‘A Shayna Maidel’ arrives at Coach House
The postHolocaust drama “A Shayna Maidel” opens with plenty of heart and soul this weekend at the Coach House theater.
“It’s a story of learning to forgive oneself,” said David Rubenstein, the play’s director. “It’s a story of finding love and finding out how to love again, even yourself.
“It’s a story of finding family again.”
The story starts with the birth of the father Mordechai Weiss in Poland in 1876, Rubenstein said.
Mordechai faces hardships from when he’s born through pogroms, when people came into his town and beat up Jewish people and destroyed their property, he added.
By 1929, Mordechai has a wife and two daughters, Rayzel and her older sister Lusia, and he’s had enough of the pogroms and plans to immigrate to Brooklyn, Rubenstein said.
But the day before they’re to set sail for America, Lusia falls ill with scarlet fever and the family splits up, with Rayzel and Mordechai going to the U.S. and Lusia and her mother staying behind, Rubenstein said.
After several years, Mordechai is made an offer where he could take out a loan to pay for the cost of bringing Lusia and his wife over, Rubenstein said. But he declines. “Mordechai says ‘nobody does nothing for me, I don’t take money,’” Rubenstein said.
That proves to be the wrong decision, Rubenstein added.
Hitler grows more and more powerful and the Holocaust starts.
“He can no longer contact his wife and daughter,” Rubenstein said.
Mordechai hears about the Holocaust and he fears they’re dead, he added.
But he gets a glimmer of hope after the war when the Hebrew Immigrant Society tells him Lusia survives, Rubenstein said.
Lusia arrives and Mordechai insists she lives with her sister Rayzel, 22, who now calls herself Rose White.
“She wants to escape being different,” Rubenstein said. “Rayzel, now Rose, feels guilt herself because she doesn’t need this sister coming from a concentration camp with this accent and no good clothes.”
But Mordechai insists they live together.
“This becomes a story of two sisters who have nothing in common, but boy, by the end they do,” Rubenstein said. “People will be crying happy tears by the end.”
While Rubenstein is directing his sixth show at Coach House, this one holds a special place in his heart.
“I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve directed,” Rubenstein said. “I’ve never fallen in love to this extent.”
Rubenstein formally taught English at Saugerties Junior High School for 43 years and he’s found that experience to be valuable when he directs theater at the historic Coach House on Augusta Street.
“Being a director is very much like being a teacher,” Rubenstein said. “You want to make it interesting and get them to a certain place.”
While most of the dialogue in the play is English, there is some Yiddish, Rubenstein said, adding that even when cast members speak Yiddish, audience members can get it without knowing the language.
Half the cast is non-Jewish and many knew nothing about Yiddish before the production, but they’ve worked very hard, he added.
Cheyenne Mitchell, who’s acted in several productions at Coach House over the past 10 years, plays Rose.
Her mother, Susan Mitchell, is also in the cast.
Mitchell said she first heard of “A Shayna Maidel” when she saw a film adaptation on the Hallmark Channel a while back.
“It’s not even that accurate to the play,” Mitchell said.
Then, when she was acting in Coach House’s staging of “Pygmalion,” other cast members talked with her about the stage version of “A Shayna Maidel.”
“I was so touched I had to get my hands on a copy of the play,” Mitchell said. “It was a beautiful story.”
After getting the part, Mitchell wasn’t sure what to think of Rose.
When she started reading lines, Mitchell later realized the character had a lot of depth.
“It’s a difficult role, to get inside her head,” Mitchell said.
She grew up in a different world than her sister, Mitchell added.
“These horrible tragic things her sister saw weren’t just in the newspaper or a newsreel,” Rose said.
Mitchell said while she doesn’t have much in common with Rose aspects of her personality come to her naturally.
“Each role I go into— Rose, Elizabeth Bennett, Eliza Doolittle— each character you play as an actress, you have to forget yourself. You’re not Cheyenne Mitchell, you’re Rose Weiss, and put yourself in that mindset and become that person. It’s kind of a difficult thing,” Mitchell said.
She added that working to understand the time period came naturally to a self-professed history lover with direct ties to the WWII-era and a bachelor’s degree in art history.
“History was one of my favorite subjects growing up,” Mitchell said. “My grandfather was a gunner in WWII for the Navy.
“He wouldn’t go to in depth.”
Mitchell said reading articles by Holocaust survivors gave her a whole new perspective.
“I got a true sense of the feeling and emotion behind those people,” Mitchell said.
Anna Harrod is Lusia Weiss Pachenik.
She described Lusia as a wonderful character who maintains a positive outlook on the world despite all she’s been through.
Harrod, in her third production at Coach House, said the role calls for Yiddish-accented English, unaccented English and Yiddish from time to time.
“I had no knowledge of Yiddish going into the play,” Harrod said.
As she tried to get into the character’s mind, she thought of family members she’s lost even if the circumstances were nothing like what Lusia went through, Harrod said.
She coupled that with researching this period, including the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
With a mother and sister who teach history, history was always a big part of her life even if she admitted to moving through museums at a different pace than them.
“I just took a trip with my sister and she wants to read every single word,” Harrod said.
Harrod said she was not familiar with the play at all until Rubenstein introduced her to it.
But she soon fell in love with it. “The characters are very rich and layered and it’s a challenging story,” Harrod said.
And she believes this story will resonate with audiences.
“It’s a universal story about a family trying to figure how to fit together and get along,” Harrod said.