When it comes to social media, more is better. More clicks and followers equal more power. Yet at Oregon Contemporary Theatre the reverse is true. At this nonprofit theater in Eugene, a smaller number of people in the audience translates to a more powerful social experience—for both actors and theatergoers.
I felt this when I saw The Last Yiddish Speaker, a play showing at Oregon Contemporary Theatre through November 10. I sat in the next-to-last row but was still close enough to the stage to observe actor Payton Rosen, as the rebellious young Sarah, trying to hold back her feelings. Seeing someone emote is easy, but recognizing when they’re trying to keep from showing their emotions is far more subtle.
CULTURAL HUBS: An Occasional Series
Sponsor
The play, by Deborah Zoe Laufer, is a National New Play Network (NNPN) Rolling World Premiere. That means the production at OCT is one of three premieres of the same show being produced across the country (the other two were in Boca Raton and Philadelphia). Portland’s Teatro Milagro is also a frequent participant in the network’s rolling premieres.
Founded in 1992 as Lord Leebrick Theater Company by actors Randy Lord and Chris Leebrick, Oregon Contemporary Theater has been run by Producing Artistic Director Craig Willis for the last 21 years. Willis got the job upon graduating from the University of Oregon with a PhD in Dramatic Literature and Theory. When he started in 2003, he was the only full-time staff member. Now he is one of five full-timers. The others are: Production Manager and Master Carpenter Amy Dunn, Box Office Manager and Volunteer Coordinator Mary Wetherbee, Marketing Manager Cameron Jackson, and Production Assistant Riley Allen.
When Willis arrived, the theater was in a building that encompassed just 3,000 square feet. That was too small, so during the recession of 2008 and thanks in large part to “angel donors,” they purchased the current space on 194 West Broadway, where they have 20,000 square feet.
“It was key,” said Willis, that even with all that extra room, no one in the audience would sit farther than 15 feet from the stage. That vision kept seating at just about 150 and informed the thrust design, a stage with seating on three sides.
Actor Storm Kennedy, who has performed with Oregon Contemporary Theatre since nearly its inception, believes “the audience is like another character in a play.”
She cited Becky’s New Car, a play she starred in about 10 years ago, as an example. Acting as a woman preparing for a date, she pulled two people out of the audience every performance to help her dress and fix her hair. She couldn’t have accomplished that, she said, if the seats weren’t so accessible to the stage. Once, an audience member she tasked with helping her dress instead preferred to do her hair. It turned out the person was a hairstylist.
Kennedy was raised in Eugene, then went to New York City in her twenties to pursue a career as a model and then as an actor. When she returned to Oregon it was meant to be only a visit, but she was offered a job she couldn’t refuse: steady work as an on-air personality with the Magic in the Morning show on Magic 94.5 radio. That is when Kennedy was reminded that Eugene had theater too, and she has been performing in local playhouses ever since.
Sponsor
Paul Dunckel moved to Eugene in 2018 with his wife, Vanessa Greenway, also an actor, for family reasons. He came from Chicago, where he worked as a professional actor for more than 20 years, and appeared in “those Chicago shows” like Chicago Med and Chicago Fire. After he arrived in Eugene, he checked out the theater scene and chose to work with Oregon Contemporary Theatre because of the company’s emphasis on producing new work.
Comparing film and TV to the theater, he said an audience provides feedback while a camera does not. Theatergoers aren’t just watching but are part of the experience, and their response adds to and affects a performance, making each one unique.
Besides having acted in three plays at Oregon Contemporary Theatre to date, Dunckel is a producer for NW10 Festival, an annual event occurring in spring that produces original 10-minute plays.
Eric Braman, who was a NW10 Festival producer for seven years, believes the festival is a great way to work with and introduce new voices to the public, not to mention giving inexperienced actors their first shot. Braman has worn many hats at Oregon Contemporary Theatre: actor, director, producer and teacher. For instance, he taught Viewpoints Theater, a workshop that focused on how actors could “use their body as a way to discover character.” (Workshops and classes are still taught, but not on a regular schedule as they were before the pandemic).
Speaking about the design of the theater, Braman said the thrust stage changes people’s experience. Seeing other audience members sitting across the stage reminds them of where they are. Instead of being carried away looking straight ahead at the performance, people are more aware of what they are doing, which is viewing a work of art.
***
Deborah Zoe Laufer, the author of The Last Yiddish Speaker, met me online from her home in New York. Sitting in front of a wall of books, she said she was drawn to write about things she didn’t yet know. Not knowing Yiddish in part inspired The Last Yiddish Speaker, a play chosen as this years’ winner of the Jewish Play Project.
Sponsor
Laufer, naturally curious, had also been reading about the daily extinction of species, which according to the Yale School of Environment is now at about 150 species a day. Cultures die, too. Should we care, or should we fight to keep them alive? The play speaks to these questions, though set in an alternate future, one in which the January 6 insurrection attempt of 2021 was successful.
The beauty of The Last Yiddish Speaker is that big issues like the loss of democracy and culture are approached within the genre of a family saga. It’s a drama sprinkled with a good dose of humor, provided largely by the Yiddish-speaking character Chava. The mythical, 1,000-year-old Chava has seen it all: antisemitism in all its forms, including the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust, and now … whatever this is.
What surprised me most seeing the play was the reaction to when Yiddish was first spoken. When Rebecca L. Nachison as Chava said ,“Oy vey, is mir,” a burst of laughter swept through the audience. I was surprised that so many people understood. The phrase translates roughly to “woe is me.” Not that funny in English, but in Yiddish, it’s a hoot.
“I always use humor in a play,” Laufer said. Even when it’s serious, which this one is. The four characters in it represent the oppressed and the oppressor. They reside in an imagined America where democracy is a thing of the past, and most live in fear, hiding who they are—their ethnicity, culture and identity.
The Last Yiddish Speaker is a fantasy, but many of the questions it raises are relevant to today’s news. Not to sound too dramatic, but as I wrote this, amid the presidential election, the fear of another insurrection was real. The papers were filled with “what ifs.” What if our democracy were eroded; what would that look like? How would it happen? A new work like Laufer’s play allows us to gather as a community to consider what might happen if our rights are lost, and in doing so, perhaps take a step toward coming together in the real world.
Ester Barkai is a freelance arts writer. She’s written for The Magazine in Santa Fe, New Mexico and for Eugene Weekly in Eugene, Oregon. She got her start working for publications as a fashion illustrator in Los Angeles and then New York City. She has worked as an instructor teaching a variety of art history, drawing, and cultural anthropology courses.
