“Hester Street” at Theater J goes even deeper than the beloved 1975 movie version.
Jake Horowitz and Sara Kapner play a couple that speaks to each other in Yiddish, with English supertitles. At first blush, the situation of the Podkovnik family in “Hester Street” seems far from singular: a Jewish family emigrates from Russia to New York in the late 19th century and tries to make a new life in the New World. It’s a story that, in its broad outline, probably resonates with millions of Americans,of whom can trace part of their ancestry to Ellis Island.
The room’s newest occupants are Jake and Bernstein , his devout roommate. They both find work as tailors and Jake, frequent patron of dance halls, strikes up a romance with a dancer named Mamie . Only problem is that he already has a wife and child living in Russia. When the play begins, he has not spoken to them for years, relying on letters to hear news of his family back in the old country.
While Cahan’s novella canted toward Jake’s perspective, Rothstein’s play is an unabashedly feminist-forward retelling. As played by Kapner, Gitl is a beguiling mix of George Bernard Shaw’s Eliza Doolittle and Ibsen’s Nora. She’s an embodiment of everything Jake left behind in the old country. Her conversations with her husband are carried out in Yiddish . She slowly learns English from her young son, who teaches her the words for common household objects.
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