The beloved 1975 film “Hester Street” has been given a new life as a stage play with music. Running through April 21 at the Goldman Theater of the Edlavitch DCJCC, this world premiere production at Theater J is an unadulterated hit.
Independent filmmaker the late Joan Micklin Silver’s 1975 black-and-white period piece tells the spare and intimate story of Jake and Gitl, Lithuanian-Jewish emigres trying to build a new life in the new world of the teeming Lower East Side of New York. Well-received at the time, “Hester Street” – the movie – was a paeon to a lost era of grandparents and great-grandparents starting life anew in the United States. The movie struck a chord particularly with Ashkenazi American Jews. But its specificity and depiction of immigrants striving to fit in drew praise and a general audience as well.
Brooklyn, NY-based playwright Sharyn Rothstein drew inspiration, of course, from the Micklin Silver film, but also from its precursor, a novella by the Yiddish Forward newspaper founder Abraham Cahan, called “Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto.” Written in English, but filled with Yiddish inflections and accents, the 1896 book realistically depicted the pull assimilation had on Jewish emigres – and, by extrapolation, their compatriots.
Rothstein’s script beautifully transforms the film through fleshing out the characters with more expository back stories, which makes them feel more relatable to today’s audience. Using both the musicality of Yiddish-inflected English with songs and musical interludes composed by Joel Waggoner allows Rothstein to illuminate the cultural richness of 1890s Lower East Side living with its cacophony of voices, accents, cramped apartments, street traffic and dance hall musicians. Jason Cohen, Morgan Morse and Lauren Jeanne provide the vivid musical accompaniment on horns and woodwinds, piano, percussion, violin and more, in the guise of street musicians – klezmorim, in a sense – while also taking on additional supporting roles as the larger story unfolds.
“Hester Street” follows Jake, who has built a new life in the densely Jewish Lower East Side neighborhood. A sweat shop worker, he spends his evenings in a dancehall, where the sign on the piano asserts “English Only” – obliquely suggesting “No Greenhorns Here.” He eschews his old-country ways to blend in. After a separation of four years, his wife, Gitl, and son, Yossele, finally arrive. The family reunion, though, is fraught, first beneath the intimidating stare of an Ellis Island immigration officer, then with Jake’s dissatisfaction for his wife’s old-country ways.
As Jake, actor Jake Horowitz is far more likeable with playwright Rothstein’s fuller backstory, than the irredeemable two-timing husband in the film. Horowitz gives Jake energy and a palpable sense of American capitalistic yearning; his mean streak – denigrating Gitl for her old-fashioned horsehair wig and unfashionable village clothes – remains, although it’s ameliorated by his own mourning for his deceased father.
Fresh off the boat, Gitl’s shy reserve overshadows her desire to please her distant, Americanized husband. Radiant Sara Kapner imbues this woman with a graceful, softspoken manner, but allows her the sharp sensibility of discovering her own voice. Friend and foil to Gitl, neighbor Mrs. Kavarsky is brash and smart-mouthed. Actor Dani Stoller’s comedic turn with Mrs. Kavarsky’s vivid Yiddish curses and her fast-talking “Yinglish” accent provide the smart -alecky mouthiness that brightens each scene she appears in. The couple’s boarder, Mr. Bernstein, played by the gentle, full-bearded Michael Perrie, serves as foil to Jake, with his old-school manners and God-fearing ways. Eden Epstein lends her sensuous, earthiness and outspoken mannerisms to Mamie, Jake’s love interest.
Director Oliver Butler astutely maneuvers this acting team as they navigate designer Wilson Chin’s rotating set with its tight, claustrophobic spaces that reflect the tenement flats and cramped living quarters when the Lower East Side was among the most densely populated places on earth. Throughout the play, dialogue toggles from accented-English to Yiddish, with English subtitles projected on a living room curtain on the set. Yiddish linguist Miriam Isaacs coached the performers in Yiddish dialogue, while Katie McDonald provided dialogue coaching for authentic New York old-country Jewish accents. I typically rely on Dr. Isaacs to verify accurate Yiddish and German used in plays, as I am neither a Yiddish nor German speaker. In this case, I’ll trust her work.
This isn’t Theater J’s first foray into Yiddish theater; since 2018, its project, the Yiddish Theater Lab, has presented both full-fledged Yiddish dramas, along with smaller workshop and staged readings of classic Yiddish plays in translation. But “Hester Street” isn’t just a remake of a classic. It’s a reclamation and re-imagining it for the 21st century.
The themes and characters speak to issues relevant to today’s Jews and Americans, including the ever-current immigrant’s journey – filled with challenges and triumphs, dreams and reality – as well as the tension exposed in maintaining religious and cultural precepts versus the need and desire to assimilate into a new society and nation. As well, “Hester Street” remains an undeniably feminist tale as we observe Gitl grow from a meek and cowering housewife to a woman who knows both what she wants and how to ask for it. This new vision of a classic is a must-see this season.
“Hester Street” through April 28, 2024. Theater J, Edlavitch DCJCC, 1529 16th Street NW, Washington, D.C. Visit edcjcc.org/theater-j or call 202-777-3210 for tickets or further information.
Lisa Traiger is Washington Jewish Week’s arts correspondent.