Lies My Father Told Me
A distinctive cast supports the new stage version at the Segal Centre
Photo by montrealgazette.com/
Montreal in the 1920’s, living and working in the Plateau Mont Royal neighbourhood, where so many immigrant communities made their homes at one time, on any given day you might have heard the plaintive cry of an old peddler:
“Rags! Clothes! Bottles!”
That is a line so many remember from the iconic 1975 movie Lies My Father Told Me, a heart-warming story about a young boy’s deep love for his grandfather, his Zaida, as he’d be called in Yiddish, and his loss of faith in his own father.
Ted Allan ’s original novella is as emblematic of early Jewish Montreal as any Mordecai Richler novel or Irving Layton poem, as any play by Michel Tremblay is of the French community of the same time and place.
The movie starred the late Yossi Yadin and Jeffrey Lynas as Zaida and David, riding on a cart pulled by “Ferdeleh” (Yiddish for horse).
The new stage version, on now at The Segal Centre, features none other than folksinger and acting legend Theodore Bikel. Jamie Mayers is David. The horse, I’m afraid, is imaginary.
Photo by segalcentre.org
Theodore Bikel is a star of the stage, and of both the big and small screen. You are as apt to see him in old episodes of Charlie’s Angels, Little House on the Prairie, or even The Amazing Spider-Man, as you are to see him in film classics like The African Queen or The Defiant Ones, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. He was the original Captain Von Trapp on Broadway, appeared in the film version of My Fair Lady, and has played Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof more than any other actor.
Bikel turned 87 this past week. With his age, his experience, and his enthusiasm for his craft, the role of Zaida fits him like a glove.
The play has been on the Segal stage twice before, both as a non-musical and a musical, and both times in Yiddish. The current version, in English, was written and produced by Montreal composer and lyricist Elan Kunin and directed by Bryna Wasserman, who will soon leave her post as Segal artistic director.
Also featured in the show is one-time disco queen Patsy Gallant, who put Quebec on the musical map decades before Celine Dion. Her biggest song, from 1976, was “From New York to L.A.”, a disco anthem set to music taken from Gilles Vigneault’s Mon Pays.
Lies My Father Told Me is on now until May 23rd at the Segal Centre. For tickets call 514-739-2301.
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