Content area
Full Text
The Folksbiene, Forever Young: A grand dame of the Yiddish theater and a 28-year-old black actress continue an 83-year tradition in new production. A profile in two acts.
SUSAN JOSEPHS
Staff Writer
Mina Bern: Retirement? Hah!
Although hours of rehearsal lie ahead of her, the immaculately coifed and irrepressibly gregarious Mina Bern takes a moment to express some definite opinions. On her new friend Robert De Niro: "I love him. He's modest, so quiet." On speaking five languages: "That's because I'm a refugee, not because I'm brilliant." On whether she prefers to perform in Yiddish or English: "It depends on my character." On her age: "Darling, I don't hear you."
Bern -- a venerable grande dame of Yiddish theater and film actress -- also has a definite opinion about retirement: it's not for her. That's why she's currently immersed in two projects: working with Robert De Niro on Joel Schumacher's upcoming film "Flawless" and starring in the Folksbiene's Yiddish Theater's latest production, which premieres this weekend at Theatre Four. Written and directed by Eleanor Reissa, "Zise Khaloymes" or "Sweet Dreams," chronicles the life and times of Debbie Smith, a contemporary New Yorker who's ashamed of her Jewishness and haunted by her dead mother Esther, played by Bern.
According to Reissa, who also serves as co-artistic director of the Folksbiene along with Zalman Mlotek, Debbie reconciles with her identity "through the spirit of her mother [and learns] the value of her legacy. This is a contemporary play with characters we can all recognize," Reissa says. "There's a masseuse, a psychiatrist ......