Left to right: Shane Baker, Sasha Lurje and Michael Wex in The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh (Di Letste Nakht Baym Yitesh), which closes this year’s Chutzpah! Festival Nov. 9-10. (photo by Shendl Copitman)
“The final sketch in the show, ‘The Last Jew in Poland,’ is based on a real 1930s cabaret sketch of the same name that got Ararat, the famous Yiddish cabaret, closed down,” said creator Michael Wex of The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh (Di Letste Nakht Baym Yitesh), which plays at the Rothstein Theatre Nov. 9-10 as part of the Chutzpah! Festival.
“The sketch, however, hasn’t survived,” he continued. “Shimon Dzigan (of Dzigan and Shumacher), who was a member of the troupe, describes the general set-up of the piece in his autobiography, but doesn’t give many details, except to say that everybody involved expected to be arrested the next day (and was surprised not to be). I’ve tried to reconstruct something that would have bothered the censors of the 1930s as much as the original.
“‘Di Endekuvne,’ one of the genuine old songs in the show, was actually banned following its first performance,” he said.
The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh is set in Poland in the spring of 1938. With only one performance left before the censor’s office closes the cabaret, and with their visas secured to leave the country, the performers decide to put on a show of forbidden material and greatest hits.
The idea for The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh came from Andreas Schmitges of Germany’s Yiddish Summer Weimar, who called Wex with a request.
“Since 2019 was the 100th anniversary of the Weimar Republic, Yiddish Summer was planning a commemorative program and Andreas wanted to know if I could put together a Yiddish-language cabaret revue that would reflect the way Yiddish culture absorbed and was influenced by the zeitgeist of the Weimar era,” said Wex.
Michael Wex (photo by Zoe Gemelli)
Wex, who is Canadian, is an internationally recognized expert on Yiddish. He has many nonfiction books to his name, including Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods, on the history of Yiddish, and Rhapsody in Schmaltz: Yiddish Food and Why We Can’t Stop Eating It. He’s also a translator, novelist, playwright, columnist, public speaker and performer. His creative process involves much research. For Schmitges’ proposed project, Wex first sought out surviving Yiddish cabaret material.
“I dove into scores of books, listened to even more recordings, in search of authentic material that would still resonate with a 21st-century audience,” he said. “Much of the older material just didn’t ‘read’ anymore: there were a lot of jokes about local politics and references to long-forgotten celebrities. There was fairly strong political censorship in interwar Poland, especially in the years following the Nazi takeover of Germany, which means that much of the surviving satirical material is pretty bland. I deliberately sought out lesser-known Yiddish cabaret songs, including at least one that was never recorded.
“My next resort was to see what was going on in non-Yiddish Polish culture at the time. I went through newspapers from the period to try to figure out how much international pop culture was available in 1920s and ’30s Poland and was delighted to find that Hollywood movies that would have played in Vancouver in, say, 1934, were playing in Warsaw at pretty much the same time, and that Louis Armstrong records were on sale in Warsaw record stores. I looked at the pop music charts: the most popular song in Poland in 1928 was ‘Ain’t She Sweet’ translated into Polish. This information widened the range of material that could plausibly be presented as being performed at the time and gave me the licence I needed to adapt and translate some well-known pop songs of the era into Yiddish.”
Patrick Farrell in The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh (Di Letste Nakht Baym Yitesh), which is at the Rothstein Theatre Nov. 9-10. (photo by Shendl Copitman)
Wex wrote some songs and sketches to round out the show, then came up with the storyline that adds context: the performers whose cabaret is about to be closed, but who have ship tickets and visas to leave the country.
“Suddenly, they’re free to perform what they want to, not only what they’re allowed to,” said Wex, who also directs and acts in The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh.
The other people involved – Shane Baker (United States; co-director, performer), Patrick Farrell (US/Germany; original music, arrangements, piano, accordion, percussion), Regina Hopfgartner (Austria; vocals), Daniel Kahn (US/Germany; vocals) and Sasha Lurje (Latvia/Germany; vocals) – “are the people for whom the show was written,” Wex said. “It’s like an A-list of contemporary Yiddish performers and I recall telling Andreas that I wouldn’t do the show without them. It was my one diva moment – but I think it worked.”
The current incarnation of the show premièred at the Ashkenaz Festival in Toronto in 2022. It had changed so much from the 2019 Yiddish Summer Weimar production that, Wex said, “Weimar could almost be seen as a workshop.”
For Wex, giving audiences an idea of what 1938 Poland was like is important “because the whole world is looking more like 1938 Poland with every passing day.”
“Arts and culture,” he said, “including but not limited to comedy and music, is really the best way we have of trying to find a common ground from which to understand conflict, stand up to tragedy and, ultimately, seek out ways to mitigate or ameliorate the feelings and attitudes from which such conflicts and their accompanying tragedies have grown. As we see every day, shouting slogans might make us feel good and brave and involved but it does nothing to establish the common ground necessary to arrive at any kind of understanding with our opponents. Arts and culture, comedy and music – they’re all bulwarks against dehumanization.”
The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh is in Yiddish with English supertitles. For tickets, go to chutzpahfestival.com – where you’ll find the whole Chutzpah! lineup – or call 604-257-5145. The festival runs Nov. 1-10.
The special Chutzpah! Festival edition of The Debators will be moderated by Kate Davis. (photo from Chutzpah!)
This year’s Chutzpah! Festival opens with a bold question: “The Ten Commandments. Holy Moses, is it time for some new ones?” And the audience at the Rothstein Theatre Nov. 2 will be the ones to decide which comedian answers the question best at the special festival edition of The Debaters.
“As holder of stage rights for The Debaters comedy format, I have been presenting non-CBC stage productions for awhile, all with radio host Steve Patterson as moderator. These have been very successful, but I’ve also been keen to produce stage versions for specific audiences in different communities,” show creator Richard Side told the Independent. “This Chutzpah! Festival is the perfect opportunity to do that with a cast of comedians and a debate topic that will really connect with the audience and with [artistic managing director] Jessica Gutteridge’s vision for the fest.”
Debating the topic at the Rothstein Theatre will be comedians Jacob Samuel and Charlie Demers, and comedian Kate Davis will act as moderator. But the event won’t just be about making jokes.
Charlie Demers (photo from Chutzpah!)
Demers, a Debaters regular, shared “his bona fides for this event” with Side: “I was team captain of the Canadian delegation to the World Schools Debating Championships in Jerusalem in 1998; you can also say that I am a novice Anglican Third Order Franciscan.”
“The 3rd order Franciscan movement,” explained Side, “is a group that includes religious and lay people who try to emulate the life of St. Francis of Assisi…. As for how it relates to the topic of the Ten Commandments – [Demers] is arguing that the 10 commandments do not need revising so, along with the jokes, I am sure he will have some heartfelt points as well. And that is why I thought him ideal for a comedy debate that was not going to just ‘roast’ the commandments but also might have some insight in it, too. Facts and funny is what The Debaters is all about, laughs – and logic.”
