide range of classic plays such as Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” and Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” 24/6 has dedicated itself, at least at the outset, to presenting works with Jewish themes.
Oppenheim told The Jewish Week that he and his co-founders started a series of salons last year to discuss a story in Heschel’s seminal book, “The Sabbath,” in which Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and his son, Rabbi Eleazar, hide in a cave after telling the Romans that only the unremitting study of Torah will produce eternal life; the two are ultimately brought by God to an appreciation of the Sabbath as the appropriate time for rest and reflection.
The salons became the springboard for almost two dozen theater artists, including actors, directors, and even a puppeteer, to craft their own contemporary responses to the story. These range from the tale of a Japanese salaryman who needs to be planted in the ground to keep from working himself to death, to a father-son story that takes place on the father’s deathbed as the son assails him for his selfishness, infidelity and inability to stop talking on his iPhone.
Not being able to rehearse or perform on the Sabbath typically puts theater artists at a distinct disadvantage in terms of honing their craft and finding opportunities to work. In unusual cases, producers have exempted actors from performing on the Sabbath; witness Dudu Fisher’s contract for “Les Miserables,” both on Broadway and in London’s West End, that excused him from Friday evening performances and Saturday matinees. The current Long Island production of “Jekyll and Hyde,” starring David Yudell, actually shutters its doors on the Sabbath to accommodate the star’s observance. But these are the exceptions rather than the rule.
Indeed, Soroka pointed out, when actors are first starting out, “they generally need to build their resume by working with little companies, and the hardest thing is to get your foot in the door with the first company.” In the highly competitive world of the theater, “We’re trying to create a place for observant Jewish actors to build a resume as reputable as that of non-observant Jews and non-Jews. At the same time, we’re giving Orthodox Jewish theater artists an opportunity to follow their passion.”
The inaugural production about the Sabbath, Freedman explained, “gives the company an opportunity to explore every nook and cranny of our mission.” Their dedication to Jewish observance will enrich the work, he insisted, since “strong convictions make great theater.”
By contrast, too many theaters in New York, he said, “embrace nihilism or the ideology of the month in order to get themselves noticed by being wild.” 24/6, by contrast, embodies the “creative tensions between the religious and secular world.”
Gerald Sorin, who directs the Jewish studies program at SUNY New Paltz, lamented that American Jewish identity is “too often reduced to pro-Israelism, Holocaustism, anti-anti-Semitism, political liberalism, or some combination thereof. These things alone without nourishment from the knowledge of — even if not the strict observance of — Jewish religion, cannot sustain Jewishness in America.”
He noted that theater once played a vital role in American Jewish life, during the heyday of the Second Avenue Yiddish stage. Through theater, Sorin said, observant Jews may be able to “create a niche for themselves in American culture, and get Jewish secularists to become part of their audience.” If so, “there is a greater chance for mutual understanding and some repair of the regressive fragmentation in the contemporary Jewish American community.”
One artist who is benefiting from 24/6 is playwright Ken Kaissar, the author of the play “If Not, Now,” about the father and son in the hospital room. Kaissar, who was born in Israel but grew up in Indianapolis, has penned plays about the Arab-Israeli conflict, contemporary Jewish identity and other Jewish themes. He said that his latest work “draws comparisons between the value of the temporal life and the value of the world to come.”
Kaissar, who identifies as a Sabbath-observant Conservative Jew, said that he is gratified to be involved with a company of “like-minded Jewish artists who connect to my work on a visceral level and are concerned with the same questions and ideas that I’m occupied with.” The new company “gives us another performance venue so that we don’t have to have that deal-breaking conversation about not being able to work on Friday night and Saturday.”
What will happen when Kaissar and the others try to find success in the larger world beyond 24/6? Kaissar said that he is not concerned, since he sees 24/6 as an “end in and of itself,” adding that “not all theater professionals are trying to get to Broadway or get to the movies.”
While Kaissar said that for the present, the company could do tours of JCCs and synagogues, he expressed the hope that in 20 years, 24/6 could “have a huge subscriber base” and grow into a major nonprofit company like Playwrights Horizons and the Manhattan Theatre Club.
In the meantime, Kaissar and his fellow artists will work toward greater acceptance and respect within the theatrical community for the needs of those who observe the Sabbath. “The traditional dark night for the theater is Monday night,” he said. “Why shouldn’t Friday night be the dark night?”
“The Sabbath Variations: The Splendor of Space” runs Saturday, Dec. 11 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Dec. 12 at 6 p.m. at The Sixth Street Community Synagogue (325 E. 6th St.) in the East Village. For reservations, email [email protected] with your name, number of tickets and date of performance. There is a suggested donation of $10 per ticket.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new_york/new_theater_troupe_dark_sabbath
Article in The Forward
December 16, 2010, 3:49pm
For New Theater Company, Shabbat Takes Center Stage
By Gwen Orel
Photo Courtesy JTS Abraham Joshua Heschel, whose works inspired 24/6. A group of Jewish artists digging deep into Jewish writing and turning it into theater is trying to bring something fresh and smart to the table.
Billing itself as “New York’s first Jewish theater company dedicated to Sabbath-observant artists,” 24/6 launched on December 11 with an evening of short plays called “Sabbath Variations: The Splendor of Space” at The Sixth Street Community Synagogue. The performance consisted of five short plays, followed by a discussion of the life and work of Abraham Joshua Heschel, whose writings inspired the company.
