this week in theater

FIRE IN DREAMLAND

Kate (Rebecca Naomi Jones) and Jaap Hooft (Enver Gjokaj) consider their future in Fire in Dreamland (photo by Joan Marcus)

Anspacher Theater, the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor Pl.
Tuesday through Sunday through August 5, $50
212-539-8500
publictheater.org

Rinne Groff’s Fire in Dreamland is set in Coney Island, but unlike the famous Cyclone, this roller coaster of a play doesn’t have quite enough chills and thrills, twists and turns to ultimately satisfy. The play, having its New York premiere at the Public’s Anspacher Theater through August 5, is set primarily in 2013, shortly after Superstorm Sandy. Trying to find her way in life, Kate (Rebecca Naomi Jones) is walking along the Coney Island boardwalk when she encounters Jaap Hooft (Enver Gjokaj), a licorice-loving Dutch hunk who is making a documentary about the 1911 fire that destroyed the Dreamland amusement park and killed many trained animals. At first Kate wants nothing to do with the stranger, but soon they have hooked up and are working together on the project. Through it all, a man hiding in the shadows at the back of Susan Hilferty’s wood-centric set keeps snapping a clapperboard as each scene ends or slightly shifts in time like cinematic jump cuts. He turns out to be Lance (Kyle Beltran), Japp’s squirmy right-hand man who is jealous of Kate, both personally and professionally.

Lance (Kyle Beltran), Kate (Rebecca Naomi Jones), and Jaap Hooft (Enver Gjokaj) recall a horrific fire in New York premiere at the Public (photo by Joan Marcus)

Groff (The Ruby Sunrise, Saved) and director Marissa Wolf, in her New York debut, try to equate natural disasters with private upheavals and romance, but the characters never quite connect with one another or the story. Jones (Significant Other, Big Love) is very good as Kate, but a key plot twist is too mundane and conventional for a woman seeking some kind of self-empowerment. Gjokaj (As You Like It, Future Thinking) is too one-note as Japp, who may or may not be more of a con man; we don’t learn much about his filmmaking skills, as we never get to see any of the footage that Kate kvells over. And Beltran (The Amateurs, The Flick) is too whiny as Lance, who really just needs a big hug. The various ideas explored in the play, from love and loss to artistic creation and personal growth in the face of catastrophe, never quite come together in the choppy narrative, failing to grab on to a central conflict and purpose, weaving around the amusement park tragedy but not linking it to the rest of the story. There are nice moments and pleasant touches, and Jones is lovely to watch, but Fire in Dreamland peters out too soon.

THIS AIN’T NO DISCO

A talented cast goes back to the glamour days of Studio 54 in This Ain’t No Disco (photo by Ben Arons)

Atlantic Theater Company
Linda Gross Theater
336 West 20th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 24, $56.50-$111.50
866-811-4111
atlantictheater.org

Getting chosen to go past the velvet ropes and enter the hallowed halls of Studio 54 in the 1970s was like being part of the Rapture. “For what you are about to receive / may you be truly grateful / Who wants to go to heaven with me tonight,” Steve Rubell (Theo Stockman) declares in the world premiere musical This Ain’t No Disco, which opened tonight at the Atlantic. A group of desperate supplicants chant back at Rubell, “Let us in — let us sin.” But if theatergoers start lining up to get inside the Linda Gross Theater to see the new musical, it will be because of the reputation of the glitzy nightspot and the involvement of Stephen Trask, not because of the show itself, which turns out to be as superficial and simulated as the club itself. Trask, the creator, composer, and lyricist for the Obie- and Tony-winning Hedwig and the Angry Inch, cowrote the music and lyrics of Disco with Angry Inch drummer Peter Yanowitz (the Wallflowers, Natalie Merchant) and the book with Yanowitz and Rick Elice (Jersey Boys, The Addams Family); the two-and-a-half-hour show has its share of exhilarating moments, but the behind-the-scenes drama that drives the narrative is tepid and cold.

