Extra, Extra

News flash: Mrs. Oracle and I went to the theater yesterday! (Way back, newsboys used to hawk special editions – “extras” – of papers when there was exciting news.)

Now I know that it doesn't sound all that special to you nor, I guess, to me either. But for us this was a unique event. Not going to the theater per se, but going to a performance like the one we saw yesterday. So let me tell you about it. (If you've gotten this far you're probably used to reading my drivel, so here's some more.)

It started in Kerhonkson. Not a great beginning for an event. Or a piece of writing. But that's where it started. In New York's Catskills. A meeting – actually a choral festival – was going on, one devoted to Jewish choral music, and Zalmen Mlotek, Director of the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene, was given an award for his contributions to Jewish music. We were especially interested because it was an award that we had received a few years earlier for the more literal contributions to the movement we had made based on our love of the art form and the ideals it promoted. We both love to sing (in choruses – not solo).

In any event, though I saw him at the Festival, I didn't meet him, and when I returned home I regretted that. As soon as I mentioned it to Mrs. O she informed me that my (younger) son had been a teacher of one of his son and he had a (somewhat distant) relationship to the family, who lived nearby. So I decided that a meeting would be rewarding and I sent him a message introducing myself. He very generously invited us to a performance of the theater's current production, an invitation which, I must admit, troubled me a little since the show was a century-old (not quite – 1923) musical product of the Yiddish theater. But we'd also have the opportunity to meet Mr. Mlotek, so I accepted. But it isn't the meeting that I want to address. It's the production itself, Di Goldene Kale (The Golden Bride).

We were both a little intimidated since neither of us speaks Yiddish, but knowing that you don't have to know Italian to love opera (in all honesty I don't love opera, but the principle still holds) we figured it was worth a try even though neither of us had ever been to the Yiddish theater. As it turned out there were projected supertitles in English (and Russian – there were many in attendance who speak Russian) so we had no difficulty in following the story and songs. Our chorus has sung Yiddish songs but they've always been a problem for me. Not a speaker of the language I have difficulty getting my tongue around the language, let alone understanding what the words mean. But that's enough of the anticipated, if unrealized, problems.

The play was a delight. It was dated and it was corny. But it was a delight!

It was an operetta of the type in fashion at the beginning of the last century – one in which love conquered all. There were no real villains, although some of the characters were “gooder” than others. The plot was “spare,” even silly with the usual range of deus ex machina, “surprises,” pathos, and the happy ending that you'd expect from a representative of the genre, but it was all very forgivable and very much in the character of operetta. The acting was broad and the singing glorious. There was even a Hitchcock-like cameo by Mr. Mlotek.

And I left the theater humming one of the songs from the show. That doesn't sound exciting, but it's not something that happens very much anymore. Modern musicals have long, complicated arias that all sound the same to me. (I'm sure that's my fault rather than that of the music, but I don't hear anyone else humming either when I leave a more current production.) And all the singers today seem to prefer melisma to a straight singing of the music, such as it is. Musical theater used to be fun – to be entertainment – but now it's a vehicle for thought and discussion. Even the so-called music. It's no longer the case, but shows used to supply much of what became the popular music of the time. The music of today, however, is the subject of another discussion. (And not one in which I'm likely to participate since I'm not convinced that any exists.) Despite the hype and the critical acclaim of the current musical theater productions, and despite the intellectual maunderings (obligatory and fashionable?) of attendees, the only really enjoyable musicals are the revivals of decades-old shows. (Do you remember the song “I'm Old Fashioned?” Works for me. “I love the old fashioned things.”) So this revival of an old operetta, a remnant of times past, was a tonic.

Traffic to and from the theater (in a museum which has a beautiful setting int Battery Park) was appalling and took forever, but who cares (Ira Gershwin – 1931 – George wrote the music). It was a delightful and an exciting experience, well worth the trouble.

Goldele, meyn Goldele ...