GARY ABRAHAMS 

 

YENTL

A brilliant new adaptation of the short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer

Written by Gary Abrahams with Elise Hearst and Galit Klaas 

 

The Figure:

This is what I know. Everything is foreseen. But… Free will is given. Hah! (laughs mischievously) There is always a choice… After one must come two. Then , if it chooses, three. After ‘a’ comes ‘b’. And then….maybe…. ‘c’. Aleph then beys. And then gimel. I’ll tell you a secret. The letters of the Hebrew alphabet have their own sex life. And God’s name, as written in the ancient scriptures, is made up of four letters. Yud. Hey. Vov. Hey. Hey is female. Yud and Vav are male. Hey notices the yud and accepts the vav. Our great creator’s name made whole, male and female, as one. The letters, masculine and feminine, merge into a single unifying body.

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Produced by KYT at Arts Centre Melbourne 2022

 

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THÉRÈSE RAQUIN 

A bold new adaptation of Emile Zola’s landmark novel 

 

THERESE: 

My mother was an Algerian princess. I know it. I feel it,

here,in my blood. As a child I dreamed of wandering the roads, barefoot in the dust. In my heart I grew up crossing desserts.

Instead my father gave me to them. Stole me away across an

ocean to be shut up in a room in Vernon with a sick little boy gasping for breath. Damn him. Damn him to hell!

I was given a husband no different to the sick little boy I

was forced to share a bed with as a child. He infects everything!

But you…

Your face red with life. You in my rooms, you on my chairs,

your lips on my cups and glasses. When ever you are near my

nerves burn. My skin hums. I wait everyday for you to come

back so that I can hum again. And when you’re not here I sit

and breathe you in. I sit in the chair you sat in. Put my

lips against the glass you drank from. Touch the places on the

floor where you kneeled. I am so ashamed. I’m a coward.

 

Originally produced at Theatre Works, 2014. 

This project was supported by the City of Port Phillip Cultural Development Fund and Arts Victoria.

 

'A beautiful adaptation, with all the colour and energy of the novel, but reimagined as pure drama. Abrahams is a writer who can stand with the best we have.'

Andrew Furhmann, Crikey 

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