eSefarad Noticias del Mundo Sefaradi
November 5th through 22nd at the Access Theater Gallery 380 Broadway at White Street, 4th Floor.
Written by Avi Glickstein directed by Jessica Brater produced by Catherine Wallach and Polybe + Seats.
Polybe + Seats presents Granada written by Avi Glickstein directed by Jessica Brater produced by Catherine Wallach and Polybe + Seats Ensemble: Elaine O’Brien Sarah Sakaan Indika Senanayake* Lindsay Torrey* Jill Usdan Ari Vigoda Set and Costume Design: Peiyi Wong assisted by . . .
Performances are Thursdays-Saturday at 8pm, Saturday matinee at 3pm, and Sunday at 7pm. All tickets $17
Ensemble: Elaine O’Brien Sarah Sakaan Indika Senanayake* Lindsay Torrey* Jill Usdan Ari Vigoda / Set and Costume Design: Peiyi Wong / Lighting Design: Natalie Robin assisted by Marika Kent / Dramaturgy: Miriam Felton-Dansky / Stage Manager & Associate Producer: Donald Butchko assisted by Dinah Finkelstein / Selected music performed by Anna Levenstein
Granada begins in 1992 as the King of Spain prepares to symbolically welcome Jews back to Spain after 500 years of banishment. A young Egyptian Jewish woman has been invited to stand in for all of those exiled-but following the ceremony, she reveals to Spain’s prince that she believes herself to be the resurrection of Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), philosopher, royal physician, and Jewish cultural icon. Quite suddenly, the prince’s world is not what it was before her revelation: he is pursued by a bear, seduced by a princess hatched from a grapefruit, and nearly betrayed by his trusty aide-de-camp. Is this the beginning of the Messianic age?
Bringing together characters and storytelling from Sephardic Jewish folklore and history and weaving from Spain to Israel to Morocco and back again, Granada explores issues of identity, both religious and national, and the uncanny link among followers of a tradition separated by continents but united by a state of exile.
The Access Theater Gallery has limited accessibility. For accessibility information, please contact info@polybeandseats.org .
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«Arousing visceral connections to historical events and cultures, Polybe + Seats adeptly ventures into explorations of identity. …Polybe + Seats launches Granada in a storytelling tour-de-force …[an] explosion of artistic expression.» – Theater Online
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«If you want to support an experimental theater company, Granada is the perfect opportunity and the price is right.» – Pataphysical Science
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Review
How much does an apology matter? When, in 1992, the King of Spain symbolically welcomed Jews back into Spain exactly five centuries after they were banished, he neglected to do one thing: apologize. This glaring omission inspired “Granada,” a new surrealistic play by Avi Glickstein at the Polybe + Seats Theater Company that imagines how the historical rupture caused by half a millennium of exile might be healed — or, at least, brought to closure.
Directed by Jessica Brater, “Granada” is the tale of a young Egyptian woman (Sarah Sakaan) who is chosen to represent the Sephardic Jews at the Spanish welcoming ceremony. Her presence takes on sweeping mystical dimensions when she insists that she is both the reincarnation of the great Sephardic sage, Moses Maimonides, as well as a prophet of the Messianic Age. Unless the King apologizes, she tells the crafty Prince, (Ari Vigoda), there will be dreadful consequences.
Drawing on an eclectic mix of philosophy and farce, “Granada” features Sephardic folk tales, Ladino music, and the techniques of magical realism. Its sprightly characters include a talking bear who regurgitates golden coins, a princess who hatches from a grapefruit and turns into a dove, and a goat who hosts a macabre cooking show connected to the medieval blood libel — the accusation that Jews used the blood of Christian children to bake matzah for Passover.
Glickstein, 33, grew up in Miami Beach as the son of a Reform rabbi and the grandson of Holocaust survivors. While his own family is Ashkenazic, he developed a passion for Sephardic culture. He chose Maimonides as a central figure because of the 12th-century scholar’s “pre-eminence, not just in Jewish thought and history, but in Sephardic folklore as well.” The fantastic elements in his play, he told The Jewish Week, have been compared to the work of Roald Dahl and C.S. Lewis.
Brater noted that she was especially struck by the presence of women in “Granada”; the cast is almost entirely female and the play speaks to the elevated role of Jewish women in carrying on Jewish tradition throughout long centuries of suppression and exile. “With so little access to synagogues or religious texts,” Brater pointed out, “crypto-Jewish women turned the home into the center of Jewish religion. Having a woman at the center of the play is in tune with that.”
Glickstein and Brater collaborated three years ago at Polybe on the Charlotte Solomon Project, a play based on the prolific German Jewish painter who briefly escaped to the south of France during World War II before being murdered by the Nazis at the age of 26. In “Granada,” Glickstein’s interest in Jewish history takes on a wider scope, as he, in his words, “smashes together contemporary figures with those from the past.” Glickstein said that he continues to wonder about how catastrophic events like the Holocaust and the Spanish Edict of Expulsion — whether or not governments ever take responsibility for them — “color our Jewish identity,” causing repercussions and ripples throughout culture and history.
“Granada” runs through Nov. 22 at Access Theatre, 380 Broadway at White Street. Performances are Thursday through Saturday evenings at 8 p.m. with Saturday matinees at 3 p.m. and Sunday evening shows at 7 p.m. For tickets, $17, call SmartTix at (212) 868-4444 or visit www.smarttix.com.
by Ted Merwin
