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"A Night in the Old Marketplace' at the Prince
Steve Cohen
The fiddler falls off the roof
STEVE COHEN
Superficially, A Night in the Old Marketplace seems a lot like Fiddler on the Roof. Both are set in Russian Jewish villages at the start of the 20th Century. Both are based on stories by famed Yiddish writers— Isaac Leib Peretz and Sholom Aleichem, respectively. Both have central characters who explain the story to the audience. In Fiddler it’s Tevye; in Marketplace it’s "the Badkhn" – for pronunciation, think of Hamlet’s "bare bodkin" and for translation, call him a wedding entertainer.
The similarities end there. In Marketplace, the convoluted script concerns a bride who fell down a well and drowned. The Badkhn and the bridegroom want to bring her back to life. Enter a gargoyle who concocts a plan that unfolds with excruciating talkiness. Hardly the clear-cut drama of tradition offered in Fiddler.
Marketplace, which just finished its world premiere run at the Prince Music Theater, is an endeavor that I’d love to love. Preserving the literature of an earlier age is a worthy project; so is teaching cultural history to a new generation. It's edifying to explore Peretz's skepticism about God and religious observance. This secularism was common among European Jews a century ago but usually gets short shrift from nostalgia buffs.
Alexander Krejn (1883-1951) composed a klezmer-musical version of Peretz’s play that was performed at the Yiddish Theater of Moscow during Russia’s early Communist years. (The story of that short-lived company was recounted in Green Violin, which the Prince premiered in 2003, also with music by Frank London.) I looked forward to this new version, but the finished product frustrates me.
The joys of klezmer
The principal joys in Marketplace are the new music by Frank London and the performance of Ray Wills as the Badkhn. London is one of the leaders of the revival of klezmer music and is founder of the Klezmatics. His score includes catchy songs in that genre but goes beyond it to serious, near-operatic music. I’ve ordered the CD of the show and look forward to repeated listening.
Wills possesses a fine baritone voice, a winning smile and great energy. His character observes that "the world is broken, we all know that" and wonders how it can be healed. Parallels to world events in 2007 are, unfortunately, not explored. Peretz shuns Fiddler’s easy answer of emigration to America. His characters flirt with the remedy of revolution, then turn toward a more inward solution, but here the plot gets muddled.
Now for Yiddle With a Fiddle
Director Alexandra Aron and author/lyricist Glen Berger fail to find a simple hook that will involve the audience. Guil Fisher’s excellent deep voice and Charlotte Cohn’s fine soprano are under-utilized, and Steven Rattazzi as the groom is forced to play a drunken stereotype. I’ve seen more exuberant dancing at weddings and bar mitzvahs, and I’m disappointed that Karen Getz, who expertly choreographed the Prince’s Hair, did not do as well this time.
Plaudits to Marjorie Samoff and the Prince Theater for trying to rekindle that era and for commissioning a new work. But I got more enjoyment seeing revivals of Yiddish classics like Yiddle With a Fiddle in New York in the 1990s. True, that revival was less ambitious than Marketplace, but such romantic musicals are more appealing for audiences. And the re-mounting of works by Abraham Goldfaden and Abraham Ellstein would be a legitimate tribute to the culture of our forebears. Peretz called Goldfaden "my teacher," while Ellstein’s work ranged from opera to Yiddish movie musicals.
STEVE COHEN
Superficially, A Night in the Old Marketplace seems a lot like Fiddler on the Roof. Both are set in Russian Jewish villages at the start of the 20th Century. Both are based on stories by famed Yiddish writers— Isaac Leib Peretz and Sholom Aleichem, respectively. Both have central characters who explain the story to the audience. In Fiddler it’s Tevye; in Marketplace it’s "the Badkhn" – for pronunciation, think of Hamlet’s "bare bodkin" and for translation, call him a wedding entertainer.
The similarities end there. In Marketplace, the convoluted script concerns a bride who fell down a well and drowned. The Badkhn and the bridegroom want to bring her back to life. Enter a gargoyle who concocts a plan that unfolds with excruciating talkiness. Hardly the clear-cut drama of tradition offered in Fiddler.
Marketplace, which just finished its world premiere run at the Prince Music Theater, is an endeavor that I’d love to love. Preserving the literature of an earlier age is a worthy project; so is teaching cultural history to a new generation. It's edifying to explore Peretz's skepticism about God and religious observance. This secularism was common among European Jews a century ago but usually gets short shrift from nostalgia buffs.
Alexander Krejn (1883-1951) composed a klezmer-musical version of Peretz’s play that was performed at the Yiddish Theater of Moscow during Russia’s early Communist years. (The story of that short-lived company was recounted in Green Violin, which the Prince premiered in 2003, also with music by Frank London.) I looked forward to this new version, but the finished product frustrates me.
The joys of klezmer
The principal joys in Marketplace are the new music by Frank London and the performance of Ray Wills as the Badkhn. London is one of the leaders of the revival of klezmer music and is founder of the Klezmatics. His score includes catchy songs in that genre but goes beyond it to serious, near-operatic music. I’ve ordered the CD of the show and look forward to repeated listening.
Wills possesses a fine baritone voice, a winning smile and great energy. His character observes that "the world is broken, we all know that" and wonders how it can be healed. Parallels to world events in 2007 are, unfortunately, not explored. Peretz shuns Fiddler’s easy answer of emigration to America. His characters flirt with the remedy of revolution, then turn toward a more inward solution, but here the plot gets muddled.
Now for Yiddle With a Fiddle
Director Alexandra Aron and author/lyricist Glen Berger fail to find a simple hook that will involve the audience. Guil Fisher’s excellent deep voice and Charlotte Cohn’s fine soprano are under-utilized, and Steven Rattazzi as the groom is forced to play a drunken stereotype. I’ve seen more exuberant dancing at weddings and bar mitzvahs, and I’m disappointed that Karen Getz, who expertly choreographed the Prince’s Hair, did not do as well this time.
Plaudits to Marjorie Samoff and the Prince Theater for trying to rekindle that era and for commissioning a new work. But I got more enjoyment seeing revivals of Yiddish classics like Yiddle With a Fiddle in New York in the 1990s. True, that revival was less ambitious than Marketplace, but such romantic musicals are more appealing for audiences. And the re-mounting of works by Abraham Goldfaden and Abraham Ellstein would be a legitimate tribute to the culture of our forebears. Peretz called Goldfaden "my teacher," while Ellstein’s work ranged from opera to Yiddish movie musicals.
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