Samuel, who is Jewish, is on the other side of the argument. First appearing on the CBC radio show about six years ago, he told the Independent: “Preparing for The Debaters is always a combination of excitement, stress and wracking my brains on how to squeeze jokes out of a given topic. I do a lot of brainstorming, writing and rewriting, and pacing around going over my arguments out loud. For the Chutzpah! show I’ll be preparing as I always do. However, I am doing maybe a bit more research than I would normally do to try to be as accurate as possible when it comes to the Torah and Jewish beliefs. I think it’s fair to say that this audience may be a bit more knowledgeable about Judaism than the average crowd.”
Jacob Samuel (photo from Chutzpah!)
Jewish Independent readers will be quite familiar with Samuel, whose one-panel cartoons the paper has published and whose comedy career the paper has followed.
“I think the last time I was in the Jewish Independent,” he said, “it was to promote the recording of my debut comedy album in late 2019 (what a time that was!). Well, it turns out, I won a Juno Award for that very album in 2021. I also got married and now have a mini Bernedoodle named Mendl who, to me, is also Jewish (he’s loud, anxious and has a very sensitive stomach).”
Samuel has learned a lot since his first time on The Debaters, which was at the 2017 Winnipeg Comedy Festival. “The debate was about emojis,” he said. “I thought it would be really subversive and clever if I held up giant emoji printouts for my closing argument – not the greatest idea for an audio-only show but, hey, it was my first time on radio. Luckily, they had me back and enough times that I often lose count.”
Davis, a member of the Toronto Jewish community, is also a Debaters veteran.
“My first Debaters,” she said, “was in 2007 in London, Ont. – ‘Should dads be in the delivery room?’ Of course, I was for this, as dads are the ones who got us into this mess in the first place.”
For Davis, being a mom is not just part of her private life, she incorporates it into her writing and gives parenting workshops, too, as well as talks on various related, and unrelated, topics.
“I love performing comedy and my speaking is my comedy and everything I believe in,” she said. “Over the years, I have created four different keynotes on work/life balance, connectivity, mindfulness and mental resilience, all of which I hope contribute to a healthier, happier life. Whether I am writing my comedy, books, scripts or a keynote, I find being multifaceted is like going to the gym – you don’t just work out your arms. Each one contributes to each other. I might write an article and think that’s a great joke and try that in my standup.”
Davis said she is “super-excited to be moderator for The Debaters – Chutzpah! Edition” that stars Demers and Samuel.
“I know what great comics they are and, honestly, I think moderating is being a great listener and keeping things going. But, let’s be honest,” she said. “I am pretty excited for the puns!!! Also, to prepare, I will be eating as many matzo balls as I can.”
For tickets to the The Debaters – Chutzpah! Edition (which is not a CBC-affiliated production and won’t be recorded for broadcast), visit chutzpahfestival.com. A portion of ticket sales will benefit the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver’s inclusion programs.
Where Do Stories Come From? (fun vanen nemen zikh di mayses) on Nov. 9 highlights a poem from each of three Yiddish women writers: Ida Maze, Esther Shumiatcher-Hirschbein and Yudika. (Illustration by Cesario Lavery)
This year’s Chutzpah! Festival includes several opportunities for people to participate in the arts being performed. A prime example is Where Do Stories Come From? (fun vanen nemen zikh di mayses), wherein attendees of the Nov. 9 event at the Rothstein Theatre will be able to learn new music inspired by Yiddish poetry and, in the Zack Gallery, on Nov. 7 and/or Nov. 12, participate in a “crankie” workshop.
Where Do Stories Come From?, which is presented by the Chutzpah! Festival and KlezKanada – co-curated by the organizations’ respective artistic directors, Jessica Mann Gutteridge and Avia Moore – includes “new musical and visual settings for three Yiddish poems by celebrated Canadian women writers, selected and translated by Faith Jones, with accompanying visual artwork in the form of ‘crankies’ – a centuries-old art form in which an illustrated scroll, evocative of the Torah, is wound across spools set in a viewing window.”
The artistic directors decided early on to work with the poetry of Canadian women writers who wrote in Yiddish, said Gutteridge, “and there was no more perfect collaborator to work with on selecting the poetry than Vancouver’s own Faith Jones. For the musical work, we drew on the incredibly rich community of KlezKanada’s artists and were lucky that Sarah Larsson was interested in the project – she’s not only a gifted composer with a thorough knowledge of Yiddish music, but is herself a stunning vocalist and music director.
“We also spent a lot of time looking at incredible artworks by Jewish visual artists and ultimately selected Benny Ferdman, Ava Berkson and Cesario Lavery, all of whom bring an interest in Yiddish, diverse styles, and interest in visual storytelling to the project. As part of the project involves community participation, we also ensured that all the artists are skilled at and enjoy working with community of all abilities and ages.”
The idea for the event came after Gutteridge met Moore at a KlezKanada Summer Retreat in 2022.
“When the JCC Association announced they would be funding new community-based projects incorporating live music and storytelling with an emphasis on partnerships,” said Gutteridge, “we realized we had a wonderful opportunity to work together to share our assets – KlezKanada’s immersive creative residency environment and access to brilliant artists with knowledge of Yiddish culture, and the Chutzpah! Festival’s presentation opportunities.
“KlezKanada’s 2023 Summer Retreat theme was Yiddish film and, because it’s a very unplugged environment, had plans to explore the ‘pre-film’ illustrated story technique of crankies,” she continued. “We thought this art form would pair beautifully with the musical work being created, and would offer a very engaging opportunity to the community to participate in creating a multidimensional presentation together.”
Where Do Stories Come From? is supported by the JCC Association’s Making Music Happen program and Chutzpah! Festival’s music programming is supported by AmplifyBC’s Live Music Presentation Fund.
The event’s title comes from one of the three poems highlighted, one by Ida Maze. “It’s a poem that grabbed the entire group immediately and we knew we wanted to work with it,” said Gutteridge. “In the poem, Maze creates a strong visual image of a little house that appears to be abandoned, but as you approach you see that a fire is lit and, in the house, sit a grandfather and a grandmother sharing culture and stories with the children, and the stories are then carried away on the wind. For us, this poem really captured the idea of the project – that intergenerational cultural transmission is the key to how we survive and thrive and, in many ways, is a model for how we hope to see this project unfold. But I think the very notion that we pose this as a question invites everyone who experiences the work to ask themselves where they think stories come from.”
The other poems are by Esther Shumiatcher-Hirschbein and Yudika.
“Faith made a longer list of poems selected for their striking visual imagery and potential musicality and presented them to our full group of artists,” explained Gutteridge. “Right away, we all responded to the Ida Maze work and had to then narrow our choices to two more. We asked the artists to highlight which poems they found particularly inspiring and, as artistic directors, Avia and I also kept an eye on whether the selections were creating an interesting and balanced program in terms of style and theme. It was an enjoyable and smooth process and I think we all enjoyed kicking off the project together in this way.”