Artistic Directors Jesse Freedman, Yoni Oppenheim and Avi Soroka organized the company in May. They began inviting artists to work with them, and to envision what a Jewish theatre company would look like.
Oppenheim, a director and dramaturg with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from New York University as well as a Master of Philosophy degree from the University of Oslo in Ibsen Studies, explained that the company began by studying Heschel together.
“People proposed ideas for pieces, based on that work, riffing off of it,” he said. The first performance was a work in progress — ideally there would be six plays, followed by an hour of discussion, reflecting the cycle of the workweek followed by a day of contemplation.
Co-Artistic Director Jesse Freedman has a background in magic and trained with SITI Company. Soroka, the third member of the trio, is an Equity Stage Manager who has worked with The Arizona Jewish Theatre Company and American Playwrights Theatre, among others.
Freedman’s background in magic taught him to connect with large crowds from a proscenium stage as well as to just a few people in a basement — a useful skill in the off-off-Broadway universe. He became Shabbat observant in college, right around the time he became interested in theater, following an upbringing he described as “somewhere between reform and unaffiliated.”
In order to find a way to work, Freedman began creating his own material. Religious actors all have to make different choices — some, he said, walk to work, not breaking specific Shabbat laws. The 24/6 company doesn’t rehears or perform on Shabbat.
“I decided I could do nothing else,” Freedman said. “I was unwilling to make a choice between [Shabbat and theater], as many people suggested I would have to.”
At 24/6, Freedman relishes “the opportunity to collaborate with people with similar convictions,” he said. “We are working from a rich tradition, which is a counterpoint to artistic nihilism.”
Oppenheim agreed there is a need for a company like 24/6. “I feel that in the past decade, there are more and more Sabbath observant theater artists coming up. This will be a place where they can develop work, in a schedule that enables them to work,” he said.
Future productions might include unknown classics from the Jewish stage, including the first play written in Hebrew, by Leone de’Sommi, a 16th-century Italian playwright. Oppenheim cites the playwright, also known as Yehuda Sommo, as one of his major influences, along with Jerzy Grotowski and Peter Brook.
“I have a desire to do plays which are not overtly Jewish, looking at them through the lens of our experience,” Oppenheim said. “I personally am interested in certain aesthetics, in the choreography of Jewish life.”
Read more: http://blogs.forward.com/the-arty-semite/134010/
For New Theater Company, Shabbat Takes Center Stage
By Gwen Orel
Photo Courtesy JTS Abraham Joshua Heschel, whose works inspired 24/6. A group of Jewish artists digging deep into Jewish writing and turning it into theater is trying to bring something fresh and smart to the table.
Billing itself as “New York’s first Jewish theater company dedicated to Sabbath-observant artists,” 24/6 launched on December 11 with an evening of short plays called “Sabbath Variations: The Splendor of Space” at The Sixth Street Community Synagogue. The performance consisted of five short plays, followed by a discussion of the life and work of Abraham Joshua Heschel, whose writings inspired the company.
Artistic Directors Jesse Freedman, Yoni Oppenheim and Avi Soroka organized the company in May. They began inviting artists to work with them, and to envision what a Jewish theatre company would look like.
Oppenheim, a director and dramaturg with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from New York University as well as a Master of Philosophy degree from the University of Oslo in Ibsen Studies, explained that the company began by studying Heschel together.
“People proposed ideas for pieces, based on that work, riffing off of it,” he said. The first performance was a work in progress — ideally there would be six plays, followed by an hour of discussion, reflecting the cycle of the workweek followed by a day of contemplation.
Co-Artistic Director Jesse Freedman has a background in magic and trained with SITI Company. Soroka, the third member of the trio, is an Equity Stage Manager who has worked with The Arizona Jewish Theatre Company and American Playwrights Theatre, among others.
Freedman’s background in magic taught him to connect with large crowds from a proscenium stage as well as to just a few people in a basement — a useful skill in the off-off-Broadway universe. He became Shabbat observant in college, right around the time he became interested in theater, following an upbringing he described as “somewhere between reform and unaffiliated.”
In order to find a way to work, Freedman began creating his own material. Religious actors all have to make different choices — some, he said, walk to work, not breaking specific Shabbat laws. The 24/6 company doesn’t rehears or perform on Shabbat.
“I decided I could do nothing else,” Freedman said. “I was unwilling to make a choice between [Shabbat and theater], as many people suggested I would have to.”
At 24/6, Freedman relishes “the opportunity to collaborate with people with similar convictions,” he said. “We are working from a rich tradition, which is a counterpoint to artistic nihilism.”
Oppenheim agreed there is a need for a company like 24/6. “I feel that in the past decade, there are more and more Sabbath observant theater artists coming up. This will be a place where they can develop work, in a schedule that enables them to work,” he said.
Future productions might include unknown classics from the Jewish stage, including the first play written in Hebrew, by Leone de’Sommi, a 16th-century Italian playwright. Oppenheim cites the playwright, also known as Yehuda Sommo, as one of his major influences, along with Jerzy Grotowski and Peter Brook.
“I have a desire to do plays which are not overtly Jewish, looking at them through the lens of our experience,” Oppenheim said. “I personally am interested in certain aesthetics, in the choreography of Jewish life.”
Read more: http://blogs.forward.com/the-arty-semite/134010/
