INTERVIEW: Steven Skybell on his return to the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene
Photo: Steven Skybell is currently appearing in Amid Falling Walls. Photo courtesy of the actor / Provided by The Press Room with permission.
Steven Skybell has a celebrated history with the acclaimed National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. He portrayed Tevye in the company’s much-heralded production of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish, performed entirely in Yiddish and extended many times in New York City. Now the actor is back with the NYTF for a new production: Amid Falling Walls (Tsvishn Falndike Vent): Unveiling Resilience and Hope During the Holocaust, playing through Sunday, Dec. 10, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in Downtown Manhattan.
“It seems to be really making an impression, which is exciting,” Skybell said in a recent phone interview about the first few performances of the show.
In Amid Falling Walls, eight actors bring to life several characters who endured the horrors of the Holocaust. This theatrical acknowledgement of hope and resilience is accomplished through poetry and song, all performed in Yiddish (with English supertitles) and pulled from first-hand accounts in ghettos, cabarets, partisan encampments in the forests, concentration camps and clandestine theaters, according to press notes. The show is curated and arranged by Zalmen Mlotek, artistic director of the NYTF, and curated and written by Avram Mlotek, a rabbi and cantor. Motl Didner directs the production.
“I’ve worked at this theater before with the Yiddish Fiddler, and Zalmen had initially told me that they were working on this,” Skybell said. “And the idea being the moment in time when there was a resistance movement. It was really a young movement, like 20-somethings, so he told me that he didn’t think that there would really be something for me in it. But then as they kept working on it, the libretto of it, they realized that there was a place because one of the composers of poems and songs did survive the war. And so they felt that an older character would be appropriate among these younger people, and so that’s how I found myself doing it.”
Skybell said the words that emanate from the Edmond J. Safra Hall stage at the museum are found material describing the experiences of these individuals as they struggled with life during the Holocaust. In between the Yiddish sections, there is also English text that helps to link the material together.
“All the songs and all the Yiddish that we speak, and it’s a fair amount of Yiddish, is material from the time,” he said. “Since Yiddish Fiddler, I have been learning Yiddish songs with Zalmen that he and I have been going around singing. I’m struck again and again by the depth of all Yiddish songs, that they do have humor and pathos and anger, and so that’s been the case with the material in this show. One of the things that I think is the most exciting about it is that it ultimately does become a resistance movement.”
Skybell said the eight actors on stage are like a family. They are loving this experience, which is a similar feeling to the actor’s time with Fiddler. That other show was a three-hour musical with Tevye as the central focus; Amid Falling Walls is an 80-minute one-act that is equally shared by each of the cast members. Those fellow actors are Dani Apple, Jacob Ben-Shmuel, Yael Eden Chanukov, Abby Goldfarb, Eli Mayer, Daniella Rabbani, John David Reed, Mikhl Yashinsky and Rachel Zatcoff.
“We all have a couple solos, and there are duets,” he said. “And there is a large number of group numbers, which really makes it feel like a real ensemble piece. It’s really a delight being a part of it, and the group is great.”
The memories of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish are still with Skybell. He calls that project, which was directed by Joel Grey, a transformative experience, one that will stay with him forever. He takes those memories with him on every project he joins, from this current show to future ones, including when he joins the Broadway company of Cabaret in the spring.
“I had been wanting to find a production of Fiddler that I could do as an adult because I had played Tevye as a kid, and the fact that it did come to me in Yiddish, it really ignited for me a lot of various strands of my personality, my Jewishness,” he said. “It just synthesized everything for me. In this time where it seems like, for better or for worse, we want authenticity in the theater, I’m proud beyond belief to be identified as a Jewish actor. And I’m happy to be doing Jewish roles, and so playing Tevye really ignited that for me. Truly as an actor you want to feel like you can play anything, but there is something about playing Jewish for me that just goes very deep. Even in this production of Amid Falling Walls, the sentiment just strikes a chord that a great actor is going to access with a lot of work, but sometimes it comes a little more naturally if you feel that it’s in your DNA. I’m really delighted by that.”
There’s also the special connection this reflective, emotional show has to the museum it calls home. There’s no denying that the Museum of Jewish Heritage is living up to its name as a living memorial to the Holocaust.
“I feel like our production really has information as well as entertainment,” Skybell said. “It seems perfectly appropriate that we should be doing it here. I love that. It’s more than just an installation at the museum; it feels like it’s really a perfect home for this production.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Amid Falling Walls (Tsvishn Falndike Vent), produced by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene and featuring Steven Skybell, runs through Sunday, Dec. 10, at the Edmond J. Safra Hall at the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. Click here for more information and tickets.