As for the workshops, Gutteridge said, “Ava and Cesario will be with us through the week to guide workshop participants through the process of making their own crankies, inspired by prompts from the poetry we will provide. While the crankies being made for the music event will be large scale, a wonderful characteristic of this art form is that it can be made any size using very humble materials like a shoebox or even a matchbox. With our partner the Zack Gallery, the work created in the workshops will be on display in a community exhibition, and our video director Flick Harrison will be on hand to help participants capture their crankies in action. Participants can opt to share their crankies and stories in an online video gallery. We hope we will see intergenerational groups making crankies together!”
During the week, Chutzpah! will also be hosting the return of the Flame, with their evening of storytelling on Nov. 6.
“The Flame’s artistic director, Deb Williams, will teach her remarkable day-long storytelling workshop on Sunday, Nov. 12, ending just before our final crankie workshop and the concert presentation,” said Gutteridge. “We hope that these projects together will inspire community participants to explore their own stories and find new and inspiring ways to tell and share them.”
For tickets to Where Do Stories Come From? and other Chutzpah! events, visit chutzpahfestival.com.
“I think the performance is a really fun way to learn a little bit about Deaf culture,” Caroline Hébert, the lead actor and inspiration for When the Walls Come Down, told the Independent. “I hope people can make the time to try something different and I look forward to meeting some new people at the Chutzpah! Festival.”
When the Walls Come Down (WTWCD) will see three performances at the Rothstein Theatre next month, as part of the festival. A collaboration from Vancouver’s Dance//Novella, led by Racheal Prince and Brandon Lee Alley, the work highlights moments in Hébert’s life, “shed[ding] light on stereotypes and difficulties faced by many Deaf Canadians and tell[ing] a story of resilience and love,” according to the press material. It is performed with movement, music, projections and lighting, and in ASL with English voiceovers.
“Racheal and Brandon and the WTWCD team have been learning ASL,” said Hébert. “It’s really inspiring to me to see a group of people who want to create an environment where we can share ideas and our culture. I want to participate in more collaborations as I continue my journey as a Deaf actor. This is my first time stepping into a leading role for a one-hour show. I think, at first, I wasn’t really sure if this is something I could do. Over time, I realized that I can do it, and I can connect to many different people through my art form.”
The creation of WTWCD began in 2020, said Prince and Alley, when “our curiosity led us to explore the fusion of ASL and dance, with a strong desire to collaborate with a Deaf actor and blend their creative ideas with ours. Caroline was recommended to us by Chis Dodd, director of SOUND OFF. What intrigued us further was her last name, Hébert, which happened to be the maiden name of Racheal’s grandmother. This unexpected connection felt like a sign. After a video-translated conversation with Caroline, we realized that she possessed a compelling story that needed to be shared, so we quickly chose her as the central character for the work.”
As for her decision to be that central character, Hébert said, “I was interested in trying something new and I thought why not!? I did dance a little when I was a child so maybe that was also part of the reason?”
WTWCD debuted as a live-streamed performance during the 2021 Vancouver International Dance Festival (VIDF), which made it “challenging for us to establish a direct connection with the audience and gauge their reception of the work,” said Prince and Alley. “However, we knew this work had the potential of uplifting and illuminating a traditionally marginalized community, so we kept refining and building upon our initial ideas.”
In 2022, they received an invitation to perform WTWCD in Edmonton at the SOUND OFF festival, the first time the piece was presented in a live setting. “To our astonishment, the audience responded with thunderous stomps and a standing ovation. It was truly incredible to witness the profound connection the work had with the Deaf community,” they said.
In addition to that positive reaction, the pair won the 2023 VIDF Emerging Choreographic Award. “To us,” they said, “this award emphasized the collaborative and harmonious aspect of the work’s creation, transcending our roles as individual choreographers.”
Both creatives multitasked to make WTWCD. Prince and Alley choreographed the work; they played a part in the storyline creation and development with Hébert and her daughter, Anna-Belle Hébert, all four of whom perform the piece; Alley composed the music and Prince did the costume and set design. Other key contributors are lighting designer James Proudfoot, assistant lighting designer Chengyan Boon, and mentors and coaches Chris Dodd and Landon Krentz.
“Being a contemporary dance company, one of our goals was to find innovative ways to convey the music to a Deaf audience,” said Prince and Alley. And it was Alley who “came up with the idea of using a playful animation to advance the storyline and evoke the emotional essence of the music.
“To realize this vision, we collaborated with the Vancouver Film School,” they said. “We pitched our ideas to them, leading to the organization of a competition involving five different groups. Each group listened to our concepts and then presented us with small animations. After careful consideration, we selected the group that we believed best captured the essence of the work and the nuances of the music. They went on to create the animations that will be showcased during the performance.”
Listed on Dance//Novella’s website are producer Jill Tao, designer/animators Kanako Takashima and Cecilia Cortes, animation lead Arturo Acevedo and storyboard artist/designer Heena Yoon.
An integral part of this project has been Anna-Belle Hébert.
“She is a CODA (child of Deaf adult), fluent in ASL, QSL, English and French,” explained her mother. “Anna-Belle understands who I am and the story I want to share because it’s partly her story too. In the beginning, I recommended that Racheal and Brandon reach out to Anna-Belle to see if she would like to join the process, which they enthusiastically agreed to. In the performance, she is my voice over actor, but has also been a huge part of the creative process. She really helps bridge the gap between our ideas and how they can connect to hearing and Deaf people at the same time.”
Both Prince and Alley talk about how much they have learned while creating WTWCD. “One significant revelation for us,” they said, “was the realization that ASL and English are two distinct languages. Initially, we attempted to transcribe everything in an effort to ensure clarity, but this approach only seemed to confuse Caroline further. With the guidance of a specialized ASL coach, Caroline developed a unique method for documenting the script on paper. This breakthrough allowed her to memorize and retain everything effortlessly while making it her own.”
Prince and Alley had nothing but good things to say about Hébert.
“Caroline is an incredibly generous and patient collaborator,” they said. “During our rehearsals, we frequently paused our creative process to listen to stories from Caroline’s life. Each story offered us a glimpse into the experiences of a Deaf child, mother and student, which ultimately became the core of our creative journey. The exchange of knowledge and personal narratives became the driving force behind our work, giving it profound meaning for our team.”
When the Walls Come Down is at the Rothstein Theatre Nov. 8 and 10, at 8 p.m., and there is a special matinée for school groups grades 6 and up on Nov. 9, 11 a.m. (contact [email protected] for more information about that). The show runs 60 minutes with no intermission. For tickets, visit chutzpahfestival.com.
Merewyn Comeau and Raes Calvert in Th’owxiya: The Hungry Feast Dish, which is on the Chutzpah! stage Nov. 18-19. (photo by Javier Sotres)
For the first time, the Chutzpah! Festival, which was launched in 2001, is presenting programming specifically targeted to young people, families and educators. Dan and Claudia Zanes will be live in concert Nov. 13-14 and Joseph A. Dandurand’s Th’owxiya: The Hungry Feast Dish will be presented by Axis Theatre Nov. 18-19. Both events take place at the Rothstein Theatre.
