The Golem, Methuselah, and Shylock: Plays by Edward Einhorn [Paperback]

Edward Einhorn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 5, 2005

Edward Einhorn blends absurdist humor with philosophy in these critically acclaimed plays about legendary Jewish figures. Golem Stories retells an old Kabalistic legend. It's a ghost story and a love story, about a childlike clay man who may be a demon inside. In The Living Methuselah, the oldest living man survives every disaster is human history, with the help of his wife Serach, the oldest living woman. But when a doctor tells him he will only live until the end of the play, will this be his final curtain? To find the title character of A Shylock, Jacob Levy interrogates every character in The Merchant of Venice, but oddly Hamlet may know the most-although this Hamlet is a woman. And in One-Eyed Moses and the Churning Red Sea, Rabbi Tzipporah Finestein dreams Moses is a pirate captain, but what do the dreams mean? Two congregants hold the key.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a reminder of the supernatural quality of theater, transforming the basic elements of speech and play into something magical." -- Jewish Standard

"As in the best of the absurd genre, more than a hint of truth is borrowed from the real world." -- Stage Pages

"Each play was written with meaningful intellect. These plays can best be described as enlightening entertainment." -- Fantasy Novel Review

"The story is engaging and the Jewish lore is appropriately and authentically woven throughout the text." -- Kirkus

"This collection reveals an incisive mind with a flair for injecting serious and heart-wrenching tales with deep-belly laughing humor." -- Book Help

About the Author

Edward Einhorn is the author of Paradox in Oz and The Living House of Oz (Hungry Tiger Press), as well as the upcoming picture book A Very Improbable Story (Charlesbridge) and numerous plays produced in New York. He has curated Untitled Theater's 24/7 Festival, their Ionesco Festival (the first-ever complete festival of Ionesco's plays), and will be curating their upcoming NEUROfest, a festival of plays about neurological conditions. He recently directed and co-wrote the critically acclaimed Off-Broadway play Fairy Tales of the Absurd, which The New York Times called "almost unbearably funny."

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Theater 61 Press (September 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977019705
• ISBN-13: 978-0977019700
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,809,137 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Edward Einhorn is the author of the modern Oz novels "Paradox in Oz" and "The Living House of Oz" (Hungry Tiger Press); "A Very Improbable Story" (Charlesbridge), a picture book on probability; "The Golem, Methuselah, and Shylock" (Theater 61 Press), plays about Jewish legends; and "Lysistrata", a new adaptation of Aristophanes. He is also the Artistic Director of Untitled Theater Company #61, with whom he curated the Vaclav Havel Festival, the NEUROfest, and the Ionesco Festival. He is the author of a a number of critically acclaimed plays, including "Fairy Tales of the Absurd," "Strangers," Linguish", and stage adaptations adaptation of Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle" and Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep." His newest book, "Fractions in Disguise," will be released in 2012.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An pleasant embodiment of the three delightful plays that won the playwright his first recognition, March 11, 2006

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Golem, Methuselah, and Shylock: Plays by Edward Einhorn (Paperback)

The Golem, Methuselah, & Shylock by Edward Einhorn is an pleasant embodiment of the three delightful plays that won the playwright his first recognition and shed some positive light onto the Jewish Community. Einhorn's Plays display an ease of mind that induces thought and an introspection of the mind to the reader or viewer. Tactfully written, The Golem, Methuselah, & Shylock is comprised of "Golem Stories", "The Living Methuselah", "A Shylock", "One-Eyed Moses and the Churning Red Sea". Enhanced with an informative Introduction and an appendix: "Facts about the Characters", this is a strongly recommended read for all play enthusiasts as well to all Jews.

3.0 out of 5 stars A Curious Effort, November 16, 2007

By 

M. Falkowitz - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Golem, Methuselah, and Shylock: Plays by Edward Einhorn (Paperback)

This collection of three full-length and one single-act plays are a curious union of Jewish themes with expressionist and absurdist theatre. They use ample amounts of non-traditional techniques and provide an interesting sample of offbeat, off-Broadway work for those interested in modern theatre.

Golem Stories is more traditional: in 1590's Prague, Jews are persecuted and need a protector from an anti-Semitic priest. The rabbi's daughter's boyfriend has been killed by a mob, and the rabbi decides the violence has to stop. He makes a golem, a man made of clay who is part demon, which robotically does as it is told. But this monolithic figure begins to disturb the family when it takes on the likeness of the boyfriend who died and insists that it has his soul.

A figure of perfect innocence, it repeatedly questions the family, including the rabbi's daughter, who is overwhelmed with grief and confusion. It claims that it is not the juggernaut they think it is, but this is brushed off. The tragedy of the play comes from the emotional shunning it receives, even from themselves-shunned Jews, which ends in a disturbing scene that heightens the golem's innocence.

Unfortunately, the play is weakened by flat characterization and poor dialogue. None of the characters seem too excited to be in the play; they remain poorly fleshed out, and their lines are flat. The play as a whole lacks tension, and while it is expected that the golem's innocence is to meet with tragedy, it elicits little true compassion from an uncaring audience. As such, the tragic ending fails to hit home.

The Living Methuselah is considerably more experimental and is much better for it. Methuselah, the oldest living man, is lying on a hospital bed with his similarly aged wife, Serach. A doctor tells him he will die in 24 hours, and Methuselah starts to see his life flash before his eyes. But as the doctor notes, in a life so long, the "flash" takes a while. Serach and the doctor act out roles as he goes through his life, focusing on the grand disasters he has escaped.

The somewhat confusing structure of the piece works excellently: part flashback, part confession, the journey is a thorough insight into the lead's mind, most notably his guilt at what it took to live so long. The doctor character is amazingly versatile, picking up and dropping roles as needed. What would be a confusing mess in lesser hands, Einhorn makes work, although there is some residual choppiness.

A Shylock is about a man hearing that The Merchant of Venice's Shylock is dying, which leaves him a large inheritance. He is led around by Hamlet (this time a woman--she explains that the newest reconception of her is as a female) to all the characters in Shakespeare's play, until the protagonist finally confronts Shylock in the closing scene. Here again there is a non-traditional structure: the plot is not so much continuous action but a series of entrances and exits as the protagonist wanders through questioning as well as his own notions of Jewishness. His quest to find out whether Shylock, the traditional Jewish stereotype, forces him to consider the issues of pigeonholing faith. Einhorn is less capable of managing this structure than previously, as it is considerably more complex. But more disappointingly, he reverts to an all-too-clichéd ending of a final speech wherein the protagonist experiences revelation while "talking" with Shylock. The "discussion" is just a transparent mechanism for the final speech, and Shylock's presence hardly feels necessary. To fall back on such a device feels like a copout; what is true for fiction is truer for drama--never let characters just announce their mental states. Although the play as a whole is innovative and a clever effort, the ending does drag it down considerably.

The greatest difficulty with these plays is that they don't read well. These unusual dramas seek to form impressions, appealing to intellect through visual and emotional influence. As the stage directions leave much open to interpretation, it can be rather difficult for the reader to grasp the full intentions of the piece. This is no fault of Einhorn's: it is a problem for all absurdist theatre. More straightforward plays are easier to follow on paper, but these works demand more attention and visualization to achieve full effect. And while some of his absurdism gets away from him, Einhorn's work certainly demands attention, even if it feels targeted toward a limited crowd.


Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book at [...]. © Max Falkowitz, 2007