Theatre is ritual; its purpose is transformation. It seems appropriate, then, that a stage adaptation of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s short story Yentl the Yeshiva Boy should fold in themes of metamorphosis, transfiguration and the challenge of gender binaries. That Kadimah Yiddish Theatre can also shape it into a plea for trans identity – impassioned and persuasive, rooted in theology – feels more significant.
Singer’s story of a girl who disguises herself as a boy in order to study the Torah has become indelibly associated with Barbra Streisand, who adapted it herself for the 1983 musical film. It isn’t hard to see what it was about the source material that appealed to the star: a fiercely feminist tale, it celebrates a woman’s right to self-determinism in an aggressively male world. But this new version, doctrinally astute and surreptitiously contemporary, takes it a step further: Yentl doesn’t just subvert gender expectations here, she transcends them.