“One of my first strategic goals when I joined Chutzpah! was to launch a programming stream for young people and families,” said Jessica Gutteridge, managing artistic director of the festival since 2020. “I have a background in theatre for young audiences, and this is an area of performing arts that I find very rich and interesting…. I think the best way to keep the performing arts vibrant into the future is to share exciting and stimulating arts experiences with young people so that they can grow into the audiences of tomorrow. And finding ways of sharing these experiences across generations makes for wonderful bonding between kids and their parents, grandparents, caregivers and mentors, but also gives the adults in the audience a memorable and enjoyable experience. I’m also a passionate proponent of arts education, so finding opportunities for teachers to bring performing arts into their teaching is meaningful to me.”
Dan and Claudia Zanes will be live in concert Nov. 13-14. (photo by Xavier Plater)
Dan Zanes is a Grammy award-winning children’s performer and Claudia Zanes is a music therapist/jazz vocalist. The couple has been “making music with each other since the day they met in the fall of 2016.” Their Nov. 14 performance is for schools and the Nov. 13 show is open for all.
“Dan Zanes, to put it bluntly, was a key reason I survived the music playing in my children’s rooms when I had young kids,” said Gutteridge about her choice of performers for this program. “I think he’s just a spectacular musician and storyteller that all ages can enjoy, and his partnership with Claudia Zanes makes even more gorgeous and meaningful music. I appreciate that Dan and Claudia are committed to making their performances sensory-friendly and accessible, and in sharing messages of love, solidarity and social justice, that are timely and important.”
As with the concert, the Nov. 18 production of Th’owxiya is for schools and the Nov. 19 show welcomes everyone, with the caveat that the ogress might be scary to some young children. The play, recommended for ages 5 and up, recounts a Kwantlen First Nations tale, “the legend of the basket ogress, Th’owxiya, an old hungry spirit that inhabits a feast dish full of bountiful delicious foods, and sly Mouse (Kw’at’el), who is caught stealing cheese from this feast dish. To appease an angry Th’owxiya, Kw’at’el embarks on a journey to find two children for the ogress to eat, or else!” The work features “traditional Coast Salish and Sto:lo music, masks and imagery” and audiences will learn “how Raven (Sqeweqs), Bear (Spa:th) and Sasquatch (Sasq’ets) trick a hungry spirit and save Kw’at’el and their family from becoming the feast.”
Both the concert and the play run about an hour, and all performances take place at 11 a.m.
While the concert and play are two programs specifically aimed at young audiences, Gutteridge said many of the Chutzpah! performances “are appropriate for general audiences, and we hope that youth and teens in particular will join us for some of them. For example, Persian Jewish Cooking with Ayelet Latovich, Music at the Centre of the River, and the Joan Beckow Legacy Project – which will feature youth performers from Perry Ehrlich’s Showstoppers – are all programs that all ages can enjoy together. Programs like Jacqueline Saper’s presentation of her memoir of growing up Jewish in Tehran and the Site: Yizkor project may offer teens engaging ways of learning and contextualizing current events and history.”
In a similar vein, Gutteridge added, “Adults should feel just as welcome as kids to come and enjoy these shows – truly these are experiences that are relevant and enjoyable for all ages. If any families who would wish to join us for these events feel that their financial situation does not permit them to attend, please contact our box office. We have an allocation of tickets set aside so that cost is not a barrier to sharing these experiences with young people.”
Gili Yalo performs in Vancouver on Sept. 24 for a Chutzpah! Plus event. (photo from Chutzpah!)
Israeli singer-songwriter Gili Yalo returns to Vancouver for a Chutzpah! Plus concert on Sept. 24. It’s his first time back in the city since 2015, when he was part of the band Zvuloon Dub System. Yalo said he can’t wait – “the last time at the Chutzpah! Festival was wonderful!” he told the Independent.
In 2015, Zvuloon Dub was touring the United States and other countries. “Part of the tour was the Chutzpah! Festival,” said Yalo, “and we finished the tour in Montego Bay, Jamaica, performing in the legendary festival SumFest. After being part of Zvuloon Dub for seven years, I felt that it was the right time and the right spot to start something new. I came back to Tel Aviv and started working on new songs for my solo career.”
Yalo’s eponymous first solo album, released in 2017, was very well-received and he followed it up in 2019 with the EP Made in Amharica, on which he collaborated with Dallas-based musicians in Niles City Sound, a studio in Fort Worth. He has released several singles and has played on stages and in festivals around the world.
But, even though he has been a singer his whole life and performing almost as long – including in children’s choirs and during his time in the Israel Defence Forces – Yalo resisted making music a career. Among his alternate endeavours was being a club owner.
“I opened the club for Israeli Ethiopian people, who didn’t feel safe to stand in line at Israeli clubs; back then we got a lot of refusal just because of the colour of our skin,” he explained. “At the club, there were two floors, one of R&B and reggae/dancehall music, the other one was Ethiopian music. It really affected me because I have heard and learned lots of Ethiopian music.
“After several years of running the club, I felt that I needed to do something different in my life … and I told myself, you don’t want to regret not trying to achieve your biggest dream, and I decided that I had to try and overcome my fears. It was natural for me to make a fusion of Ethiopian music and Western music such as jazz, funk, R&B and reggae, because that was my life between home and the outside.”
Born in Ethiopia, Yalo was 4 or 5 years old when he and his family fled to escape famine in 1984. Traveling by foot, it took them about two months to walk from the Gondar region, in northern Ethiopia, to refugee camps in Sudan, where they stayed for several months, until being airlifted to Israel as part of Operation Moses.
“Lots of the songs that I’m writing are talking about identity, journey and integration into society, so I think all of it came from the experience of making aliyah and the difficulty in the process,” Yalo told the Independent.
There are many things that Yalo would still like to accomplish, but, right now, he said, “I especially want to share music.” He wants to write good songs, collaborate “with musicians that I appreciate, and take my music to a place that it can inspire lots of people.”
Playing in Vancouver with Yalo will be Nadav Peled (guitar), Dor Heled (keys), Billy Aukstik (trumpet), Eran Fink (drums) and Geoffrey Muller (bass).
About coming to the city, Yalo said, “I want to say that Vancouver is one of the best places in the world. I’ve seen so many places thanks to music and, if it wasn’t so far away from my family, I would definitely consider living there.”
For tickets to the Sept. 24, 8 p.m., concert at the Rothstein Theatre, visit chutzpahfestival.com.
Ben Caplan opens this year’s Chutzpah! Festival Nov. 21. (photo from Chutzpah!)
In the last issue of the Jewish Independent, Chutzpah! Festival artistic managing director Jessica Mann Gutteridge, festival host and stand-up performer Iris Bahr and event comedy closers Jess Salomon and Eman El-Husseini, aka the El-Salomons, were featured. This week, the JI offers a glimpse into the rest of the lineup, by order of appearance.
