Willy Loman will be given a new lease on life this fall when New Yiddish Rep presents Arthur Miller's American classic "Death of a Salesman" in Yiddish, in a unique premiere that coincides with the centennial of Miller's birth on October 17.
Using a translation that Miller himself authorized but which was only performed in Argentina, Israel, and, briefly, in Brooklyn, New Yiddish Rep is gearing the production to a broad, mostly non-Yiddish-speaking theatre audience, while demonstrating how deeply the language is engrained in the play's linguistic and ethical DNA.
The Off-Broadway premiere of "Death of a Salesman" in Yiddish runs seven weeks from October 8 through November 22, and is produced in association with the Castillo Theatre at their West 42nd Street home, 543 West 42nd Street. Tickets go on sale on August 15.
Directed by
Lester Thomas Shane, the production's ensemble cast features
Avi Hoffman in the role of Willy Loman; the Detroit-born and Berlin-based actor, composer and klezmer star Daniel Kahn (as Biff); vaudevillian and celebrated Yiddishist
Shane Baker (as Charley); Lev Herskovitz (in his Off-Broadway debut as Happy), and veteran actress
Suzanne Toren as Linda.
Like New Yiddish Rep's internationally acclaimed production of
Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" in Yiddish (translated by Baker) -- which premiered in 2013 at the multicultural Castillo Theatre before traveling to Northern Ireland last summer, and coming back to the
Barrow Street Theatre this past fall -- this "Death of a Salesman" will, according to Artistic Director
David Mandelbaum, "strikingly illuminate this classic, add to its resonance, and honor the genius of its author."
The show's translation is by the celebrated Yiddish theater star
Joseph Buloff (a member of the famous Vilna Troupe and
Maurice Schwartz's Yiddish Art Theater), who appeared often on Broadway -- "Oklahoma!" "My Sister Eileen" -- and in films like "Silk Stockings," "Somebody Up There Likes Me," and "Reds."
Produced originally without Miller's permission, the 1951 production in Argentina, which carefully replicated much of the Broadway production, nonetheless featured a cast (especially Buloff as Loman) that comfortably expressed the play's Jewish and assimilationist undercurrents. While he never discussed the implicit subversion of the Yiddish production (for years Miller denied any connection between the Lomans and his own Jewish roots), Miller's embrace of Buloff's production by granting it almost unfettered staging rights anywhere in the United States, including New York, is remarkable. "Toyt fun a Seylsman" played before a predominantly Yiddish-speaking audience at the Parkway Theatre for a limited run. Buloff's final Broadway appearance was in the revival of Miller's "The Price" in 1979.
Playing the role of Willy Loman is
Avi Hoffman (Off-Broadway's "Songs of Paradise" at The Public and the "Too Jewish" series, also seen on PBS), who, in a 45-year career dating back to age 10, has consistently alternated between shows in English and shows in the native language of his parents, Holocaust survivors both. Playing his son Biff is the singer, actor, composer, playwright and activist Daniel Kahn -- founder and frontman of the groundbreaking klezmer group The Painted Bird -- who's been called "a Jewish
Bob Dylan," and who, coincidentally, won the prestigious Hopwood Award for writing (on three occasions) while at the University of Michigan (as did the young
Arthur Miller).
"Death of a Salesman" premiered on Broadway in February 1949, going on to win both the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play.
The premiere of "Death of a Salesman" -- in Yiddish aimed for the first time for a broad theatre audience -- will go on sale August 15. For info visit
www.newyiddishrep.org or the Castillo Theatre box office, 543 West 42nd Street.
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