Mirele Efros (Yiddish Queen Lear) - Yiddish Theater Classic

By Jacob Gordin

Mirele Efros, also known as "The Yiddish Queen Lear", is a sophisticated version of Ukrainian-born Jacob Gordin's work about honesty, decency and devotion towards family and community. Mirele, a wealthy and pious widow, whose devotion to her children even goes as far as hand-picking her eldest son's wife, makes a tragic mistake in evaluating her future daughter-in-law as giving and pious. Conflict ensnares the two in short order and a lesson about the value of piety is conveyed in the cautionary tale.

Adapted in English by David Serero.

• Language: English
• Publisher: World Productions Group
• Release date: Sep 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005281427

Book preview

ACT I

SCENE ONE

BORDER CROSSING

THE SNOW-COVERED, MOUNTAINOUS NO MAN'S LAND BETWEEN FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND 1941

SPOTLIGHT ON ESTHER

MALE VOICE: Stop!

ESTHER: (In a loud whisper.) Stop! 

MALE VOICE: I am going to count to five.

ESTHER: One. (Piano music reminiscent of a ballet class. She remembers her early lessons.) First position. Heels together. Try and make the knees turn out past the little toes. The turnout is high, high in the hip socket.

MALE VOICE: Two.

ESTHER: Two. Second position. The hells are a foot apart. Make sure the knees are pulled up tight.

MALE VOICE: Three.

ESTHER: Third position. This time the heel of the right goes to the arch of the left foot. Again, the feet turned right out; try not to think about it if it hurts.

Male voice:  You only have a little time. 

ESTHER: A time step. (Does the actions.) Shuffle, hop, step, tap, step, step. STOMP. (She stops for a beat and then tries to do a wing.) A wing. Where's the rest of the bird? A branch and a prayer. (laughs.) A brush. A pickup. Ball change. All change; it's the end of the line. Terminus. Is that Latin? Charlie Chaplin once told me I had beautiful breasts.

(She dances a time-step while saying the following)

A time-step. Step. (Frenetic movement.) 'Time. A continuous burst of activity takes less time than an activity that proceeds by fits and starts. Time. In French, they are short of a word. Time is the weather. Le temps. 'Communism will be an inevitable outcome of a historical process' (Laughs.)

MALE VOICE: Four.

She stops dancing.

ESTHER: How many weeks was it vomiting in steerage? And there she was. Her arms outstretched welcome. Madame Liberty! Rachele, Gittele, and Channele stand in line for Ellis Island. Name? Laranovska. Why is everybody screaming? Channele, Gittele, Rachele, where are you?

SCENE TWO

THE AUDITION.

ONSTAGE IN A LARGE NEW YORK THEATRE ON THE LOWER EASTSIDE.

Actors come onstage to wait for the audition while CHANNELE, RACHEL, and GAIL are rehearsing a song and dance routine.

ESTHER: (To her daughters.) OK, Girls. I have little time.

They stop rehearsing and watch the audition. Annie is also onstage taking notes as Esther's stage manager.

ESTHER: Well, young men. You've got the most excellent monologue ever written by the greatest writer in the English language. I want to hear what you will do with it in Yiddish. Channele!

CHANNELE: Yes, Mother?

ESTHER: If they haven't learned it, it's typed up. Over there. (To the men.) You're young. You're the prince of Denmark. Your father's been murdered by your uncle, and your uncle has married your mother. The mourners came to the house to sit 'shiva,' they found themselves watching the widow dancing under the wedding canopy. As the son who loved his father, depression doesn't come into it. You want the grave. You want six feet of earth on top of you. You never want to see the sunshine or the moon rise. You hate women. You hate your mother. You love her too, but that comes up later. Get an idea? To be or not to be dos dies Frage.

Three men step forward to recite the Hamlet monologue in Yiddish. They all do it over dramatically. This is the English that they say in Yiddish.

(To be or not to be, that is Whether 'tis nobler in mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. To die - to sleep No more; and by a sleep to say we end, The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to: tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;

To sleep perchance to dream - ay there's the rub.)

PAUL SCHNECK: Zein oder nit zein, dos iz die frague:

Vos virdilker iz far dem mentschn, leidn oon aroystrogn die alle feiln

un shtoysn foon dem stoorkhndikn mazl, tsi oyfheybn die vofn kegn

a yam fun tsores un doorkh dem oyfshtand makhn a sof fun ir?

Yo, shtarbn - einshlofn, nit mer; un kenen in shlof zikh zogn, az es iz a sof

fun hartsveytik un foon die toyznt pogn, vos lign in natur fun kerper, - dos

iz dokh an oproo, vos me meg im vintshn foon gantsn kartsn. Shtarbn - shlofn:-Shlofn

un efsher zikh khloymen. Ot it vos es iz der ophalt.

ESTHER: Genug. Genug. A dank.

SECOND AUDITIONEE: Zein oder nit zein, dos iz die frague:

Vos virdilker iz far dem mentschn, leidn oon aroystrogn die alle feiln

un shtoysn foon dem stoorkhndikn mazl, tsi oyfheybn die vofn kegn

a yam fun tsores un doorkh dem oyfshtand makhn a sof fun ir?

Yo, shtarbn -