‘Gimpel’ graces Folksbiene stage

Gimpel’s selfish wife, Elke (played by Daniella Rabbani), is brought to trial. The village elders questioning her are, from left, the actors Harry Peerce, Ethan Sher, and Jonathan Brody — under the eyes of the rebbe, played by Itzy Firestone, seated.

Isaac Bashevis Singer, the most famous writer in Yiddish and the only Yiddish writer to win the Nobel Prize, is a natural source of material for the Folksbiene, the nation’s last remaining Yiddish theater company. Several years ago, the Folksbiene presented a fine production of Singer’s short story “Yentl,” and now it is doing perhaps his best-known story, “Gimpel Tam.” The original appeared in the Forvertz in 1945, but everyone agrees that Saul Bellow’s masterly translation titled “Gimpel the Fool” and published in the Partisan Review in 1953 introduced the Yiddish writer to the American literary world. While there’s little debate that Bellow’s translation set in motion Singer’s climb to fame and literary glory, there’s some quibbling about his paraphrase of “tam” as fool. To avoid getting into the fray, the National Yiddish Theatre-Folksbiene has returned to the original title, added some songs, and is presenting the confusing, mysterious, and quite wonderful story as its main production at the JCC of Manhattan.

In front of an elegantly austere set designed by Roger Hanna, the inhabitants of Frampol go about their village lives. But Frampol is not the cozy, rosy-hued shtetl embraced by Jewish nostalgia. It’s peopled by gossiping, scheming, cheating, thieving, and whoring Jews, most of whom spend an inordinate amount of time playing tricks on poor Gimpel. These townsfolk fulfill the role of a mischievous Greek chorus, commenting on the action and foreshadowing events. Gimpel, played with great sympathy by Adam Shapiro, is an orphan, a simple, gullible man who can’t bring himself to doubt the far-fetched stories his neighbors come up with. Although he recognizes that he’s been tricked many times, Gimpel retains the capacity to believe — because, after all, he explains, if he begins to doubt the human beings around him, isn’t he in danger of eventually doubting the Holy One above?

Adam Shapiro as Gimpel the Fool

Probably the dirtiest trick the town plays on Gimpel is to marry him off to Elke, the village slut. Elke waddles to the chuppah clearly pregnant, and the two are wed, much to the amusement of their neighbors. Daniella Rabbani does a great job as the coarse and sensual Elke. She’s happy to have Gimpel the baker support her and her growing brood of children, and Gimpel, overlooking her abuse and betrayals, is a loving husband and father, bringing her fresh challah and choice dishes from his ovens. Even when he catches Elke en flagrante, and the rabbi orders him not to return to his home, Gimpel convinces himself that he hallucinated the sight of his wife in bed with another.

Innocence, corruption, faith, reason, forgiveness and guilt — all these big issues inherent to the story have resulted in reams of literary criticism and discussion. Is Gimpel a holy innocent, or is he a passive and complicit victim? Is the world irredeemably evil, and what is man’s role in such a world? What is the significance of Gimpel’s forgiveness of his tormentors? Is Gimpel a Christ figure in a Yiddish setting? Rather than diving into these depths, writer/director Moshe Yassur approaches the story’s many complexities with a light hand. He’s faithful to the tale, but he leaves it to the viewer to unearth the darker subtext. The music played by the onstage Folksbiene Band helps keep things cheerful, of course, and Shapiro’s warm performance prevents Gimpel from seeming a pathetic boob. Yassur emphasizes the story’s plentiful humor, a trademark of Singer’s work. Even when the stories are filled with despair, there are always good jokes to enjoy.

A native of Romania, Yassur directed the world premiere of this show in Bucharest at the Jewish State Theatre in 2007. Interestingly, Romania, where Abraham Goldfadden produced his shows in the 1870s, is considered the birthplace of Yiddish theater. It’s certainly a pleasure to have the production come to New York, a place where Yiddish theater is alive and thriving. There are easy-to-read supertitles for the Yiddishly challenged. For ticket information, go to http://www.folksbiene.org.