Sometimes you have to celebrate Passover with metal songs, sexy Moseses, and thoughtful musical pieces about cephalopods.

Such was par for the course at “The Seder-Songwriter Project,” the third of its kind, which took place at Joe’s Pub in Manhattan last night.

Hosted by the band The Universal Thump (you may remember them from their music video “Seder-Masochistic“), the evening invited musical artists, both Jewish and not, to present an original song based on the holiday or story of the Exodus. Beyond that, anything goes, and anything went. There were songs about everything from smiting the Egyptians from God’s point of view to a fictional Fifth Child following the Four Sons, all emceed by a sexy, leotard-clad, Australian Moses (played by performer Anna Copa Cabanna).

Broadly speaking, the numbers were about one of two topics: The Exodus narrative, and modern Passover celebrations. As for the latter, if you were an outsider at the performance, you might assume that Jews all hate our religion.

Sure, there was nuance in the complaining, from a number by David Nagler where a miserable family seder arouses nostalgia years later, to a shout-out to other, arguably more fun holidays in “Haggadah Get Out of Here” (with Deb Adler Poppel). But few performers sang with the same affection of Passover in reality as with the fantastical notion of inviting Santa to the seder, as one song suggested.

This is the flip-side of having a religion that welcomes dissent, that maintains a degree of tradition through even those born into it who have since mostly wiggled loose. When you invite open discourse on something we’re pressured into, it can turn into a bit of a kvetch-fest. Is that cathartic? Sure. But does tradition forever become obligation as a result?

Numbers about topics other than the seder included a number about Inky, the octopus that escaped from an aquarium, and what that says about freedom, (according to Ian Riggs). There was also the weirdly fun comedy metal song about the eleventh plague, a Godzilla-like creature known as the Hava Nagila monster that post-rampage, helpfully returns a lost Jew to his tribe (shout out to performer Corn Mo for fully committing to that particular concept).

Can a Jewish-written song about a religious holiday be so funny, and a bit irreverent, while still being loving at its core? Sure, but we’re way too emotionally scarred for it to be that easy. Still, the evening on a whole balanced out to a complicated, funny, sad, slightly frustrated look at the most matza-ful time of the year.

Next year in Jerusalem, or at least back at Joe’s Pub.

Image courtesy of Greta Gertler Gold

See also: Have Yourself a Merry Little Sondheimas

The post Two Jews, Three Songs About Hating the Seder appeared first on Jewcy.

It’s a rare thing when a work of art makes me sit back and say, “Wow,” rarer still when it’s something Holocaust-related. The sheer volume of art that has been produced around the catastrophic events of WWII is overwhelming; but more than that, artists have a tendency to allow their emotions to rule unchecked, sure that the audience will forgive their indulgence; after all, it’s the Holocaust.

All this is to say that when Alexis Fishman’s Der Gelbe Stern (“The Yellow Star”) knocked me over sideways on Thursday afternoon at the New York Musical Theater Festival, I was as excited to be excited as I was charmed, thrilled, moved, and amused by her miraculous turn as Erika Stern, a fictional Weimar cabaret star performing for the last time in 1933 before a jealous, Nazi ex-lover shuts down her show. A mixture of original songs, stand-up comedy, and monologue, the show sparkles every bit as much as Fraulein Stern’s earrings under the spotlight.

For starters, Ms. Fishman, an Australian by birth, manages to convey the deep charisma crucial to pulling off her role as Berlin’s biggest cabaret star. She is laugh-out-loud funny with her Marlene Dietrich accent and her songs about the perfect boyfriend, Attila the Hun. She’s incredibly raunchy, too, in a way that conveys her delight with sex, rather than a two-dimensional performance of sexiness designed to appeal to the audience’s gaze. It’s a post-modern delight rather than a modernist one, but hey, I was into it! I only wished she had done something sexy with the Nazi flag; the forbiddenness of the swastika has, inadvertently, lent it an erotic quality that Fishman seems to know but not actualize. She is the person to do it.

There is real chemistry between Erika and her gay, closeted pianist, Otto, which makes for great fun. I was also reminded of the true pleasure one gets from watching a performer in a show they have themselves written; one feels the intelligence behind the work as a genuine part of the performance, rather than a performance of genuineness.

But the real brilliance of Der Gelbe Stern lies in Fishman’s masterful balancing of sentiment and irony. Just when you’re ready to relax into giggles, she elicits tears, and just when you’re ready to indulge those tears, she cracks the whip of her wit, as if to say, “Snap out of it!” It’s a truly masterful performance. Catch one of her two final shows on Monday, July 21. (Tickets here.)

Image credit: Hunter Canning

The post Alexis Fishman’s Star Turn in “Der Gelbe Stern” appeared first on Jewcy.