The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh comes to the Chutzpah! Festival, November 9 and 10
Michael Wex’s uproarious show combines 1930s cabaret songs, original comedy sketches, Yiddish adaptations of international hits, and vaudeville classics
SPONSORED POST BY Chutzpah! Festival
Cast of The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh. Photo by Shendl Copitman.
As part of the programming for its 2024 edition, the Chutzpah! Festival is presenting The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh (di letste nakht baym yitesh) at the Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre on November 9 and 10 at 7 pm.
The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh is an uproariously edgy show from Michael Wex, who is a New York Times best-selling author and celebrated Canadian Yiddishist. Set in Warsaw in the spring of 1938, the censor’s office has just advised the performers of Cabaret Yitesh that tonight’s show will be their last. With visas to leave the country and nothing left to lose, the performers decide to present an entire evening of banned material, along with the cabaret’s greatest hits and most famous skits.
Mixing controversial topics with cabaret songs from the ’30s, original comedy sketches, Yiddish adaptations of international hits, and vaudeville classics, Wex’s production is poignantly funny, often shocking, and always surprising. A unique mélange of Cabaret and The Producers, expect to see rabbis and drag queens, Brünnhildes in dirndls, and at least one highly politicized hooker, all knit together by an acid-tongued emcee. The cast features Shane Baker, Daniel Kahn, Regina Hopfgartner, and Sasha Lurje, with musical direction by Patrick Farrell.
The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh. Photo by Shendl Copitman.
Performed in Yiddish with English surtitles, The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh brings a broad series of influences into play with its jokes. There’s Weimar cabaret tradition with Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s Seeräuber-Jenny, a well-known German opera song, sung in Yiddish. There are also some more sophisticated musical jokes, ranging from a riff on a Schoenberg composition to a brilliant Gefilte fish transladaptation of Schubert’s Die Forelle.
It all leads up to a clever final number called The Last Jew in Poland—amid a complete departure of all Jews, a collapsed economy, and the disappearance of cultural industries, Poland’s leaders must track down an elderly man who missed the bus to save the day. With performers from Canada, the U.S., Germany, and Austria, the fast-paced show is at once hilarious and moving.
Tickets to see The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh and a full lineup of events are at the Chutzpah! Festival.
Post sponsored by Chutzpah! Festival.
The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh. Photo by Shendl Copitman.