Revival of Morning Star, a play about an immigrant family on the Lower East Side (NYC)
When “Morning Star” opened on Broadway in 1940, featuring the Yiddish theater star Molly Picon and a young Sidney Lumet, its portrait of a Jewish widow stoically enduring the death and disaster brought by the major events of recent history (from 1910 to 1931) sent a hopeful message to audiences desperately in need of one. As the play’s audiences followed the Nazis’ march through Europe, here was a woman, Becky Felderman, who refused to give in.
For most audiences today, Sylvia Regan’s melodrama about an immigrant family on the Lower East Side seems more like an overwrought soap opera, a sturdy, antique history lesson that will appeal mostly to those inclined to regularly visit New York’s Tenement Museum.
Played with spunk by Susan Greenhill, who may be a bit young for the part, Mrs. Felderman is the den mother to a full house that includes a boarder (Steve Sterner) desperate for her hand in marriage, and four children, including Hymie (Michael Tommer), who is preparing for his bar mitzvah; Fanny (Darcy Yellin), an aspiring singer who falls for a fast-talking songwriter with a wandering eye (Josh Philip Weinstein); and Esther (Caroline Tamas) and Sadie (Lena Kaminsky), who are in love with the same man, the scholarly Harry Engel (Matthew DeCapua).
Read entire article at NYT
For most audiences today, Sylvia Regan’s melodrama about an immigrant family on the Lower East Side seems more like an overwrought soap opera, a sturdy, antique history lesson that will appeal mostly to those inclined to regularly visit New York’s Tenement Museum.
Played with spunk by Susan Greenhill, who may be a bit young for the part, Mrs. Felderman is the den mother to a full house that includes a boarder (Steve Sterner) desperate for her hand in marriage, and four children, including Hymie (Michael Tommer), who is preparing for his bar mitzvah; Fanny (Darcy Yellin), an aspiring singer who falls for a fast-talking songwriter with a wandering eye (Josh Philip Weinstein); and Esther (Caroline Tamas) and Sadie (Lena Kaminsky), who are in love with the same man, the scholarly Harry Engel (Matthew DeCapua).