Musician Ben Caplan opens the festival on Nov. 21 with a recorded performance. Before the recent COVID restrictions, the show was to be presented live from the Rothstein Theatre.
Caplan was on stage here back in January, bringing Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story – which is based on the true story of two Jewish Romanian refugees coming to Canada in 1908 – to the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (jewishindependent.ca/searching-for-a-safe-harbour). This show, Caplan will be performing songs from his album Old Stock, which is adapted from this music-theatre work.
“The story of Chaim and Chaya, and, by extension, that of a great number of immigrants and refugees who have come to Canada, is full of a great many hardships and tribulations,” said Caplan when asked what lessons from their experience might be relevant in COVID times. “Their story is not free from conflict, both with the outer world, with each other and with themselves. What we see in their story is that, through perseverance, they are able to cross the narrow bridge of their precarity into a sweeter time. It is a nice reminder that no matter how dark things get, there are always brighter moments ahead.”
* * *
Last Chutzpah! Festival, former Vancouverite Tamara Micner performed her one-woman show Holocaust Brunch here. On Nov. 22, she’s offering a first peek at a new work-in-progress from her current hometown, London, England.
Tamara Micner in Old Friends. (photo by Sam Micner)
“Old Friends is very much in the early days – I would say it’s in kindergarten,” admitted Micner. “I’ve been working on it this year and the Chutzpah! Festival streaming will be the first time I perform some of the piece with a public audience. I don’t know exactly what the performance will look like or exactly what will be in it. It’s ‘nervciting’! I look forward to sharing some of the work with Chutzpah! audiences and doing a Q&A afterwards to speak more about the show. I’m hoping and aiming to present the full show in 2021.”
A key inspiration for Old Friends is the music of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, and their relationship.
“I find Simon and Garfunkel’s music comforting and uplifting…. The combination of Paul’s songwriting, Art’s voice and their harmonies are beautiful,” said Micner. “I also find the themes in their music resonant at this time – including loneliness, isolation, hope and a yearning for connection…. I’m also intrigued by the on-again, off-again nature of their relationship and the Jewishness in that – how we have a tendency to cling to each other, leave each other, not talk for years, but not be able to fully stay apart or let go. There’s a lot to mine in that, I think – where that comes from, what it’s about and how we can free ourselves from that cycle.”
* * *
Also on Nov. 22, New York-based playwright Rokhl Kafrissen shares her new work-in-progress.
Rokhl Kafrissen’s Shtumer Shabes stars a drag performer as the Yiddish Theatre diva. (photo from Chutzpah!)
“Shtumer Shabes [Silent Shabbat] opens in the year 2000,” said Kafrissen. “A performance studies grad student named Jess is writing about the heyday of Yiddish theatre in Poland in the 1930s. Jess is studying what she calls the ‘hybrid potentialities of interwar Yiddish performance practices.’ How did Jews use their art to embody binaries like Yiddish and Polish, Jew and Catholic, urban and rural, capitalist and socialist? She argues that The Dybbuk is the ultimate expression of that hybridity.
“As the play opens, Jess stumbles into the chance to interview an honest-to-goodness Warsaw Yiddish diva. It turns out that Sonja, a 90-something veteran of the Polish-Yiddish stage, is living in her neighbourhood. Jess comes to believe that Sonja possesses a ‘lost’ play script: Shtumer Shabes. Her encounter with Sonja is also her opportunity to write history. But Jess is confronted by the elusiveness of ‘plain facts’ and the cost of writing history. For me, the encounter between Jess and Sonja represents two competing ways of understanding the past, through scholarship and through art.”
Imagining Sonja’s world wasn’t hard for Kafrissen, as she knows well Yiddish theatre, past and present, and the standard Yiddish reference sources. However, she did struggle with her protectiveness of the Yiddish past and her obligation as a journalist “to the people and productions I’ve been reading about, an obligation to tell their stories accurately and respectfully.”
“But, at some point, my inner journalist has to be thanked politely and shown the door,” she said. “If you’re going to write historically informed fiction (which is what I consider this piece), you have to be comfortable going beyond the facts. It gets even trickier because part of Sonja’s backstory … is flashback to the war, when she was imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto. I know enough about the Warsaw Ghetto to invent a plausible scenario. But depicting it feels daunting. The potential for kitsch or melodrama is high. My characters grapple with extremely sensitive issues, including allegations of collaboration with the Germans. It was important to me that if I was going to include such provocative topics, I had to stick closely to historical fact and stay within the realm of the possible. My characters would not be saints or holy martyrs, but real people, caught in the worst possible circumstances.”
Cast as Sonja is Shane Baker, who Kafrissen has known since she worked with him in 2009 on his one-man show The Big Bupkis: A Complete Gentile’s Guide to Yiddish Vaudeville.
“I quickly became a big admirer of Shane’s work,” she said. “He can go from the highest brow, as with his translation of Waiting for Godot into Yiddish, all the way to the lowest brow, as with his vaudeville show…. In the last few years, Shane had been working on a drag character called Miss Mitzi Manna. She was inspired in part by his close friendships with the last generation of Yiddish theatre grandes dames. So, when I got a 14th Street Y LABA Fellowship in 2019, I decided to write a play with a role for Shane in drag as my yearlong fellowship project. I knew from the beginning that the role wasn’t written for Mitzi Manna per se, but Shane’s development of the character was a huge inspiration. Writing the role of Sonja with a drag character in mind opened up a kind of playfulness and experimentation for me. Drag is such a dramatically rich device. It heightens our awareness of the artifice of theatre and interrogates the mimetic nature of theatre itself.”
A staged reading of Shtumer Shabes was supposed to have taken place last in April. “Unfortunately,” said Kafrissen, “that coincided with the world as we knew it collapsing. As I get ready to present excerpts from the play for the Chutzpah! Festival, I can see a tiny sliver of silver lining. Even with the pandemic, I’ve managed to sneak in some actor time in the last couple months, as well as getting thoughtful feedback on the script from folks both within my artistic circle and outside. The script is now so much better than the version I had in the spring, so I tell myself maybe it’s better that I didn’t present that earlier draft to the world.”
The Dybbuk by S. Ansky infuses Shtumer Shabes: Jess is obsessed with The Dybbuk and it’s why she went to grad school; and “Sonja’s career on the Warsaw Yiddish stage was tied up with the phenomenal, real world success of The Dybbuk,” said Kafrissen. “It was with a Dybbuk monologue that she auditioned for Yiddish drama school and the role of Leah (the young woman possessed by the dybbuk) was always her dream.”
This year marks the 100th anniversary both of Ansky’s death in November 1920 and the première of the Yiddish version of the play a month later. “I love the idea of having our Chutzpah! program serve as Sonja’s final tribute to Ansky and his creation,” said Kafrissen.
