Sweet Charity/"I Love to Cry at Weddings:" Random Rabbi?

[darquegk]

Posted: 8/8/21 at 9:14pm

This sounds weird, but I've asked more out-there questions and gotten good answers before. Was there a major production of Sweet Charity (or at least a notable performance of the song "I Love to Cry at Weddings" where an old, very Jewish man with a beard and Yiddish accent sings a whole verse of the song in Ishkebibble? I feel like my first exposure to the song must have included this guy, because every time I've seen it since I'm surprised when he's not here.

I think of him as "the rabbi," but he was probably just an old Jew with a beard and a comically thick accent. And he sang a very Tevye-like bit, something like "I luff to khry at veddings/Yih yih yih yih yih veddings/I yigga digga digga dee/Deedle daidle doodle dum!" It's not like he was forgetting his lyrics and just improvising, as he was clearly dressed that way to deliver these lines. It wasn't Herman the pseudo-pimp, because he was a character the whole way through the show so I'd have remembered him. Is this from the movie, or some other production? Or did I just happen to see a "Sweet Charity" that made some rather questionable direction choices?

[justoldbill]

Posted: 8/13/21 at 5:24pm

Unlikely.  The number takes place in the Fandango Ballroom, and this does not sound like one of its customers.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 8/16/21 at 11:16am

"זיס צדקה"... the Lodz production, 1973 

Updated On: 8/16/21 at 11:16 AM

[darquegk]

Posted: 9/4/24 at 12:05am

Years later I unexpectedly found my answer: my brain accidentally superimposed Mr Bernstein from “Forbidden Zone” into “Sweet Charity.” The beard, the singsongy speech and Ishkebibble singing are all there.