Interview: Rhett Martinez of THE LAST YIDDISH SPEAKER at Mildred's Umbrella

Broadway World writer Brett Cullum got a chance to talk with Rhett Martinez, who is the director of THE LAST YIDDISH SPEAKER, a play that is currently running at the Jewish Community Center. It is a co-production of the JCC with Houston’s celebrated theater company Mildred’s Umbrella. It is playing through September 21st. 

Brett Cullum: Tell me what this show is about, because I think it's an interesting premise. Give it to me in a nutshell.

Rhett Martinez: It is about a family living through a dystopian future that's only a few years into our future, the year 2029. In which… try to follow me on this, see if you can imagine America in this way. It's an America run by right-wing conservative Christians who oppress anyone who isn't like them, to the point of deporting them to other countries, maybe, like, El Salvador? And trying to oppress any kind of thought outside of the mainstream that they agree with. This Jewish family is trying to survive in that world by passing themselves off as Christians. And at the beginning of the play, the inciting event is that someone drops a woman off who is a Jewish woman at their house and says, “You must hide her from the neo-Nazis who rule the country. It's your turn, you have to take care of her!” They have to decide what to do to put themselves at risk to help save this woman and fight against the system that they're living under. Ironically, the origin of the play was that it was written after, and in response to the terrorist attack at the nation's capital on January 6th, which they sometimes call the insurrection. It imagines if those people had taken over through violent force that day, and had succeeded in the stated mission of those people, which was to interrupt the lawful election of that president. The play was written after that. But before the next presidential election, in that spot in between, when it seemed like there would be no possible way, the world would turn in that direction. It's an interesting irony that's created, because those people did take over, but they took over at the ballot box.

Brett Cullum: Yeah, they did. Well, I noticed it's written by Deborah Zoe Laufer. Mildred's Umbrella often produces plays by women, and that is a mission directive of the company. So, obviously, she wrote this, and obviously, it deals with some themes that would appeal to the JCC audience as well. And just everybody that's in a current political state, so how did you pick this one as a company? It’s speaking quite directly to the current times. 

Rhett Martinez: So, there's a competition that this playwright won. MEMORIAM was another play, (MEMORIAM was done at the Main Street theater). THE LAST YIDDISH SPEAKER won that competition. Not that art is ever really a competition, right? I mean, there's no such thing as winners in art, but nonetheless, it helped put those voices forward. So that's how it came up on Jennifer Decker's (artistic director of Mildred’s Umbrella) radar. One of the great things, and you said a celebrated theater company for many years, is that Jennifer Decker knows how to pick great plays. She really does. That's just an amazing strength of the company. And so that's where this play originally came from. The partnership with the Jewish Community Center was something that we had done for two productions, and this was the second production of that cycle. So it came from that source. I honestly don't know that this is a play I ever would have sought out, which is something I probably need to be more aware of, because it would have fallen outside of my normal radar, and yet it makes perfect sense with our company and what we do. Of course, it's women-centered, of course it's featuring women's voices, and the main characters that drive this play are women characters. And it even has some magical realism in it, which is something you often see at Mildred's, right?  

Brett Cullum: Alright, so tell me a little bit about who is in the cast.

Rhett Martinez: Well, at the center of our cast is, of course, the woman playing Chava, a Houston star named Deborah Hope, and I think everybody reading BROADWAY WORLD HOUSTON would certainly know who Deborah Hope is, but if not, go look her up immediately. And, she's just absolutely wonderful. And so, it was a bit of a stretch for Deborah, because she's certainly not as old as the character, and she certainly doesn't have the physical attributes. We had to do a lot of hair and makeup stuff to get her into the zone, but she is 100% the actor we needed, and so it starts with her at the center of it. And I'm really happy to have my good friend Jason Duga back as Paul, working with me again at Mildred's, and again with Jennifer Decker, and again at the JCC. He's just wonderful to work with. I had never worked with Olivia Knight, who is playing Sarah. But I knew who she was, and we were just really lucky that we were able to get her. She and Jason worked together perfectly as father and daughter on stage, and Olivia Knight is just an absolute force to be reckoned with. And then a brand new guy I never met before, Austin Brady, who has come in and just been an absolute delight. Somebody I did not know before this, and I'm so glad I get to know him now. It's pretty rare to make a play, to do a production, and honestly, sincerely think that every person on the stage is absolutely stellar. It does happen. Oftentimes, I get involved in productions as an actor, a director, or a playwright, where most people involved are absolutely stellar, and that's considered a huge victory. But the rare times when you have all four cylinders firing on the same tempo, the same pace, the same scale, the same caliber. Something happens that is just different. It really is different, and I just appreciate those, and I'm old enough now to know that doesn't happen all the time, so you really gotta be grateful for them when they happen.

Brett Cullum: Tell me about the days this runs, because the JCC has a different schedule than most theaters. 

Rhett Martinez: Oh, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, because Friday night is a Jewish holiday every week, that's their Sabbath. So from Friday night at sundown to Saturday night at sundown, the Jewish Community Center is actually closed on Friday evenings. We only have performances on Thursday night, Saturday night, and Sunday matinee, and the Sunday matinee is kind of early. 11 am! We are, therefore, going to lose that Friday night show for the three weeks that we run, so it's only nine performances, as opposed to our usual 12. 

Brett Cullum: So the Joe Frank Theater is the space you're in, and I think that a lot of people don't know this. I mean, I really didn't know this theater until Jennifer Decker started doing plays there. I was like, “The JCC has a theater?”, and it's actually a really cool black box, very intimate. How many people do you seat?

Rhett Martinez: I think we got about 51, 53 seats, depending on if we added a couple. And the JCC has had that big theater there for a long time. I don't know if the big theater has a name, or if it does, what it is, but it's just the big theater at the JCC, which is a full proscenium stage, auditorium-style. I can't even imagine how many seats they have in there. Looks like a high school auditorium. And they put on productions there all the time.  

Mildred’s Umbrella had a reading in the Joe Frank Theatre (the little one) and then came back a year later, and found that the place had not been touched. Like, the room had basically been vacant that entire time, because things were left where we left them, and she asked, “Have you guys not used this space since we were in here last year, or almost a year ago?” And they said, “No, this space is almost never used.” And I was like, “Really? A black box theater in Houston that is just sitting there that nobody knew about?” So it's a pretty interesting find, yeah.

Brett Cullum: Yeah, and it's located at 5601 South Brazewood Boulevard, for people that don't know. Amazing facility, lots of parking, and security. Very safe to go to at night. It's amazing, so definitely worth it, and I've seen Midred’s Umbrella productions there, and I am definitely planning to see THE LAST YIDDISH SPEAKER! I look forward to cramming in with 50 of my closest friends and experiencing Deborah Hope. 

Rhett Martinez: I saw the opening last night, and I know I'm not, you know, I'm pretty biased, but I sat in the back quietly and waited for the curtain call, and people leapt to their feet to give them a standing ovation. It is just a knockout of a play. People are gonna love it. It is hilariously funny, it is incredibly moving, and it's a very serious subject.