This article appeared in the Feb. 19, 2004 Jewish Advocate.

MIT production pays tribute to 1946 Yiddish theatre troupe

By Susie Davidson

Advocate Correspondent

While MIT Associate Provost for the Arts Alan Brody was studying Yiddish several summers ago in Philadelphia, he met the late Yiddish actress Rita Karpinowicz after having seen an article she had written about her stage career in the Amherst Yiddish Center’s newsletter. Karpinowicz, known in the US as Rita Karin, was part of a young Jewish acting company formed in 1946 Poland to revive Yiddish theatre for Holocaust survivors living in camps and relocation centers. Brody’s tribute play to Karpinowicz, The Company of Angels, was staged over the past two weekends at MIT’s Kresge Little Theater, in the 50^th year of the MIT student group Dramashop.

Karpinowicz emigrated to the US with her husband in 1948. She appeared in Broadway plays and films including "Sophie's Choice," "Enemies, A Love Story," and "The Pickle," and was involved with the Amherst Yiddish Center until her death in 1993. Her voice can be heard in the D.C. Holocaust Museum singing children's songs from the camps.

Directed by MIT Head of Theater Arts Michael Ouellette, the play portrays the rebirth of post-WWII Yiddish theater in Poland and Germany. “I hoped to show that what she and her fellow artists had done was to honor those who perished by reaffirming the human spirit with an unthinkable act of embodied imagination,” said Brody. In the production, company members, over a three-year period, attempt to resurrect a theatrical heritage nearly destroyed by the Nazis; by the play’s end, as they solidify their personal involvement in a reborn artistic era, they face new challenges of the Iron Curtain.

“I remember feeling paralyzed by the responsibility of dramatizing the story,” recalled Brody, who wound up nearly letting the play write itself and sending the draft to Karpinowicz, who saw the play's first reading and production. “I tried to tell her that she and her fellow artists had honored those who perished by reaffirming the human spirit. They sang, danced, acted and beat the devil. They celebrated hope in the midst of despair, life in the aftermath of destruction. They gave an entire civilization its language back. They gave the theatre, itself, a renewed meaning.”

As a Professor of Theater, Brody, an award-winning playwright, teaches classes in Playwriting and in the History of Theater, and directs Playwrights-in-Performance student plays each spring. His play Invention for Fathers And Sons, which won the first annual Rosenthal Award at the Cincinnati Playhouse in 1989, was later produced at the American Jewish Theater in New York. The Company of Angels received the 1990 Eisner Award from the Streisand Center for Jewish Culture in Los Angeles, had its world premiere at the New Repertory Theater in Massachusetts in spring, 1993, and was also produced at the T. Schreiber Studio in New York and Theater Emory in Atlanta. Brody has also authored two novels, 1973’s Coming To and 1975’s Hey Lenny, Hey Jack.

A Brooklyn native, Brody’s family moved to the Philadelphia area, where he was bar mitzvahed in Upper Darby. His grandparents were Russian and Polish immigrants; his father, an observant Conservative, died when Brody was 15. Since then, he has maintained a Jewish cultural identity. He explained that the creation of Israel is a pivotal point in The Company of Angels. “I hope the play is a reminder of what it means for any people to be homeless and stateless,” he said, noting his desire for viewers to understand the importance of home to Palestinians, who he believes have been driven to despair by historical circumstance. “I hope it can help inspire a way to help another stateless, homeless people find their rightful place in the world,” he said.

Ouellette and his son played the Boy and the Man at the New Rep in 1991. Mike Katz, Yiddish consultant at that reading, continues in this role for this production; his son Ben plays the Boy. Ouellette, trained in Classics at Brown University, completed graduate studies in Comparative Literature at Harvard University and earned a master’s in fine arts from Southern Methodist University's Professional Theater Training Program. Prior to his MIT post, he was Artistic Director at Chicago’s Bailiwick Repertory, taught at Skidmore College, and acted in various productions, receiving the 1996 Gyorgy Kepes Fellowship Prize from MIT's Council for the Arts.

“The Holocaust is so overwhelming that it threatens to usurp all the attention in this play,” he explained. “Over the course of the play we watch the young theatre artists’ deepening awareness of their mission, which is not only to give back to the Jews the theatrical heritage the Nazis tried to wipe out, but to participate in creating a new life for them. And we see the company mature as people through that awareness and through their interactions with each other.” He cites Rochel Kremer’s and other members’ personal growth during the production. “Each member of the company - Duna, Leib, Mordecai, Esther - develops as a result of the experience. That's the story this production tries to tell.”

For information, please contact publicity manager Virginia Corless at 857-928-2565, or email ds_officers@mit.edu.