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AN INTRODUCTION FOR ENGLISH-SPEAKERS

written by MICHAEL WEX
music by HEIKO LEHMANN
performed by MICHAEL WEX AND HEIKO LEHMANN

ONE LINE:
Putting the id back into Yiddish, where no means no--but so does yes.

30-50 WORDS:
A series of linked stories with musical accompaniment, dealing with Yiddish-speaking Jews, their loneliness and their hormones. Like the act itself, SEX IN YIDDISH: AN INTRODUCTION FOR SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH is both touching and funny. And it puts the id back into Yiddish--right where the id belongs.

100 WORDS:
Certain dauntless speakers of Yiddish have dedicated their lives to the frequent and punctilious performance of the first of all of the Bible's commandments: Be fruitful and multiply. Only go fructify when all you can speak is a language in which no means no--and so does yes. SEX IN YIDDISH: AN INTRODUCTION FOR SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH cannot remedy the situation; it can only offer a description in a series of linked stories with musical accompaniment. You might laugh, you might cry; if you have an orgasm, we'd like you to pay.

SEX IN YIDDISH is yet another of Golus Storytheatre's unique blends of storytelling, Yiddish and music. The full, two-hour version consists of five stories. As performed in Germany and Switzerland these have been:

1) Chasidic boy discovers Elvis and nudist magazines
2) He acquires a girlfriend and a social worker
3) He becomes a yeshiva beatnik
4) After the death of his father, his mother is besieged by unwanted suitors
5) The Kugel story
6) A story about summer camp, which includes a country and western song written by Wex.

The stories are linked by bits of semi-stand-up (how do you say "French tickler" in Yiddish? Just ask me), which also serve to explain anything to do with orthodox Jewish practice that might need explaining, and have not been heard so often in Toronto as people who know me well might think. There's a reason I'm always broke. The musical accompaniment (some of the stories--not the ones that Lehmann tells--have been through-composed) lends a hitherto-unknown dimension to the stuff. Taking it down to 70-75 minutes presents no problem at all. The specs are remarkably simple. A table and two chairs. And a stand-up bass.

EXCERPTS FROM RECENT SWISS REVIEWS
(photocopies of the German originals can be supplied on request)

FACTS (Zurich, 7.5.98)

"...a pleasure."
"Michael Wex is a star of the North American Yiddish avant-garde."
"A wild performance."

TAGESANZEIGER (Zurich, 15.5.98)

"On the yon side of romanticizing Klezmer Revivalism, Wex writes wild texts which belong on the stage."

SONNTAGSZEITUNG (Zurich, 26.4.98)

"...so brash, funny and full of Yiddish expressions that it's a real joy."

ISRAELITISCHES WOCHENBLATT (Zurich, 8.5.98)

"...stories in every way equal to those of Mark Twain or even J.D. Salinger."
"...brash, funny, lively and full of detail...without attacking, betraying or mocking the spirit of orthodox Judaism."
"...a hilarious and rousing performance..."

NEUE ZUeRCHER ZEITUNG (Zurich, 16/17.5.98)

"Radical frontal storytelling."
"...wonderfully cutting-edge

PR used by the New York Jewish Museum:

Performance artist and raconteur, fringe circuit star and Canadian poet of the great indoors, Michael Wex is, above all, a peerless storyteller. As such, he gives us an evening inspired by his novel Shlepping the Exile. Wex performs the story of Yoine Levkes, a young Hasidic Jew growing up on the plains of Alberta, Canada, who as a teenager smuggled Elvis Presley records
into his parents' house. A sort of Spalding Gray meets Sholem Aleichem.