Bartlett Sher directs a reading of Tony Kushner's A DYBBUK for LCT (Sept 2022)

Is it really a new play? Broadway Publishing has offered a Kushner play with that title for a while now.

I've read it, and I liked it quite a bit. It's almost certainly an overly reductive way of putting it, but to my Goyish eyes it felt like a Hebrew take in an Exorcist-type horror play.

This is, in my opinion, Kushner's great masterpiece next to Angels in America. A production at the Beaumont would be a dream.

I didn't realize Kushner had a version of The Dybbuk. I read some version of the Ansky play for my Jewish studies class in college, and watched the 1937 film.

How close is Kushner's version to the original play? A full adaptation, or more of a translation with artistic license, like the kind you often see with productions of foreign-language classics these day? (Chekhov, Ibsen, etc.) If it's the latter, then I can't help but feel like I'd rather see them do the original text in Yiddish, with super-titles. But Kushner is Kushner, I suppose.

Still, I'm curious to see what Sher does with it.

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "Whoops!! Thanks for the correction."

I assumed you were basing it on a source that had said that.

And tbh I would prefer some thoughtful tinkering, not because what I saw wasn't superlative but because Kushner is someone who can enrich his work because he never stops thinking about it.

Maybe we can have Fat Dybbyk.

I saw a college production of this close to 20 years ago. I remember the play being verrrrry exposition-y and somewhat dull in the first act or so, but once you get to the actual Dybbuk/exorcism section, it’s quite thrilling and intense. I’m sure it could be quite good with a tad bit of trimming and focused direction.

I wish someone would do Jose Rivera's latin-American version The Promise.