* * *
Ella Rothschild’s Pigulim unfolds against the backdrop of a meal at a long dining table. (photo by Efrat Mazor)
Death … and life are at the centre of Israeli choreographer Ella Rothschild’s Pigulim, which is described as “a cultural narrative [that] unfolds against the backdrop of a meal at a long dining table where three characters suffer from unbearable loneliness and battle their way between life and death. Each character travels between their individual materialistic being and their consciousness, revealing their essential humanity in relation to existence and the quest for happiness.” A pre-recorded performance of the work will be shown at the Chutzpah! Festival on Nov. 23.
In the summer of 2019, Rothschild was selected as one of the first artists-in-residence at Suzanne Dellal Centre. She started Pigulim there and continued researching it in “other places in the world with different scenarios and different cast members.” This year, back at the centre, the piece premièred in its video version.
Pigul (pigulim, pl.) “describes a law from the Jewish tradition,” explained Rothschild. “It refers to a sacrifice that was prohibited to be eaten because of a forbidden thought that the priest (kohain) had in the moment he was making the sacrifice. It can mean abomination or loathsome, and it’s not a word used in everyday Hebrew. The idea that a thought can change reality has a direct connection to what I tried to present in Pigulim. If the thought one can have determines the reality of another entity, how much from our consciousness is being present in our reality and our society?
“Another aspect of choosing this particular name is another gap that unravels between the sound of the word and its meaning. Pigulim has a nice way of rolling in the mouth. The letters are round and when you pronounce it, it almost sounds like a name of a rare flower – but the meaning of it is the opposite. It contains strong emotions and gravity. Once more, it holds this gap between what we experience and the reality.”
This gap – “a certain detachment between our body and mind” – is something with which we must live, said Rothschild, and its loneliness is not changed by “how many people are surrounding you in the space.”
“As I see it and experience it, it is a state of being, not only of certain individuals but as a mass society,” she said. “I have learnt, through working with others, more about how this gap appears and how we perceive it. We behave inside these structures that are determined for us and, yes, it leaves a gap or an absence that we don’t really understand, or we will forever try to make sense of.”
However, there is more than just absence. “I did find out that we share more than we think,” she said. “We share beauty, laughter, sadness and grief. We cry from the same things and we worry and we fear. But we also love. And that is an overwhelming thing to share.”
* * *
Israeli pianist and composer Guy Mintus – whose solo concert will be live-streamed on Nov. 24 – is about to release his third album with the Guy Mintus Trio: A Gershwin Playground.
Mintus’s study of piano didn’t follow a traditional path. “I didn’t start with classical piano,” he said. “I started on a little keyboard my parents got me, not an acoustic piano even, and I was studying a very mixed repertoire of adapted arrangements for beginning keyboard players. Among that repertoire were the Beatles, Israeli pop songs, Fiddler on the Roof and … two [George] Gershwin tunes: ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’ and ‘Summertime.’ When I started playing those, my father handed me the Porgy and Bess album of Ella [Fitzgerald] and Louis [Armstrong]. That totally blew my mind and I started trying to emulate the arrangements on my keyboard (which had the ability to switch between different sound samples).
Guy Mintus will play songs from his upcoming album, which celebrates George Gershwin’s music. (photo by Ella Barak)
“To me, these songs are timeless – musically and lyrically. They’re very rich and have a strong musical character but yet they remain very open and flexible to let you in and bring yourself into them. The lyrics also mostly speak of things that will always be relevant. It’s not by accident that generations and generations of jazz musicians have been interpreting Gershwin.”
One aspect of the music’s continued importance is that, “unfortunately, we’re constantly reminded by these horrific events that keep happening that racism is still very much around; that the colour of your skin can easily become a disadvantage right off the bat,” said Mintus. “When I’m thinking of Gershwin, I’m also considering his background as a Jewish-American composer coming from a family of immigrants. Of all things he could be fascinated by, he was fascinated by Black American music and ended up writing the first jazz opera bringing this marginalized music to the heart of the consensus. More than that, he wouldn’t allow Porgy and Bess to be premièred at the Met Opera because, at the time, they wouldn’t allow Black performers. He made it mandatory that, if Porgy and Bess is ever performed, main roles have to be performed by Black people. Now, Porgy and Bess has its controversies in regards to race and representation but I believe in the essence of its coming from a place of great respect to the incredible culture its getting inspiration from.
“I think that the Jewish and African-American communities actually share quite a lot in common,” he continued. “There’s certainly a collective trauma we’re each dealing with. To me, Gershwin was standing right in the middle of that – in ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ (which is on the album, as well, in a solo version) you literally have a meeting point between klezmer and the blues. I want to echo that connection, which is still very relevant to me, through my own lens as an Israeli who lived, studied and worked in New York. It’s important to give back, acknowledge and show respect where it’s due. Last July, the trio and I did an online fundraiser concert called Gershwin Global. It was in order to raise funds for the Jazz Foundation, who takes care of elderly musicians and emergency cases. This music comes from people who gave their lives to it – if we benefit from it, we’ve got to find a way to also give back to its source.”
The new album will be launched on Nov. 27 and, given COVID, touring it is not an option. Nonetheless, Mintus said it is worthwhile to put it out anyway. “Life goes on, music goes on and, in my opinion, it’s as relevant, if not more, to release new music in this period,” he said.
With the internet, there are many ways to connect with people all over the world, he added. “This poses a creative challenge how to find interesting, experiential ways to share this music with the world; how to share the story behind the album. Each single has a unique artwork, there are videos, a bunch of online live events that are planned – all of this is going to be available through my Facebook page (facebook.com/guymintusmusic). The fact that I’m not switching countries so often as normal allows me a different kind of focus and attention on how to turn this release process into the most fun, meaningful and creative process it can be.”
* * *
Racheal Prince and Brandon Lee Alley in Hourglass by Idan Cohen. (photo by Theo Bell)
Chutzpah! artist-in-residence this year is choreographer Idan Cohen (Ne. Sans opera and dance). The world première of his Hourglass, which is presented by RBC, will be performed and live-streamed from the Rothstein Theatre on Nov. 25.
“Both the residency and this opportunity to present at Chutzpah! are the best things that could have happened to me during a time when artists are facing difficult challenges,” Cohen told the Independent. “I believe with all my heart in the strength and importance of the arts for a healthy society. It is not a luxury but a necessity, especially within a specific culture. Judaism is not just a common history or a set of beliefs, but a diverse culture that needs to be ever-evolving, reinterpreted and recreated, respecting and learning from our common past while creating a shared future. Having Jessica [Mann Gutteridge] share some of the same core values, and acknowledge the importance of going forward with the festival this year, has been such an empowering force for me and my collaborators during these past few months.”
Hourglass is an exploration of aging set to music by Philip Glass. It is a duet with former Ballet BC company dancer Racheal Prince and returning Ballet BC company dancer Brandon Lee Alley.
“As dance artists,” said Cohen, “our focus is on our most intimate tool and instrument: the human body. When that body is extremely intelligent and qualified, as Racheal’s and Brandon’s bodies are, true magic happens on stage. It’s like an ancient fairytale told to you as a child: it represents both the past and the future, it’s exciting and haunting, and it teaches you something valuable through the most basic elements of storytelling. No need for fireworks or special effects.
