THE SEGAL CENTRE
FOR PERFORMING ARTS
in partnership with the City of Montreal
IS PROUD TO PRESENT
THE MONTREAL INTERNATIONAL YIDDISH THEATRE FESTIVAL
THE ESTHER ROKHL AND IDA KAMINISKA NATIONAL JEWISH THEATRE OF WARSAW, POLAND
The National Jewish Theatre of Warsaw was founded in 1950, when theatre groups from Wroclaw and Lodz merged. Since its creation, the Theatre has won great acclaim among theatregoers and critics alike for its bold performances at home, throughout Europe and around the world.
The Theatre performs classic Yiddish plays in Yiddish and tells tales from the Jewish canon; therefore, both the language and the subject of these plays are foreign to the Polish public. Yet, the Theatre consistently manages to stir up a steady stream of supporters. We always knew that the Yiddish Theatre was essential to its Jewish audiences, but it is indispensable to the Polish public as well! We are proud ambassadors of this mutual support: our fully professional, state-sponsored theatre has toured all over the world.
While the Theatre does perform classic works of Yiddish dramaturgy, we are far more than a relic of a bygone era. The National Jewish Theatre of Warsaw keeps the tradition alive through artistic innovation. It seeks "to move forward with the living, to strive for a new life," which is why our repertoire is constantly updated and now includes works by Isaac Babel, Arthur Miller and Ervin Silvanus amongst others. Drawing from a poetic tradition steeped in folk wisdom, fantasy, humor and reflection, the National Jewish Theatre of Warsaw unites the classic and the innovative, the Polish and the Jewish communities, and the past and the present through Yiddish theatre.
The mission to rescue Jewish theatre, culture, language and artistic heritage has always been a guiding principle in the artistic activity of The Jewish Theater in Warsaw. It remains the main ideological and programmatic foundation until today.
Szymon Szurmiej
General and Artistic Director
Golda Tencer, an actress and singer who also directs in and performs with this theatre, is well known as the founder of the Shalom Foundation and the Singer's Warsaw Jewish Cultural Festival.
THE ESTHER ROKHL AND IDA KAMINSKA JEWISH THEATER IN WARSAW
presents
| BONJOUR MONSIEUR CHAGALL | THURS, JUNE 18, 8:30 PM, |
| FRI, JUNE 19, 2 PM |
This play is based on the poetry and paintings of an outstanding artist, Marc Chagall. The inspiration for this play was a personal meeting of Szymon Szurmiej, the Artistic Director of the Jewish Theater in Warsaw, with Marc Chagall in Paris. Not only was this encounter full of Chagall's recollections of his time in Russia, but also replete with a discussion of the arts, painting, poetry and theatre - and their role in cultivating Jewish identity and culture.
Chagall's artistic output grew out of the Jewish folk tradition, rooted in Vitebsk (Belarus), where the artist was born and grew up. Customs that he remembered, Jewish songs, all that local colour and aura of Jewish culture were later portrayed in both his paintings and poetry.
The scenes and the joyous nostalgic songs of this play depict the magical world reflected in Chagall's great paintings, with flying angels, couples in love, animals floating over the domes of orthodox churches and poor houses in Vitebsk. All of them are shrouded in a subtle haze of melancholy. The Yiddish poetic and literary tradition and the folk wisdom, with its fantasy, humour and a pinch of reflection, are clearly reflected in this piece.