Bashevis’s Demons: 3 Tales by Isaac Bashevis Singer
By Victor Gluck, Editor-in-Chief in Off-Broadway, Plays
Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote novels and plays but is probably best known for his short stories, several like “Yentl the Yeshiva Boy,” “Taibele and Her Demons” and “The Cafeteria,” have been famously dramatized. Now Bashevis’s Demons, direct from engagements in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, has arrived at Off Broadway’s Theatre 154 comprised of three short stories in the original Yiddish with English supertitles as a fascinating combination of both Story Theater and a dramatic reading. Long associated with Yiddish language performances, Shane Baker and Miryem-Khaye Seigel comprise the cast of two.
Bashevis’s Demons brings beautiful precision to three of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s most potent stories, all on the same theme. Performed in the original Yiddish, the stories enacted and narrated by Shane Baker and Miryem-Khaye Seigel in Story Theater form are a tribute to Singer’s expertise as a storyteller. Bashevis’s Demons is not only a good introduction to this author, it also bridges the gap from the 19th century to today making Yiddish come alive once more.