In a brilliant finale to his ten-year directorship, Barrie Kosky presents a roaring revue, opening an entirely new chapter of Yiddish culture, still largely unknown to audiences. Under the musical direction of Adam Benzwi and with choreographer Otto Pichler, long-time companions such as Dagmar Manzel, Katharine Mehrling, Max Hopp, Helmut Baumann, the Geschwister Pfister, Ruth Brauer-Kvam, Helene Schneiderman, Barbara Spitz and Sigalit Feig together with members of the Ensemble and a small dance troupe, celebrate love, music—and also, just a bit, the artist Barrie Kosky.
Although Jewish life in the USA was characterised by nostalgia for Europe until 1945, after the horrors of the Second World War, a new optimism took hold and Jewish culture, destroyed by the Nazis in Europe, was reborn on the streets of New York. It soon conquered the clubs, theatres and TV studios of the entire country. In the 1950s and early 1960s, one of the epicentres of this explosion of exuberant creativity and joie de vivre was the so-called »Borscht Belt« in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, a region characterized by resort hotels and estates. The »Las Vegas of the East Coast« was not only a popular summer holiday destination for many New York Jews, but a thriving entertainment industry developed there as well.
From the sometimes cabaret, sometimes heart-warming, jazz and swing, rock'n roll and klezmer-inspired show numbers of Mickey Katz, Sophie Tucker or the famous Barry Sisters who performed in the »Borscht Belt«, Barrie Kosky, Adam Benzwi and Otto Pichler have put together a deliciously comedic, campy crazy, supersexy revue, sung entirely in Yiddish, sure to touch the heart and captivate audiences.
