Yiddish Queen Lear

Synopsis: Stage video recording of Julia Pascal’s re-working of King Lear. Set in New York in the late 1930s, a once-famous Yiddish actress gives her theatre business over to her three daughters. In the first narrative scene actor-manager Esther Laranovska auditions young theatrical hopefuls by getting them to recite from Hamlet in Yiddish. The play moves on to examine the moment when Jewish East European and American cultures mix on the eve of the Holocaust.
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Medium: Video
Technical information: Colour / Sound
Notes: Performance script held at the Julie Pascal Archive, Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of York.
Subjects: Drama
Keywords: Jewish Americans; Jews; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); Auditions; Gender reversal

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British Universities Film & Video Council