Sammy (Samantha Marie Ware) and Chad (Peter LaPrade) hope to make their dreams come true in This Ain’t No Disco at the Atlantic (photo by Ben Arons)

While a flamboyantly gay Rubell snorts coke, makes piles of money, and has a disagreement about a hat with the blond-haired, sunglass-wearing Artist (Will Connolly) — it’s not clear why the musical identifies Rubell by name but not Andy Warhol — a bunch of dreamers hope for stardom of various kinds, including experimental artist duo Landa (Lulu Fall) and Meesh (Krystina Alabado), who work the coat check; Forest Hills punk and drug-addicted single mother Sammy (Samantha Marie Ware), an alternate version of Jean-Michel Basquiat; annoying publicist Binky (Chilina Kennedy), looking for her own big break; District Attorney Lamont Brown (Eddie Cooper); and Chad (Peter LaPrade), a graffiti artist who has been turning tricks to survive in the city. As references are made to such club stalwarts as Salvador Dalí, Liza Minnelli, Elton John, Jerry Hall, Truman Capote, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Bianca Jagger, and Richard Gere, Rubell finds himself in quite a mess and the individual stories of the dreamers devolve into stereotypical pablum.

This Ain’t No Disco takes audience inside the hallowed halls of legendary New York City nightclub (photo by Ben Arons)

Early on, Chad sings, “Here the fun never ends / Yeah, I’m having fun,” and there is fun to be had at This Ain’t No Disco, which takes its name from the 1979 Talking Heads song “Life During Wartime.” (“This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco / this ain’t no fooling around / This ain’t no Mudd Club, or CBGB / I ain’t got time for that now.”) Jason Sherwood’s mobile, two-level scaffold set is dynamite, with splashy lighting by Ben Stanton, flashy costumes by Sarah Laux (featuring a lot of bare-chested men in barely there bottoms), projections of a naughty New York on monitors attached to the ceiling and elsewhere, and choreography with plenty of dazzle by Camille A. Brown. But the score is all over the place, too often straying from the kind of music that was heard inside Studio 54 and the Mudd Club in that era and lacking the awesome verve of Hedwig. Sammy is supposed to be punk and Meesh and Landa cutting-edge, but their songs don’t fit who they are and what they want to be. Tony- and Obie-winning director Darko Tresnjak (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, The Killer) can’t find the right balance between the glamour of the Studio 54 lifestyle and the more mundane story of the characters, resulting in a dynamic work that is far more style than substance. No doubt former 1970s club kids will get a kick out of many of the inside jokes while reliving past glory, but the rest of us are likely to not regret for one moment that we never got behind those velvet ropes.

IVO VAN HOVE AND THE COMÉDIE-FRANÇAISE: THE DAMNED

Ivo van Hove’s overwhelming theatrical version of The Damned runs at the Park Avenue Armory thorugh July 28 (photo by Stephanie Berger)

Ivo van Hove’s overwhelming theatrical version of The Damned runs at the Park Avenue Armory through July 28 (photo by Stephanie Berger)

Park Avenue Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
July 17-28, $35-$175, 7:30/8:00
212-933-5812
armoryonpark.org

When France’s legendary Comédie-Française invited innovative Belgian director Ivo van Hove to team up with the three-hundred-plus-year-old company for the prestigious Avignon Festival in 2016, he selected to adapt Luchino Visconti’s The Damned, the 1969 film about the demise of a wealthy steel clan during the rise of the Third Reich. The multimedia piece was presented prior to the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States as well as before Brexit and much of the fascistic movement taking hold around the globe, but it feels like it could have been written yesterday, particularly given Trump’s recent stand on steel and other tariffs. The spectacular production has triumphantly moved into the Park Avenue Armory’s massive Wade Thompson Drill Hall, where it immerses, confuses, delights, intrigues, captivates, and perplexes the audience over the course of 130 unpredictable minutes. In fact, afterward, when we were waiting for the bus on Lexington Avenue, an older woman approached us and, explaining that her two friends could not go at the last minute so she was alone, was desperate to discuss what we all had just seen, as she wasn’t sure whether she liked it but was deeply affected by it. Then, on the bus, as my wife and I talked more about the show, a younger woman sitting in front of us, also by herself, requested to join our conversation because she too wanted to know what we thought in order to help her navigate her own experience. Such reactions are not uncommon following works by van Hove, which are almost always fascinating and inventive whether they’re disappointing (Antigone, The Crucible), breathtaking (A View from the Bridge, Kings of War, Cries and Whispers), or somewhere in between (Lazarus).

