Returning 'Awake and Sing!' to Its Yiddish Roots

Theatre Development Fund – TDF: When New Yiddish Rep artistic director David Mandelbaum decided to produce Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Eugène Ionesco's Rhinoceros, he had to commission special Yiddish versions. But with Clifford Odets' 1935 classic Awake and Sing!, currently running at the 14th Street Y, he had three preexisting translations to choose from. "The one we're using is by Chaver Paver and was originally commissioned by the WPA Federal Theatre Project," Mandelbaum says, referring to the federal program that funded live performances during the Depression. But even though Awake and Sing! originally debuted on Broadway in English in a production mounted by the legendary Group Theatre, the play has always had strong Yiddish roots.