Dybbuks and a Nign – What Could Be More Yiddish?

Walking into the Kadimah over the past few weeks, you would have been entranced by a nign, a melody. Like the Pied Piper’s tune, this lilting nign drew you from the foyer, up the stairs and into the Leo Fink Hall to its source, a rehearsal of Dybbuks.

With its Yiddish women’s choir and inspiration drawn from S. Ansky’s Yiddish classic play The Dybbuk, how could the Kadimah resist offering rehearsal space to theatre maker Samara Hersch and renowned Melbourne theatre company Chamber Made?

A salon exploring some aspects of Dybbuks in advance of the show took place at the Kadimah on Wednesday August 1, 2018.  Entitled Language, Voice and Desire, and presented jointly by the Kadimah and Chamber Made, the Salon offered a provocative and engaging foretaste of Dybbuks.

Aviva Endean’s virtuoso clarinet performance immediately set the mood. Tamara Saulwick, from Chamber Made, led the panel discussion, encouraging the panelists – director Samara Hersch, actress Yoni Prior and Monash University academic and Yiddishist Hinde Ena Burstin – to delve into their experiences and responses to dybbuks, Yiddish literature and feminism.

For more about Dybbuks and to see a fabulous photo of the cast at Kadimah, read John Bailey’s recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald.

To book: go to http://chambermade.org/events/dybbuks-theatre-works/