Exorcist with a Yiddish accent: Classic Jewish drama ''The Dybbuk'' to haunt the stage at Traveling Jewish Theatre

It may not be the friendliest ghost, but "The Dybbuk" is certainly the most popular. At least, in the Jewish cultural universe it is.

A dybbuk is a demon (derived from the Hebrew meaning "to cling"). Over the years, Solomon Ansky's 1922 play "The Dybbuk" has been reinvented multiple times: as an opera, a ballet, an Israeli feature film and countless theatrical versions, including one by "Angels in America" playwright Tony Kushner.

Now, Traveling Jewish Theater welcomes the return of "The Dybbuk" with a new production adapted by Obie-winning actor/playwright Bruce Myers. TJT co-founder Corey Fischer, who co-starred in the same play twice before, this time directs the two-actor cast featuring Karine Koret and Keith Davis.

"It's a seminal work," says Fischer of Ansky's classic. "It's the only play from the Yiddish theater that had longevity and crossover appeal. It was written to be a vessel for a shtetl culture that was having its last flowering."

Fischer points out that the Russian-born Ansky was part of that first generation of European Jews with a secular education. "He was an ethnographer," notes Fischer. "He tramped around the Carpathian Mountains, photographing and transcribing whatever he could — songs, superstitions, folk plays. There was a big movement at turn of century to document the life of shtetl Jews."

Set in Poland at the end of the 19th century, Ansky's "Dybbuk" tells the story of two lovers, Chanon and Leah. Betrothed since birth, the two are denied their wedding when Leah's father offers his daughter to a richer man.

Chanon dies instantly upon hearing the news, with his soul, transformed into a dybbuk, entering Leah's body to gain her love for eternity. The local Chassidic rabbis try to exorcise the dybbuk from Leah so she and her wealthy fiancé can proceed with their marriage.

Of course, that's not exactly how Fischer will unfold the story at Traveling Jewish Theatre. But close.

"Bruce Myers creates a frame that's not part of the original," says Fischer. "A modern-day man and woman are celebrating Shabbat at home, and for various reasons, they tell the story of the dybbuk to each other, getting drawn into it. In a way it's radical, in another it's extremely faithful to the original."

The two actors take on multiple roles, finding what they need to change characters "on a hat rack," says Fischer. "The tablecloth becomes the rabbi's robes. An assortment of hats and shawls convey the various characters. It's theatrically delightful: the man plays the grandmother, while the woman plays the young yeshiva student."

Fischer's obvious affection for "The Dybbuk" goes back decades. In the mid-1970s, he co-starred in Joseph Chaikin's still-celebrated New York production, one that also featured Bruce Myers in the cast.

"Bruce went on the Paris, where he started working on his two-actor version of the play," says Fischer. "He worked on it between 1979 and 1983. In 1989, we did our first staging of Bruce's 'Dybbuk.'" (Fischer also points out that Myers was the man who actually coined the name Traveling Jewish Theatre).

So why another "Dybbuk"? For Fischer, the answer is simple. "The same things bring the world back to it. It's a ghost story, so it shares all those wonderful forms with world literature and world storytelling. But it's also a love story about a love that transcends death."




"The Dybbuk" opens 7 p.m. Sunday, April 25, then runs through May 23, at Traveling Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida St., San Francisco; at Julia Morgan Theatre May 27-30, 2640 College Ave., Berkeley. Tickets $18-$30. Information: (415) 285-8080, or online at www.atjt.com.