“For this edition of the festival, we are presenting 30 minutes of dance to four out of 20 études composed by Glass played by the conductor and celebrated pianist Leslie Dala (Vancouver Opera, Bach Choir). Leslie was actually the one who first presented the idea of this project to me, and dancing and working with him has been a most gratifying experience. There are linear elements in the piece, but Glass’s music marries the abstract and the linear, the romantic and the intellectual, in a way that not many composers are able to do, and that’s what makes it so unique.
“Racheal and Brandon, who are young yet mature and highly experienced dancers, can embody different physical states in such a fascinating way,” said Cohen. “They had a significant role in our exploration of the theme of aging and time.”
Being a real-life couple means that Prince and Alley have been able to rehearse together safely during COVID, and the Rothstein Theatre is large enough for them to work with Cohen at a safe distance. “Since Leslie is also dancing (!) in the piece,” added Cohen, “we had to adapt in order to keep everyone safe, which is, of course, the priority. This has definitely been a great learning experience, and an immensely gratifying one.”
The Chutzpah! Festival runs Nov. 21-28. For tickets, which start at $18, visit chutzpahfestival.com or call 604-257-5145.
The new artistic managing director of Chutzpah!, Jessica Mann Gutteridge, faced unique challenges in presenting the festival. (photo from Chutzpah!)
“This has been a challenging time for all communities. I hope that this year’s Chutzpah! Festival can bring a sense of joy, and the communal spirit that comes from sharing performing arts experiences with others, whether at the theatre or from the comfort of home,” said artistic managing director Jessica Mann Gutteridge in a recent interview with the Jewish Independent.
This will be the first-ever Chutzpah! The Lisa Nemetz International Jewish Performing Arts Festival that people will be able to watch at home. Given the COVID-19 pandemic, all of the performances will be available online, Nov. 21-28, with a few opportunities to attend small-audience shows that are being live-streamed from the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre. Not only will this be the first Chutzpah! presented digitally in the festival’s 20-year history, but it will be the first directed by Gutteridge.
“I knew that I had an exciting and challenging year ahead of me when I took the helm of Chutzpah! from Mary-Louise Albert, who was artistic director before me for 15 years,” said Gutteridge. “I really could not have anticipated how much the world would change just three weeks later, when the pandemic shuttered the Rothstein Theatre and the entire performing arts sector. The first month or so was spent focusing on our staff’s well-being and helping the many users of our theatre to reschedule and replan all the events that had to be canceled.
“The first thing I did for the Chutzpah! Festival was to take some time to think,” she said. “My board was wonderfully supportive from Day 1 and assured me that whatever scale I felt was right would be all right with them – even if I wanted to postpone for a year. I spent a great deal of time just thinking about the purposes of the festival, how it serves the community and the relationships we have with our audiences and community of artists. Even before COVID, when I was thinking about what my first festival might look like in a transition time, I felt inspired to bring together artists who had performed in the festival in the past with new artists who I hoped would join us in the future. So, I began by reaching out to artists from both groups so that we could just start to get to know each other, and find out how everyone was responding to this unprecedented situation.”
By early summer, said Gutteridge, it became clear that the health-related restrictions with respect to the pandemic would still be in place in November, “so I began to think about how we might incorporate digital presentations into the festival, and to talk to artists who were exploring this form of performance in their work.
“I was thrilled to learn that Iris Bahr, who was in the 2019 festival, is not only a brilliant actor and stand-up comic, but is also a podcaster who interviews other artists and public intellectuals with much wit and insight. I invited her to perform her solo stand-up, but also to function as our festival host and conduct live interviews with all the festival artists,” said Gutteridge. “Because Iris divides her time between Israel, New York and Los Angeles, we knew she would have to appear digitally and, though this adds another layer of technical complexity, I think it’s such a special opportunity that the present moment brings us – to join artists from across the world and have a chance to learn more about how the pandemic is changing and shaping their creative work.”
The festival’s online-only shows will include Bahr’s stand-up comedy performance (click here for story); New York-based playwright Rokhl Kafrissen’s Shtumer Shabes (Silent Sabbath) and former Vancouverite-current Londoner (England) Tamara Micner’s Old Friends, both of which are works-in-progress; a concert by Israeli pianist and composer Guy Mintus; and Israeli choreographer Ella Rothschild’s Pigulim.
There will be two shows live-streamed from the Rothstein, where limited audiences will be permitted. Ben Caplan will perform music from Old Stock, which is adapted from his music-theatre piece Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story (see jewishindependent.ca/searching-for-a-safe-harbour). And Chutzpah! artist-in-residence Idan Cohen (Ne. Sans opera and dance) presents the world première of Hourglass. Closing out the festival are Jess Salomon and Eman El-Husseini (click here for story), who will be live-streaming from Brooklyn, joined by yet-to-be-announced local comedians performing at the Rothstein.
The lineup is a fraction of what it would have been if not for COVID, but Gutteridge thought it important to proceed with the event.
“Well, for starters, I’m stubborn and I like a challenge!” she said of the decision. “I also knew that we were well-positioned with staff and support to execute a creative and fulfilling festival, even though it would not look much like past festivals. In talking to colleagues inside and outside the JCC, and hearing from our community via a survey in July, I understood that there was a lot of enthusiasm to keep experiencing the kind of performing arts presentations that Chutzpah! has offered for 20 years now. And, looking ahead to dark November nights, I think we can offer a communal experience that will bring some much-needed joy.”
In addition to focusing on quality entertainment, health and safety has been at the forefront of the planning.
“We have worked carefully with health and performing arts sector experts to make sure that we are providing the safest possible experiences for audiences, staff and artists, including at our physically distanced, intimate live events at the Rothstein Theatre,” said Gutteridge. “I’m also very impressed by how our artists have risen to the challenge. Rokhl Kafrissen, the playwright of Shtumer Shabes, has been working with her cast via Zoom since April, when they presented a workshop of the play in lieu of the debut performance they were scheduled to have at LABA in New York. Our audiences will have a chance to meet the artists and see excerpts from the play, with context about the work’s meaning and creation, all performed from the artists’ individual locations. It’s a special opportunity for our audiences to peek inside the creative process.
“Idan Cohen’s Hourglass, a new dance piece with live piano accompaniment, is being created this fall at the Rothstein Theatre as part of our creative residency program. With 318 seats and a large stage, the theatre is large enough for physical distancing, and Idan is working with a skeleton crew – often just himself and the two dancers at work. The dancers, Brandon Lee Alley and Racheal Prince, are partners offstage as well as on, so they are already in a household bubble. The other dance piece, Ella Rothschild’s Pigulim, comes to us from the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv, where the performance was previously recorded in a studio theatre, so that health and safety protocols could be observed and the dancers could form their own bubble.”
Tickets for the festival start at $18 and are available online at chutzpahfestival.com or by phone at 604-257-5145.
Iris Bahr pulls double duty at the 2020 Chutzpah! Festival, as host and performer. (photo from Chutzpah!)
