Yentl in Yiddish wins four major performing arts awards

An imaginative retelling of an Isaac Bashevis Singer classic has catapulted Melbourne's Kadimah from a niche Yiddish cultural club to an award-winning creative producer.

Kadimah Theatre's production of Yentl has taken out four gold medals in the 2023 Green Room Awards, Melbourne's premier performing arts awards.

Jana Zvedeniuk, in the title role, won the Green Room Award for Outstanding Performance, tying with Eryn Jean Norvill in Sydney Theatre Company’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.

The script, written by Gary Abrahams, Elise Hearst and Galit Klas, based on Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Yiddish short story, won for Outstanding Writing.

Dann Barber won Outstanding Set Design and Rachel Burke won Outstanding Lighting Design.

Yentl also received nominations for Best Production, Outstanding Direction (Gary Abrahams), Outstanding Performance (Evelyn Krape), Outstanding Sound Design (Russell Goldsmith) and Outstanding Costume Design (Dann Barber).

The Kadimah production of Yentl, which was held at Arts Centre Melbourne in 2022, was Kadimah's first production at a mainstream theatre and the first to draw major audiences from outside the Jewish community.

The Jewish Cultural Centre and Yiddish Library was established by refugees from Eastern Europe in 1911 and has long produced theatre and other events for Yiddish speakers.

In recent years it has drawn a wider audience, including those who are not fluent in Yiddish and a younger demographic embracing the secular cultural traditions of Jewish life.

Yentl was performed partly in Yiddish, with English subtitles. It reworked the classic story and provided a riposte to the well-known, sentimentalised Barbra Streisand film, with a dark and sometimes sexualised mise-en-scene, addressing contemporary questions of gender fluidity and personifying the evil inclination, the character played by Evelyn Krape.

Kadimah CEO Rachel Chrapot noted that the niche Yiddish producer beat competitors from mainstream theatre companies including Melbourne Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre Company and Malthouse.

“Kadimah Yiddish Theatre has punched well above its weight to achieve a wonderful result, coming up against larger theatre companies. “We are so proud of the dedicated cast, crew and creatives who have produced thought-provoking and engaging bilingual theatre,’’ she said.

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Photo: Jana Zvedeniuk, in the title role, in Kadimah's production of Yentl (Photos: Jeff Busby)