by S. Ansky, translated by Joachim Neugroschel adapted by Tony Kushner, directed by Michael R. Cohen. Sunday, February 24th at 2 p.m., at Temple Beth Hillel in Richmond.  A co-production of Actors Ensemble and Temple Beth Hillel.  $10 Suggested donations.

The Dybbuk is an expressionistic drama in four acts by S. Ansky, performed in 1920 in Yiddish as Der Dibek and published the following year.

Originally titled Tsvishn Tsvey Veltn (“Between Two Worlds”), the play was based on the mystical concept from Ḥasidic Jewish folklore of the dybbuk, a disembodied human spirit that, because of former sins, wanders restlessly until it finds a haven in the body of a living person.

From 1912 until 1914, From S. Ansky (1863-1920), one of the most famous writers of Yiddish literature, conducted an ethnographic study of Jewish communities in Eastern Europe.  Ansky recorded stories, songs, rituals and superstitions, which later provided material for his own writing.  Like other Yiddish  writers Ansky wrote in both realistic and supernatural veins; the latter style a simplified version of Jewish mysticism, or Kabbalah.  Ansky had easy access to the basis of Kabbalistic literature, because the Jewish Chasidic movement of the late nineteenth century had already changed the incredibly complex stories of the Kabbalah to make them available to an uneducated public.

Tony Kushner's adaptation of Ansky's A Dybbuk explores the themes of lust and desire, of worship and holiness, and corruption and sin.  A Dybbuk is a story of a shtetl romance, in which a young student, Chonen, falls in love with the daughter of the richest man in town, Leah.  Sender, Leah's father, will never accept the impoverished Chonen as a husband for his daughter.

In Jewish mythology, a dybbuk (Yiddish: דיבוק‎, from the Hebrew verb דָּבַק dāḇaq meaning "adhere" or "cling") is a malicious possessing spirit believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person.

The Cast

One performance only
Sunday, February 24th 2 p.m.
Temple Beth Hillel
801 Park Central
Richmond, CA 94803
$10 Suggested Donation

With:
Janelle Aguirre
Ted Bigornia
Zoe Curzi
Johnny DeBernard
Sarah Hadassah Negron
Lazlo Horner
Martha Luehrmann
Gabriel Ross
Dan Schwager
Vicki Siegel
David Weiner
Peter Weiss
Susannah Wood

Produced by Jerome Solberg

Temple Beth Hillel is a Reform Jewish Synagogue, located just off Hilltop Drive at I-80 in Richmond, California is an intimate, warm and wonderful congregation of Jewish families from West Contra Costa County and beyond.

Actors Ensemble is the longest-running theatre organization in Berkeley, founded in 1957. We aim to produce quality theatre emphasizing the ensemble, with a community flavor.

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Actors Ensemble
P.O. Box 663
Berkeley, CA 94701
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(510) 649-5999