Makeup tables are incorporated into production of The Damned at Park Avenue Armory(photo by Stephanie Berger)

Makeup tables are incorporated into the staging of The Damned with the Comédie-Française (photo by Stephanie Berger)

The audience sits in rising rafters in front of the large, impressive set, designed by van Hove’s longtime partner and collaborator, Jan Versweyveld, who also did the bold, brash lighting. At stage left are makeup tables and ottomans where characters occasionally change costumes (by An D’Huys) and speak directly into a live camera that projects the scene onto a giant screen at the back. At stage right is a row of wooden coffins where characters are led after they are dead. Tal Yarden’s projections also include archival footage of steel plants and fascism on the rise in Germany. The cast features Didier Sandre as family patriarch Baron Joachim von Essenbeck, who is preparing to choose his successor to save his business in light of the Third Reich’s power grab. In the mix are Joachim’s second son, Konstantin (Denis Podalydés); Konstantin’s son, Gunther (Clément Hervieu-Léger); Sophie (Elsa Lepoivre), the widow of Joachim’s eldest son, who is having an affair with Friedrich Bruckmann (Guillaume Gallienne); Joachim’s youngest son, the unstable Martin (Christophe Montenez); Joachim’s youngest daughter, Elisabeth (Adeline d’Hermy), who is married to Social Democrat Herbert Thallman (Loïc Corbery), with whom she has two girls, Erika (Madison Cluzel) and Thilde (Gioia Benenati); and family cousin Wolf von Aschenbach (Eric Génovese), who has joined the SS. The story is based on the Oscar-nominated screenplay by Visconti, Nicola Badalucco, and Enrico Medioli; although the film was in English, the play is in French and German, with English surtitles for the former. Sound designer Eric Sleichim’s wide-ranging original soundtrack was influenced by Bach, Strauss, Schütz, Buxtehude, and Rammstein, with music by saxophone quartet Bl!ndman.

Ivo van Hove’s The Damned takes on fascism in Nazi Germany following the burning of the Reichstag (photo by Stephanie Berger)

Despite many dazzling scenes, The Damned ends up being rather confounding. So much of it is ingenious, but too much of it is repetitive within the show itself as well as within van Hove’s oeuvre, meaning that newcomers to his work might leave much more blown away than his regular attendees. It’s a wholly impressive production, with compelling acting, well-orchestrated blood and gore, curious metaphorical meanderings, and live cameras that evoke Mario Mancini’s original cinematography. But the complex narrative and bevy of characters can get overwhelming, as can some of the spectacle. There’s a coldness that, even if it matches the soul of the film, is lacking something onstage. But despite all that, it is still a must-see, as is everything that van Hove does, whether with the Comédie-Française or his stellar home troupe, Toneelgroep Amsterdam.

FREE SUMMER EVENTS: JULY 22-29

Hal Willner’s Amarcord Nino Rota is part of Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival on July 27

The free summer arts & culture season is under way, with dance, theater, music, art, film, and other special outdoor programs all across the city. Every week we will be recommending a handful of events. Keep watching twi-ny for more detailed highlights as well.

Sunday, July 22
SummerStage: Ginuwine, the Ladies of Pink Diamond, and DJ Stacks, Corporal Thompson Park, Staten Island, 5:00

Monday, July 23
The Racial Imaginary Institute: On Whiteness: Intolerable Whiteness by Seung-Min Lee, the Kitchen, waitlist only, 7:00

Tuesday, July 24
Movies Under the Stars: Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson, 2017), Wingate Park, Brooklyn, 8:45

Wednesday, July 25
Hudson RiverFlicks — Big Hit Wednesdays: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (Jake Kasdan, 2017), Hudson River Park, Pier 63, 8:30

Thursday, July 26
Broadway in Bryant Park: songs from VITALY: An Evening of Wonders, Come from Away, Kinky Boots, The Band’s Visit, and Wicked, cohosted by Bob Bronson, Christine Nagy, and the cast of The Play That Goes Wrong, Bryant Park Lawn, 12:30

Friday, July 27
Lincoln Center Out of Doors: Hal Willner’s Amarcord Nino Rota, featuring music from the first two Godfather films and the tribute album Amarcord Nino Rota (I Remember Nino Rota), with multiple performers, Damrosch Park Bandshell, 7:30

Guelaguetza Festival New York City takes place at Socrates Sculpture Park on July 28

Guelaguetza Festival New York City takes place at Socrates Sculpture Park on July 29

Saturday, July 28
BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival:Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Hayao Miyazaki, 1985), screening preceded by live performance by Kaki King featuring Treya Lam, Prospect Park Bandshell, 7:30

Sunday, July 29
Ballet Folklórico Mexicano de Nueva York’s Guelaguetza Festival, Socrates Sculpture Park, 2:00

