Smile at Us, Oh Lord
Opening Night: June 5, 2015
Closing: June 13, 2015
Theater: Various Locations
Featuring an all-star cast of renowned actors, and brought to life by the acclaimed team of Vakhtangov’s artistic director Rimas Tuminas, composer Faustas Latenas, and set designer Adomas Yacovskis, “Smile At Us, Oh Lord” is based on two novels by the Lithuanian-born Israeli writer, Grigory Kanovich. With a plot full of tragi-comedic moments, accented by soulful music, “Smile at Us, Oh Lord” is a story of a “little man”, vehemently opposed to wrongdoing, even as the world around him crumbles. His journey opens his eyes – and the audience’s hearts – to the fate of Jews around the world during the first half of the 20th century. Using a new language of poetic theater, Rimas Tuminas and the esteemed Vakhtangov Theatre cast tells a common story that’s linked with the larger parable of the great love of mankind. In Russian with English subtitles.
BUY TICKETSREAD THE REVIEWS:
June 8, 2015
Buried deep in the show, the old joke got a warm, rolling laugh on Friday night from the crowd at City Center. “How do you feel about our government?” “Same as about my wife. Kind of fear, kind of love, kind of want a different one.” But onstage in “Smile at Us, Oh Lord,” a mournful, dreamlike play from the Vakhtangov State Academic Theater in Moscow, the line doesn’t even get a smirk from the stolid stonecutter Efraim Dudak. It’s the early 20th century in Lithuania, and Efraim’s son, Girsch, wants a new government so fiercely that he’s just shot the Russian czar’s top man in Vilnius. So Efraim and two friends — Shmulé-Sender, whose beloved horse pulls the carriage, and Avner, a sweet pauper with a prosperous past — have embarked on a road trip from their shtetl, hoping to reach Girsch before he is either hanged or sent to Siberia. Adapted from a novel by the Israeli-based Lithuanian author Grigory Kanovich, “Smile at Us” — presented by the Cherry Orchard Festival and performed in Russian with English supertitles — has none of the dazzling glamour of the Vakhtangov’s “Eugene Onegin,” which the company performed at City Center a year ago.
READ THE REVIEW