Sholem Asch’s “The Dead Man” Radio Drama Re-Airs This May
AMHERST, MA / AGILITYPR.NEWS / May 11, 2021 / A TIMELESS STORY OF SURVIVAL AMIDST DESTRUCTION
First performed on the Yiddish stage in 1922, Caraid O’Brien’s latest work is an English-language translation of famed Yiddish writer Sholem Asch’s haunting WWII drama The Dead Man.
The Yiddish Book Center presented The Dead Man as part of the Carnegie Hall Voices of Hope Festival, and the Center will be re-airing the radio drama (in English translation) on Sunday, May 23, at 1pm (EDT).
The Irish born O’Brien, a Roman Catholic and current resident of New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, has been called “Yiddish culture’s most ardent and least likely champion.” The play’s author, Sholem Asch (1880–1957), remains the preeminent novelist and playwright of modern Yiddish literature.
About the Play
Surviving members of a Jewish community gather in the rubble of a decimated synagogue in Poland in the aftermath of World War I. Ravaged by destruction, hunger and the influenza pandemic, how will they rebuild their lives? Dealing with dislocation, madness, and death, all they have left is a powerful hope for a prosperous new future.
The Dead Man is a timeless story of heartbreak and strength, and the relevance to today’s global moment is striking. “The play focuses on a traumatized community trying to move forward,” says O’Brien. “Together, they chip through the darkness by not shying away from their collective horror.”
Masterfully translated by O’Brien—in its English entirety for the first time ever—the play’s radio drama format is reminiscent of the wildly popular Yiddish theater broadcasts of the 1920s and ‘30s. Twenty-seven talented actors were cast (ranging in age from 3 to 85), including Broadway veteran Hal Robinson. O’Brien recorded each separately during the current pandemic, then seamlessly edited them together.
About Us
Caraid O’Brien
O’Brien is a fascinating interview. Full of humor, history, and scholarship, she tells a compelling story. An accomplished actor, writer, and producer, O’Brien is a three-time recipient of a new play commission from the Foundation for Jewish Culture. She began learning Yiddish while interning at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA, where she would later return as a Translation Fellow—the translation of The Dead Man is the result of her Translation Fellowship. The Village Voice wrote that her translation of Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance “set Show World aflame.”
O’Brien has hosted and directed radio programs on literary topics for WBAI and has lectured at Harvard University, Queens College, and the 92nd Street Y. She was mentored by legendary Yiddish performers Luba Kadison and Seymour Rechtzeit, and her first book, Seymour and Miriam: Yiddish Theater and Radio in the Twentieth Century, is forthcoming from Harvard Judaica.
The Yiddish Book Center is a nonprofit organization working to recover, celebrate, and regenerate Yiddish and modern Jewish literature and culture.
The million Yiddish books recovered by the Yiddish Book Center represent Jews’ first sustained literary and cultural encounter with the modern world. They are a window onto the past thousand years of Jewish history, a precursor of modern Jewish writing in English, Hebrew, and other languages, and a springboard for new creativity. Since its founding in 1980, the Center has launched a wide range of bibliographic, educational, and cultural programs to share these treasures with the wider world. Yiddishbookcenter.org
Register for The Dead Man second showing.
Watch O’Brien’s The Dead Man trailer.
Contacts
Jenn Einhorn
Director of Communications and Marketing
jeinhorn@yiddishbookcenter.orgYiddish Book Center
Phone: +1 413.256.4900 x118