Maimonides comes to New York, via Granada
This sounds interesting. New play in New York City featuring a woman who thinks she’s Maimonides, exploration of Sephardi folk tales and the expulsion from Spain:
Polybe + Seats, the New York-based experimental theater, premieres Granada, the new play by Avi Glickstein, on November 5th at TriBeCa’s Access Theater Gallery in New York City.
Granada begins in 1992 as the King of Spain prepares to symbolically welcome Jews back to Spain after 500 years of banishment. A young Egyptian Jewish woman has been invited to stand in for all of those exiled—but following the ceremony, she reveals to Spain’s prince that she believes herself to be the resurrection of Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), philosopher, royal physician, and Jewish cultural icon. Quite suddenly, the prince’s world is not what it was before her revelation: he is pursued by a bear, seduced by a princess hatched from a grapefruit, and nearly betrayed by his trusty aide-de-camp. Is this the beginning of the Messianic age?
Bringing together characters and storytelling from Sephardic Jewish folklore and history and weaving from Spain to Israel to Morocco and back again, Granada explores issues of identity, both religious and national, and the uncanny link among followers of a tradition separated by continents but united by a state of exile.
This seems intriguing. I’ve heard good things about this company and who doesn’t love theater with bears somehow involved? Running the next three weekends, Thursdays-Saturdays @ 8pm, Saturdays @ 3pm, Sundays @ 7pm at the Access Theater Gallery, 380 Broadway at White Street, 4th Floor. Gonna try to catch it myself, let us know what you think of it if you see it!
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