Rabbinical Lib

By T.E.K.

YENTL

by ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER and LEAH NAPOLIN

In its essence, drama is a blinding, minute-to-minute bolt of lightning. It has no time for the nuances of slowly gathering clouds. The life of the stage pivots on character, action, surprise and eloquence. That is one reason why adaptations from short stories and novels, while embarked upon with the worthiest of intentions, are almost invariably stillborn in the theater.

Such formidably gifted writers as Henry James and James Joyce made a stab at writing plays. Both failed. Therefore it is not unduly surprising that another writer of distinctive talent, Isaac Bashevis Singer, has also failed.

Almost from the moment the curtain goes up, one feels that one is browsing in a library, which, in the theater, is the dramatic equivalent of dozing off. To begin with, the story does not lend itself to a willing suspension of disbelief. The setting is a Polish ghetto town about a century ago. Yentl (Tovah Feldshuh) is an extremely bright girl who relishes reading and discussing the Talmud and the Torah with her learned father. It is strictly taboo for a Jewish woman to be studying these sacred texts. Yentl is precocious and prone to dispute with her elders, like the young Jesus.

When her father dies, she dons male garb and enrolls in a yeshiva, a school for rabbinical studies. Assuming the name of Anshul, she becomes increasingly fond of her fellow student Avigdor (John V. Shea). The sundering of a marriage contract has left Avigdor desolate at the loss of a comely local girl named Hadass (Lynn Ann Leveridge). Avigdor conceives the idea that if he cannot have Hadass, Anshul shall. Anshul/Yentl goes through with the marriage, and she manages to keep it deceptively intact, though Jehovah alone knows quite how.

In an access of love for both Avigdor and Hadass, Yentl reveals to Avigdor that she is not a man and files a bill of divorcement so that her two dearest friends may marry. Even for a fable, that is a little too fabulous. Shakespeare was able to get away with the man-woman mistaken identity gambit because he imbued it with humor, poetry and a sly fencing of the sexes. But that is not the case here, where the prevailing mood is one of folkish piety.

What is impressively salvaged from this desultory evening is that an actress of imponderable scope and stature is now on the Broadway scene. Tovah Feldshuh has the delicacy of features of a Tanagra figurine. She is kinetic in presence, graceful in gesture and capable of igniting, as well as displaying, passion. Hers is a talent of exciting proportions.

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