CYPRUS AVENUE

Julie (Amy Molloy) can’t believe what her father (Stephen Rea) has done in Cyprus Avenue (photo by Ros Kavanagh)

The Public Theater, LuEsther Hall
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 29, $85
212-967-7555
www.publictheater.org

Stephen Rea is riveting as a bigot who snaps in David Ireland’s incendiary, darkest of dark comedies, Cyprus Avenue. A coproduction of the Abbey Theatre and the Royal Court Theatre running at the Public through July 29, the play is a difficult one to recommend; it’s a testament to the audience’s psychological pain threshold that, the night I saw it, no one left LuEsther Hall during the show’s brutal one hundred intermissionless minutes. Rea is Eric Miller, a Belfast Loyalist who is undergoing treatment with a counselor, Bridget (Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo), in an unidentified facility. He is a prickly, uncomfortable, precise man who can no longer find his place in a society that has passed him by. “Everything is upside down. Nothing is what it claims to be,” he says. “Chaos is majesty. Love is degradation. And the world has become a travesty.” He calmly calls Bridget, who is black, the n-word, then gets supremely insulted when she assumes he is Irish. “The last thing I am is Irish,” he declares. “I am anything but Irish. I am British. I am exclusively and non-negotiably British. I am not nor never have been nor never will be Irish.”

Bridget (Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo) tries to help Eric Miller (Stephen Rea) make sense of his actions in David Ireland play at the Public (photo by Ros Kavanagh)

As they continue their talk, the narrative cuts to flashbacks, revealing what Eric did that led to his current situation. It all started when his daughter, Julie (Amy Molloy), had a baby that he refused to say anything nice about. “What is wrong with you?” his wife, Bernie (Andrea Irvine), asks incredulously. He calls Julie the c-word, then complains about his sad past: “Resentments. Disappointments. Failed expectations. Ruined dreams. Entanglements. Despair. That which could have been. And that which is.” The trouble reaches a new level once Eric decides that the newborn not only looks like but actually is Gerry Adams, the longtime head of the Sinn Féin, the controversial left-wing Irish republican political party. He shares his dislike of Catholics, who comprise the Sinn Féin, with Bridget, referring to them in derogatory terms. But Eric really breaks when he hires a mysterious balaclava-clad man named Slim (Chris Corrigan) to carry out a heinous plot.

The weight of the world comes crashing down on Eric Miller (Stephen Rea) in David Ireland’s Cyprus Avenue (photo by Ros Kavanagh)

Directed by Vicky Featherstone, who helmed the 2016 original — which also featured Rea, Molloy, and Corrigan — Cyprus Avenue is meant to shock, and it does. As Belfast native Van Morrison sings in his gorgeous 1968 song of the same name, “And my inside shakes just like a leaf on a tree.” The audience sits on either horizontal side of the stage, the action happening in between on Lizzie Clachan’s relatively spare set. So when something particularly frightful occurs, you can see people on the other side cover their mouths in horror just as you do the same. Ireland (Everything Between Us, What the Animals Say) and Featherstone (Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, Victory Condition) hold nothing back as Eric, seemingly in total control, calmly goes about his business in a way that is terrifying; Cyprus Avenue is not quite as farfetched as you might first imagine, particularly here in America, where hatred, misogyny, racism, anti-Semitism, and harsh partisanship seem so commonplace today that individuals are snapping all the time. However, most of us don’t get to see that enacted, even if fictionally, at such close quarters. But what we do get to see right in front of us is a spectacular performance by Oscar and Tony nominee Rea (The Crying Game, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me), who has previously shown a fondness for blood and violence on the New York stage in Sam Shepard’s A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations) at the Signature in 2014. Rea moves slowly throughout, carefully monitoring each step and every breath, completely at a loss to thoroughly understand what he is doing. “I don’t know anything anymore,” he tells Bridget. And it’s meant to be scary that he’s not the only who feels that way.

