June 8, 2012
The Montreal Mirror - June 7, 2012by NEIL BOYCE
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Theatre keeps things interesting with Yiddish singers, a British queen and Jesus Christ
It’s a tough gig running a theatre, you know? Getting people out to see a show can be difficult at any time of the year, but in the summer—with all the terraces, Jazz fests and Piknik Éléctroniques going on—sitting in a theatre doesn’t often the top the roster of entertainment choices. To compete, the people who run theatres get around their serious, cultivated image by making shows look fun. Hence, musicals, comedies and action are on tap for the warm weather ahead.
The Segal Centre has been doing musicals longer than anybody in Montreal and from June 10–July 1, they’ll present Moishe Rosenfeld and Zalmen Mlotek’s On Second Avenue—in Yiddish, no less. This new production is a remount of a play the Segal first staged 14 years ago, and they’re bringing back former artistic director Bryna Wasserman to co-direct with Audrey Finkelstein. The pair aim to take Yiddish theatre out of its niche audience with the Drama Desk-nominated musical that’s also a history of the genre starting from its roots in 19th-century Romania to its peak in the 1930s on New York’s Lower East Side, when Second Avenue was known as “Knish Alley,” the Broadway of Yiddish theatre.
Also at the Segal, Tableau D’Hôte Theatre mount the English Montreal premiere of Timothy Findley’s Elizabeth Rex (June 19–July 1). Mike Payette and Liz Valdez co-direct the piece—another “messing with history” story—that has William Shakespeare meeting the titular Queen on the eve of the execution of her former lover, the Earl of Essex. Leni Parker, Brett Watson, Lucinda Davis and Howard Rosenstein are chief among the solid cast (segalcentre.org).
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