“Der Gelbe Stern” at the New York Musical Theatre Festival at the Laurie Beechman Theatre (Closes on Monday July 21. 2014)
“Der Gelbe Stern” at the New York Musical Theatre Festival at the Laurie Beechman Theatre (Closes on Monday July 21. 2014) Created by Alexis Fishman Written by James Millar and Alexis Fishman Featuring Alexis Fishman and Heath Saunders Directed by Sharone Halevy Reviewed by David Roberts Theatre Reviews Limited
The longer humankind “treads the boards” of planet Earth, the more connected the general population of the fragile globe is to what Alexis Fishman calls the unfathomable trauma and tragedy of European Jewry during the Second World War. Alexis Fishman has created a cabaret within a play for the New York Musical Theatre Festival that in narration and song pays tribute to Erika Stern the fictional Jewish chanteuse who is living and performing in pre-war Berlin as the Nazis rise to power. Erika Stern’s bawdy cabaret show with her accompanist Otto (Heath Saunders) is shuttered by the Nazis 1n 1933 because she was a Jew who sang songs with questionable content.
Using those lyrics and the narration (the patter) between and during the songs, Ms. Fishman successfully manages to encapsulate the horrors of the Nazi rise to power during the Weimar Republic. The Nazi reimagining of Club Der Gelbe Stern as The White Elk parallels the Nazi reimagining of an inclusive Germany (and all of Europe) as a superior Aryan race that excludes Jews and members of the LGBT community (among others) and plans meticulously for their extinction and for the extinction or confiscation of their art.
Erika’s life story is counterpointed by songs of the era (with one exception) and the lyrics serve as much as a retelling of the chanteuse’s life as her life’s story seems the perfect provenance of the lyrics. The story of her first lover who decides to side with the Nazis, for example, counterpoints well “I’ve Been In Love Before (Friedrich Hollander/Frank Loesser). The heart wrenching story of her father in opposition to “The Jews Are To Blame” (Music by Georges Bizet) is haunting.
For many denizens of Planet Earth, “the marginalized, the profligates,” any one of their varied “performances” might be their last. “Der Gelbe Stern” is a powerful reminder “not to make arbitrary distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ The lives of European Jewry were so much like ours today … until they weren’t.”
The live portion of the character Erika Stern’s performance closes with her farewell song “If You Go Away, Little Boy” a brilliant conflation of “If You Go Away” (Jacques Brel and Rod McKuen) and “Go Away, Little Girl (Gerry Goffin and Carole King). Ms. Fishman’s rendition of these two songs – and her interpretations of all the play’s songs – is as mesmerizing as it is cathartic. This final song (Erika leaves the stage) segues into Otto listening to a recording of “I Don’t Know Who I Belong To” (Friedrich Hollander/Robert Liebmann and Friedrich Hollander) on the radio, believing it might be the recorded voice of Erika Stern whom he never sees after the Club was shuttered. The play closes with the song taking center stage.
“Der Gelbe Stern” needs to be seen before it closes on July 21st and hopefully in a production somewhere soon thereafter.
DER GELBE STERN
“Der Gelbe Stern” is presented by The New York Musical Theatre Festival and Three Fish Productions. Creator: Alexis Fishman; Writers: James Millar and Alexis Fishman; Director: Sharone Halevy; Original Musical Direction: Michael Lavine; Orchestrations: John Baxindine; Set and Lighting Designer: David Goldstein; General Manager/Line Producer: Paradox Productions/Kristen Luciani & Jason Vanderwoude; Publicist: Paul Siebold/Off Off PR. Production photos by Hunter Canning.
The Band: Giuseppe Fusco and Steve Millhouse.
“Der Gelbe Stern” continues performances on Monday July 21st at 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. at The Laurie Beechman Theatre, 407 West 42nd Street, NYC 10036. Tickets: $25. For tickets, visit nymf.org. Direct ticketing link: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/935994. Runtime: 1 hour and 15 minutes with no intermission.
Permalink | Posted by David Roberts on Monday, July 21, 2014
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