SINGER
on/by SINGER
SHOW/READING
The show-reading« Singer on/by
Singer » is a command which was sent to me by the director of the 10th
festival « Jiddische Musik- und Theaterwoche » in Dresden (Germany)
which took place from the 26.10 until the 05.11.2006.
The basic idea of the show is to let hear the
yiddish language and at the same time to have a life-simultaneous translation
(in this specifical case, in german).
The stagepresents, a place of conferences, with 2 reading-tables, each one in one side
of the stage and a screen board in the background.
We know that I.B. Singer used to make public
lectures of his work and we would like to remake them alive.
Public readings of Yiddish litterature were
often done in the Yiddish world, and our company, Der LufTeater, continues with
this tradition trying to adapt ourselves to a world in which the Yiddish
language is no more spoken in the everyday life by a large amount of people.
Singer’s translator comes on stage and waits.
When I.B.Singer enters, he says hello to some people he knows in the room,
wearing a white summer-costume (he lived his last years in Miami Beach), and
with an old bag in his hand.
He sits down, open his bag and take out old
yiddish newspapers (Forverts) from which he’ll read his stories.
He announces the first story « Why did the
geese shrieked» to the public and the translator.
On the screen, we can see a film in black and
white, mute, with an old khassidic music. Le film en noir et blanc représente
la mémoire de l’auteur This film that represents his memory, is taken from a
show our company putted on stage named « Singer Cabaret”.
Bashevis Singer reads the stories in yiddish
and the translator translates step by step.
The other stories are « My sister »
and “Traitl”.
A
la fin, Singer lit dans les deux langues, sans l’aide de la traductrice, la
conférence sur le yiddish qu’il a prononcée lors de la réception du Prix Nobel
de Littérature qui lui a été décerné en 1978. At
the end, Singer reads in both languages, without her help, the conference he
did about the Yiddish language when he received the Nobel Price
The reading in yiddish is actually an imitation
of I.B. Singer’s way of speaking, with his yiddish-polish accent.
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