THE POSSIBILITIES / THE AFTER-DINNER JOKE

Judith (Kathleen Wise) assures a woman (Eliza Renner) that she is fine as a servant (Marianne Tatum) looks on in Howard Barker play (photo by Stan Barouh)

PTP/NYC: Potomac Theatre Project
Atlantic Stage 2
330 West 16th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Through August 5, $22.50-$37.50
ptpnyc.org

The Potomac Theatre Project (PTP) continues its long association with the work of prolific contemporary British playwrights Howard Barker and Caryl Churchill with a fast-paced evening of unique tales continuing at Atlantic Stage 2 through August 5. First up are four parts of Barker’s 1986 decalogue, The Possibilities, prime examples of his self-described “Theatre of Catastrophe.” The quartet, set in different time periods in an almost alternate reality, explores the power and morality of the state and the state’s control of its citizenry. In The Unforeseen Consequences of a Patriotic Act, a well-dressed woman (Eliza Renner) wants Judith (Kathleen Wise) to return to the city and take a victory lap a year after cutting off the head of Holofernes and several months after giving birth to their child. In Reasons for the Fall of Emperors, Alexander of Russia (Jonathan Tindle) shudders at the cries of his soldiers being tortured and killed outside as he prepares for bed. After dismissing his loyal officer (Adam Milano), he engages in a complex conversation with a wise peasant (Christopher Marshall) who is shining his boots. “Do you not love the Emperor?” Alexander asks. “It is impossible not to love him!” the peasant responds, rather unconvincingly.

An old lady (Marianne Tatum) isn’t sure she wants to sell a book to a man (Adam Milano) in Only Some Can Take the Strain (photo by Stan Barouh)

In Only Some Can Take the Strain, a government functionary (Renner) tells a bedraggled homeless woman (Marianne Tatum) that she cannot sell books out of a grocery cart; meanwhile a man (Milano) lurks about, desperate to buy an important volume. “Our arteries are clogged with anxiety, our lungs are corroded with fumes,” the lady says. “What a conspiracy and nobody knows but me.” And in She Sees the Argument But, a female official (Wise) attempts to shame a young woman (Madeleine Russell) for wearing high heels and a dress that exposes her ankles. “I don’t ask you to admire my legs,” the confident woman says. “The party executives do that.” PTP co-artistic director Richard Romagnoli adds excerpts from three Barker poems, “Don’t Exaggerate,” “Plevna,” and “Refuse to Dance,” to link the four short plays, which are performed on Hallie Zieselman’s purposely cluttered set, the props for each section waiting in the back to be brought forward when it’s their turn.

Selby (Tara Giordano) wants to save the world, confusing Mr. Price (Jonathan Tindle) and her direct superior, Dent (Kathleen Wise) (photo by Stan Barouh)

After intermission, the company digs into Churchill’s 1978 television play, The After-Dinner Joke, which consists of sixty-six scenes whirling by in an hour. “I admired two extremes on TV, extreme naturalism and extreme non-naturalism — I went for the second,” Churchill wrote about the piece, and that’s just how PTP co-artistic director Cheryl Faraone lets it unfold on Zieselman’s ever-changing, low-budget set. A large roster of characters take on the politics of charity and the charity of politics, as well as big business and religion, centered by the story of a bright, ambitious woman named Selby (Tara Giordano) who has decided to resign from her job as a personal secretary to a sales manager at a bedding store because she is not helping society. The owner, Mr. Price (Tindle), a tycoon who also has launderettes, Chinese restaurants, and factories, tells Selby, “I give employment. I provide services. I pay taxes. I make profits,” to which Selby replies, “Children are dying, sir.” Price asks, “Are you a Christian?” to which Selby answers, “Not anymore. But I feel just as guilty as if I was. And so should you.” Price opts to keep Selby on as a campaign organizer for his five charities, and off she goes, meeting a wide variety of people as she seeks to rid the world of poverty and starvation.

Selby (Tara Giordano) can’t believe what she sees in revival of Caryl Churchill play (photo by Stan Barouh)

She encounters a snake-obsessed mayor (Marshall) who tells her, “A charity is by definition nonpolitical. Politics is by definition uncharitable”; a trio of councilors who are getting hit with pies in the face to raise money; a mysterious thief (Christo Grabowski) in black who keeps popping up and stealing things; a rock star (Grabowski) who has found Jesus (and ten-year-olds); a recipe-loving local celebrity (Lucy Van Atta); a snooty country clubber (Milano) who wants to give charity only to himself; an oil sheik who considers buying Marks and Spencer; and a mother (Russell) who is forcing her son (Noah Liebmiller) to go on a fundraising walk. “If they want to give money, I don’t see why they can’t just give it,” the boy says. “I don’t see why I have to walk round and round the park all afternoon.” Some of the scenes are previously filmed and projected on a screen, which allows quick set changes to be made while channeling a little bit of Monty Pythonesque humor. The play, which is set in the 1970s, takes on added relevance just as the Institute of Economic Affairs in England is being investigated for possible abuse of the necessary separation between charity and politics. “Charity Commission rules state that ‘an organization will not be charitable if its purposes are political.’ How much more political can you get?” George Monbiot writes in the Guardian after exposing several questionable connections. Now in its thirty-second season, PTP, which in 2015 at Atlantic Stage 2 presented Barker’s Scenes from an Execution and Churchill’s Vinegar Tom in repertory, prefers to stage productions of challenging, unconventional, experimental plays, and they have come up with a pair of fine choices yet again.

