The Yiddish King Lear

One of the greatest Yiddish plays ever written, The Yiddish King Lear, comes to the Angel Orensanz Foundation in New York.

Written by Jacob Gordin, called by some the "Yiddish Shakespeare," the play is not a remake, but rather an original work that evokes some of the spirit of Shakespeare's classic.

A wealthy Russian Jew prepares to celebrate Purim with his three daughters. The eldest is married to an intelligent, orthodox student of religion. The middle daughter is married to a lively young Hassid. And the youngestis married to a nice bright graduate student who has no particular use for Jewish observance at all. As you can imagine, this leads to lively discussion around the table. And when the old man announces that he's going to divide his business interests among the children and go to live in Israel, one immediately exclaims: "King Lear!" It's not a translation or an adaptation: it's the whole postmodern twist, transposed in a 1892 shtetl. This play changed Yiddish theater by bringing realism to the genre.

This staged-reading will be performed in English and accompanied by Yiddish songs. It stars David Serero as the Yiddish King Lear.