Money, Love, and Shame
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A Wildly Popular Trashy Melodrama from the Yiddish Theater in English Translation
Admission: $15 |
MONEY, LOVE, AND SHAME!
Once a staple of the popular Yiddish stage, Isidore Zolotarevski’s legendary 1910 melodrama will be presented at YIVO in a new English translation by writer/director Allen Lewis Rickman in a ‘rehearsed reading’ format, for one performance only, on February 6th at 7:00pm.
Not for the weak of heart, “Money, Love, and Shame!” is a wild ride with a group of dysfunctional Jewish immigrants. Though considered “shund,” or “trash” by critics, it was one of the most popular and most often produced plays on the Yiddish stage.
On the night before she is to take her widower father to Denver to cure his Galloping Tuberculosis, young immigrant Sonia Eydlman is ‘ruined’ by drunken lawyer Albert Liebhartz. Albert promises to marry her, but he is forced instead to marry slumlord Barney Bender’s nymphomaniac daughter Cecilia. Bender plans to get Albert appointed as a judge so that Albert can help him kick the “chiselers” out of his tenements. And while innocent Sonia finds a new life as an alcoholic prostitute, Harry, Cecilia’s lovesick chauffeur boytoy, makes his own plans...
Allen Lewis Rickman (“A Serious Man”, “Boardwalk Empire”, Broadway’s “Relatively Speaking”, extensive credits in Yiddish) will play ‘Barney Bender’. Yelena Shmulenson (“A Serious Man”, “Orange Is The New Black”, “The Knick”, extensive Yiddish credits) will play ‘Sonia’. The remainder of the cast will be made up of veterans of Broadway and Off-Broadway; details to come.
(All event photos by Agneška Avin.)