Comedien, writer, actor, director, producer and podcaster Iris Bahr will both host this year’s Chutzpah! Festival, Nov. 21-28, and perform her stand-up live Nov. 26.
Known for her eclectic characters, Bahr will call on many of them as she converses with the other festival artists as part of her hosting duties.
“I’ll be conducting these conversations either as myself or as some of my characters, depending on the artist I’m speaking to,” Bahr told the Independent. “My alter egos include Shosh, the salty Israeli who has become popular on Instagram, Rae Lynn Caspar White, my ‘Southern redneck intellectual,’ and Shuli, my Orthodox character who is beyond excited to ‘dive into the arts’ for the first time.”
Many JI readers will know Bahr’s stand-up from having seen her perform at last year’s Chutzpah! The show will be somewhat different this time around.
“My stand-up will involve more crowd work and storytelling versus just straight-on stand-up to camera,” she said. “I have found that to be a more captivating and enjoyable experience for everyone involved when the audience can also engage and experience each other’s presence, it’s the closest we can get to a communal live theatrical experience in these challenging times.”
Eman El-Husseini, left, and Jess Salomon with furry family member Esther Honey El-Husseini. (photo by Mike Bryck)
Jess Salomon and Eman El-Husseini, aka the El-Salomons, close out this year’s Chutzpah! Festival on Nov. 28. They will live-stream from Brooklyn, and local comedians will join the event from the Rothstein Theatre.
In performance, the married Jewish-Palestinian lesbian comedy duo leans into the things that make them unique. Their chemistry is not only evident on stage, but even comes out in an email interview, where the pair play off one another like, well, a couple who knows and loves each other well.
JI: You met when you were each performing solo routines and continued in that vein, I think, even after you were married. When and why did you team up professionally as well?
Jess: It didn’t really come from us. We weren’t out in comedy until we got engaged so it was only after that, that we started making jokes about our relationship. Sometimes, we’d follow each other on a show and it became obvious who we were talking about. Like how many Jewish-Muslim-Palestinian Canadian couples that moved to America from Canada are there? Another comedy couple might be able to be on a show together and say my boyfriend did this or my girlfriend did that, and no one would connect that they were referring to one another. So, we built in this reveal and, eventually, people started asking if we were going to share the stage together. We didn’t want to, but it’s a sacrifice we make for the fans!
Eman: The first time we shared the stage was at a gig in an old synagogue turned community centre in L.A. I went on first and introduced Jess for her performance. We bantered, unprepared, on stage for about 10 minutes. We had no idea a reviewer from Tablet was in the audience and, although we individually performed for about 30 minutes separately, that 10 minutes of banter stole the show…. We didn’t think much of it but, a year later, 2018, we were in our hometown of Montreal for the Just for Laughs Festival. The BBC World Service was in town to put on a comedy show. They called us and asked if we’d want to record a set together and we said, ‘absolutely not.’ First of all, they have a huge listenership and we wouldn’t be able to polish an act under such short notice and, second, no one wants or should want to work with their spouse. But, the British have a way to persuade, it must be the accent.
At the same time, because we were back in our hometown, Just for Laughs offered us two shows to do whatever we wanted. We decided to perform individually for 20 minutes and then 20 minutes together. We almost got divorced but the audience loved it! We sold out both nights and added a third. Who would have thought a duo act would be so sought after? We’ve been working together ever since, and we are still married! I think, at this point, if we ever separated, we’d have to be closeted about getting divorced.
JI: From where do you get the strength and confidence to be a stand-up comedian?
Eman: I have no idea why and how I’ve stuck with this career after my first set. I bombed so hard and, until today, continue to bomb at times, but there is truly an addictive element to making someone laugh. Even if it’s a single person in a room. Laughter is so genuine and isn’t easily had. I mean, even in our day-to-day life Jess and I will share with each other how we made a stranger laugh shopping for groceries or walking the dog. It’s so rewarding.
Jess: Making strangers laugh and then talking about it is 100% an Eman thing. Right now, we’re in an argument over a speech therapist I’m convinced she hired just to entertain while she insists she has a speech impediment that must be fixed.
Eman: I feel like my strength and confidence comes from my parents. Although my sister and I have a brother, I managed to be the favourite.
Jess: You do have a masculine energy they might be responding to.
Eman: A big reason I wanted to be a stand-up comic is because of how misrepresented and underrepresented Arabs, Muslims and particularly Palestinians are in the media. More often than not, I am the first Palestinian someone meets in real life. I feel like an ambassador of sorts, dispelling stereotypes about my people. Exposure is such a powerful tool in getting through to people and if you can make them laugh that’s a big bonus. Even if people are immediately turned off by what I represent, they are still curious to hear what I have to say. I remember headlining a show in Niagara Falls once. I had to be on stage for 45 minutes. Twenty minutes in, I realized I haven’t made a single person laugh….
Jess: I love that it took you 20 minutes! That’s confidence.
Eman: They were conservative-leaning so, I called them out, ‘Guys! I know you don’t like what I’m saying but I can tell you like me.’ That eviscerated the room! From that moment forward I knew I could never quit comedy even if I wanted to.
Jess: I tried to do a joke about the no smoking sign on the plane and quickly realized there were at least a few comics who had done the same joke. That’s when I realized it’s better when I pull from personal experience. Even if I’m not an ambassador like Eman. I’m not the first Jewish comedian people have seen.
The El-Salomons have their own cartoon. (illustrations by Jesse Brown)
JI: How and when did your new Crave Canada special, Marriage of Convenience, come about?
Jess: After performing in Montreal for Just for Laughs and the BBC in 2018, we kept working on our duo act and growing our audience on Instagram for our comics (@theelsalomons). We sent a tape of what grew into an hour-long show to Just for Laughs and that’s how we got booked for the Crave special.
Eman: We realized people preferred us together than individually, which is insulting considering we had about a decade each of solo experience. It’s understandable, there are so many stand-up comics but rarely any duo acts.
Jess: There’s no one I’d rather lose my individual identity for.
Eman: Aw.
JI: What is the origin of the cartoons?
Eman: Jess came up with the idea. We would get such a huge response on social media when we’d write these back-and-forth status updates about each other.
Jess: Huge is relative.
Eman: People asking when the sitcom was coming out.
Jess: And, knowing that it would take awhile for us to find the time to write a pilot that was pitch-ready and be in a place where we could sell a series, a weekly cartoon on Instagram seemed like a manageable place to start to develop the character version of ourselves and, hopefully, an audience. We also have a close family friend, Jesse Brown, who just happens to be an incredible illustrator that wanted to work on this with us. So that’s how it was born.
Eman: The El-Salomons was the hashtag for our wedding, and Jesse drew us for our invitations … my mother-in-law saw them and said, “He made you look thin.”
Jess: Actually, yes, that is how it was born.
* * *
Chutzpah! starts Nov. 21. For the full lineup and tickets, visit chutzpahfestival.com or call 604-257-5145.