TEVYE SERVED RAW: GARNISHED WITH JEWS

Shane Baker, Allen Lewis Rickman, and Yelena Shmulenson pay homage to Sholem Aleichem in Tevye Served Raw (photo by Jonathan Smith)

The Playroom Theater
151 West 46th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Sunday – Tuesday through August 14, $38, 7:00
800-838-3006
www.tevyeservedraw.com
www.theplayroomtheater.com

Tevye Served Raw is a sweet and savory side dish to accompany the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene’s rousing adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Subtitled Garnished with Jews, Tevye Served Raw is adapted and translated by Shane Baker and director Allen Lewis Rickman, who star in the show with Yelena Shmulenson. The evening brings together various writings by Sholem Aleichem, including stories that were not incorporated into Fiddler, and reveal what happened to Tevye and his family outside that narrative; the character was based on a real dairy man, also named Tevye, who Aleichem was friends with in Boyarke in Ukraine. The small, intimate stage at the Playroom Theater is mostly empty except for an occasional chair; the actors change costumes behind curtains on either side. Projections on a rear screen include English subtitles, photographs, and other information. In the opening tale, “What, Me Worthy?,” Tevye (Rickman) says to Sholem (Baker), “Honestly, I don’t know what you find so interesting about a little person like me.” But Tevye is a fascinating man, trying to hold on to tradition as modernity comes to Eastern Europe and anti-Semitism increases. In “Strange Jews on a Train,” a Russian Jew (Shmulenson) and a Galitsyaner (Baker) gossip about the rich Finkelstein family in Kolomey, with Allen standing between them, translating. “Tevye and Khave” and “Father Aleksii,” from Aleichem’s play Tevye the Dairyman, follow the relationship between Tevye and his third daughter, Khave (Shmulenson), after she falls in love with the non-Jewish Khvedke and takes refuge in Father Aleksii’s (Baker) church. “For every single thing you have a Bible verse, or a Medrash, or something!” Khave tells her father. “Do you have one that explains why — since God created such a big and beautiful world — why people can’t just share it?”

Tevye (Allen Lewis Rickman) and Khave (Yelena Shmulenson) have differing opinions on love and marriage in Tevye Served Raw (photo by Jonathan Smith)

“The Yiddish Sisyphus” is a scene from Menakehm-Mendl, an epistolary novel by Aleichem in which the title character (Baker) exchanges letters with his wife, Sheyne-Sheyndl (Shmulenson), about his risky monetary ventures, Allen going back and forth as he translates the Yiddish into English. “You have worshipped at every shrine to stupidity,” Sheyne-Sheyndl declares. As an interlude, Shmulenson sings the lovely lullaby “Shlof, Mayn Kind (“Sleep, My Child”). The show concludes with “Get Thee Gone,” in which Tevye, the constable (Baker), a local landowner (Baker), and Tevye’s eldest daughter, Tsaytl (Shmulenson), face the expulsion of the Jews from the shtetl. “Why, God, why do you pick on Tevye? Why not play these games with a Brodsky or a Rothschild?” Tevye asks. But don’t leave yet: There’s a riotously funny encore that celebrates the marvelous insults hurled by Sholem’s stepmother, shouted in Yiddish by Shmulenson and ferociously translated by Allen in a stupendous tour de force. Packed into eighty-five minutes, it’s all a great deal of fun, with the Belarus-born, Ukraine-raised Shmulenson (Orange Is the New Black, The Essence: A Yiddish Theater Dim Sum) — who appeared with Allen as husband and wife in the shtetl scene of the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man — standing out among the three, portraying a wide range of female characters with zest and flair. Baker (Waiting for Godot, God of Vengeance), an Episcopalian well-versed in Yiddish theater, and Rickman (Relatively Speaking, Boardwalk Empire), who in a program note draws parallels between his immigrant father and Tevye, make a fine comic duo with vaudevillian instincts. Tevye Served Raw is a tasty little treat — but watch out for those trayf jokes.