Performances added for THE DYBBUK, 8/21 & 8/24

Performance have been added for THE DYBBUK on Saturday, August 21 at 9 PM and Tuesday, August 24 at 9 PM. To share a hit of its Dream Up Festival with a wider audience, and because of sellouts in the current schedule, Theater for the New City has added two performances for "The Dybbuk" from England, written and directed by Julia Pascal.

WHAT:
"The Dybbuk," written and directed by Julia Pascal, with set and movement design by Thomas Kampe, a featured production of Theater for the New City's Dream Up Festival.

WHERE AND WHEN:
August 10 to 25
Theater for the New City (Johnson Theater), 155 First Avenue (at E. 10th Street)
A featured production of TNC's "Dream Up Festival" (www.dreamupfestival.org)

Schedule and ticket info:
Tuesday, August 10 at 7:00 PM; Thursday, August 12 at 7:00 PM; Saturday, August 14 at 2:00 PM; Monday, August 16 at 7:00 PM; Tuesday, August 17 at 7:00 PM AND 9:00 PM; Thursday, August 19 at 7:00 PM; Saturday, August 21 at 2:00 PM AND 9:00 PM; Monday, August 23 at 7:00 PM; Tuesday, August 24 at 7:00 PM; Wednesday, August 25 at 7:00 PM.

Running time: 90 minutes.
$15; box office (212) 254-1109. online ticketing: www.dreamupfestival.org.
CRITICS ARE INVITED to all performances

DETAILS AND ARTIST INFO:
Of the 25 plays to be presented in Theater for the New City's upcoming "Dream Up Festival" August 8 to September 5 (www.dreamupfestival.org), one in particular indicates the expansion of TNC into the international arena. That is "The Dybbuk," written and directed by Julia Pascal (London), with movement and set design by Thomas Kampe (Germany). The piece, performed by an English cast, will have its American debut in the festival, performing twelve times between August 10 and August 25 (see schedule above).

A Dybbuk is the soul of someone who has died too early. Julia Pascal's "The Dybbuk" is inspired by Solomon Anski's great Yiddish classic. Pascal's Dybbuk starts in Germany where Judith, a British atheist Jew, looks at today's Germany and feels that Hitler has won. Judith is haunted by thoughts of her lost family and this leads her in to a dream world haunted by ghosts, or dybbuks.

She imagines a ghetto somewhere in Eastern Europe where five non-religious Jews live their final day before transportation to Auschwitz. In this ghetto, the five Jews argue, discuss Kabbalah, love, sex and death, relate fragments of their lives, play out half remembered scenes from the myth of The Dybbuk (which inspired Anski) and dream of full bellies.

The actual Dybbuk myth is encapsulated in a play world which the Jews walk in and out of, where finally the possession of the young girl's body by the spirit of her dead lover, is evoked in a four minute Expressionist dance. The work poses the question about why we keep on telling our stories even on the eve of destruction. It has five performers and uses text, movement and music in a homage to a culture that was annihilated by the Nazis.

Thomas Kampe (choreographer/designer) has a profound personal connection to this story, as his father was a member of the Nazi party. He has been a long time collaborator of Julia Pascal. Their continued work together is a defiance of the twisted ideas and a rebuke of the evil events that pervaded their childhoods.

"The Dybbuk" premiered in London at the New End Theatre, Hampstead in July 1992, then the Lillian Bayliss Theatre. Since 1992 it has played in Munich at the festival of Jewish Theatre, at Maubege's International Theatre Festival, in Poland (British Council tour), Sweden, Belgium and a major British regional tour. "The Dybbuk" is published by Oberon books in "The Holocaust Trilogy," three plays by Pascal.

The actors of the TNC production, all English, will be Juliet Dante, Stefan Karsberg, Adi Lerer, Simeon Perlin and Anna Savva. Theater for the New City has joined with this talented group of artists to share a creation from the other side of the Atlantic.

Photo Credit: Habie Schwarz

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