After a very disappointing (and tense and scary and demoralizing) spring, I'm thrilled to tell you that my new play, Shtumer Shabes*, is being featured as a 'work in progress' at the upcoming Chutzpah! Festival in Vancouver, Canada. Because everything is virtual right now, that means almost anyone, anywhere in the world, can attend the festival, time zones permitting.
What is Shtumer Shabes about? Well... imagine it...
Tekufes teyves (wintertime), around the shortest day of the year, in a certain town in Poland. The widows in the town gathered for a peculiar minheg, at which the spirits of their dead husbands were invited to give a blessing for their wives. The occasion was a shabes meal held in silence, something they called the shtumer shabes (silent sabbath)...
Is it folklore, fakelore, or the basis for a Dybbuk wannabe which caused a riot on opening night in 1938?
Tune in on Sunday, November 22 and find out!
*Shtumer Shabes was incubated at LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Art and Culture at the 14th Street Y
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