Ashleigh Wheeler in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre presents
The UK Premiere
TREASURE
by David Pinski
In a new adaptation by Colin Chambers
from a translation by Ludwig Lewisohn
FINBOROUGH | THEATRE
First performed at the Finborough Theatre: Tuesday, 20 October 2015.
TREASURE
Cast in order of appearance
Jachne-Braine |
Fiz Marcus |
Tille |
Olivia Bernstone |
Judke |
Sid Sagar |
Chone |
James Pearse |
Marriage Broker |
Sergio Covino |
Soskin |
Richard Gibson |
President |
Alan Booty |
Reb Itsche |
Michael Gilbert |
Rifkele |
Felicity Davidson |
Reb Chaim |
David Palmstrom |
Manke |
Jessie Lilley |
Reb Joseph |
Will Bridges |
Reb Faivish |
Andrew Young |
Merkin the lawyer |
Paul Foulds |
Sarah |
Jessie Lilley |
Aaron |
David Palmstrom |
Jacob |
Michael Gilbert |
Yekel |
Will Bridges |
Newcomer |
Andrew Young |
Boy 1 |
Deniz Ozer/Amari Webb-Martin |
Boy 2 |
Joseph Lambrou/Omar Cham |
Boy 3 |
Couper Horton/Ediz Ozer |
Yankev |
Michael Gilbert |
Hersh |
Paul Foulds |
Hindel |
Felicity Davidson |
Well-Dressed Man |
David Palmstrom |
Holy Rabbi |
Paul Foulds |
Other parts played by members of the Company
The action takes place in the Russian Pale, early 1900s. High Summer.
Act One
Scene One, the house of Chone, the gravedigger, early afternoon on the fast day of Tisha B’av (commemorating the destruction of Jerusalem).
Scene Two, dusk on the same day.
Scene Three, next morning.
Act Two
The graveyard, late evening the same day.
The performance lasts approximately two and a half hours.
There will be one interval of twenty minutes.
Director |
Alice Malin |
Designer |
Rebecca Brower |
Costume Designer |
Libby Todd |
Lighting Designer |
Isobel Howe |
Sound Designer |
Pete Malkin |
Movement Director |
John Ross |
Assistant Director |
Lakesha Arie-Angelo |
Assistant Designer |
Isabella van Braeckel |
Casting Directors |
Georgia Fleury Reynolds Zoe Thorne |
Stage Manager |
Joy Laing |
Production Manager |
James Ashby |
Production Assistants |
Toby Sneyd-Garrity Emma Brand Christi Richardson |
Graphic Design |
Rebecca Maltby |
Producer |
Ashleigh Wheeler |
We regret that there is no admittance or re-admittance to the auditorium whilst the performance is in progress.
Olivia Bernstone | Tille
Trained at LAMDA and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, New York.
Theatre includes Anyone for Tea? (National Tour for Les Enfants Terribles), Pagan Parade (Les Enfants Terribles at the Latitude Festival) and We Won’t Pay! We Won’t Pay! (Lee Strasberg Theatre). Film includes Blood Cells.
Alan Booty | President of the Congregation
Theatre includes People (National Theatre), As You Like It, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Romeo and Juliet, The Comedy of Errors (Cambridge Shakespeare Festival), The Dinner (Vault Festival), It Never Ends (Theatre503), Pool (Brockley Jack Studio Theatre), Big Boys (English Theatre, Hamburg), A Woman of No Importance (Hen and Chickens Theatre), MP, The Last Great Lady (Strawberry Hill House), Great Expectations (National Tour), The Thought on the Stairs (The Equilibrium), The Third Man (Secret Cinema), A Genesis of Karma: Three Faces of Evil (New End Theatre, Hampstead) and The Robbers (New Diorama Theatre). Film includes Stones, The Man Who Knew Infinity, Anna’s Room and Fragments of May.
Television includes Days That Shook The World and Dancing On the Edge.
Will Bridges | Reb Joseph/Yekel
Trained at Mountview.
Theatre includes Measure for Measure, Titus Andronicus and Julius Caesar (Shakespeare’s Globe) and Cafe Nation (Cockpit Theatre).
Sergio Covino | Marriage Broker
Trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
Theatre includes Telescope (BAC), Beauty and the Beast (Royal Shakespeare Company), Chicago (Adelphi Theatre), Sophisticated Ladies (Gielgud Theatre), My One and Only (Chichester Festival Theatre), Doctor Foster (Menier Chocolate Factory) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Crucible Studio, Sheffield).
Film includes Captain America and Boogie Woogie.
Television includes The Bill, Agony Again and The Six Wives of Henry VIII.
Ella Cumber | Morevskaya The Teacher
Trained at RADA (Foundation Course in Acting).
Theatre includes Measure for Measure (Shakespeare’s Globe), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare’s Globe, Tour of UK, Asia and Russia), Female Company, The Devil is in the Detail (20:20 Vision Theatre), The King of Cats (London Grey and Green Theatre), Measure for Measure (RADA), The Mikado, Grease (Warminster Athenaeum), Much Ado About Nothing (Merlin Theatre, Frome), Antigone (The Egg, Theatre Royal Bath) and Beauty and the Beast (Frome Memorial Theatre).
Film includes Tulip Fever.
Felicity Davidson | Rifkele/Hindel
Theatre includes The Magic Flute (International Tour for Budapest Festival Orchestra), Starlore for Beginners (Theatre503), Ten Women (Avignon, The Vaults and Ovalhouse), Fracture (HighTide Festival Theatre), Broken Glass (Vaudeville Theatre), Strands (Theatre 503), Maximus and Audencia (Bush Theatre), Dexterity (Coalition at Theatre 503), L’Ecume des Jours (Avignon), Bloody Poetry, Wanda’s Visit (White Bear Theatre), The Beggar’s Opera (The Cobden Club) and Crescendos in Blue (Maison Française d’Oxford).
Film includes Succubus, Love in the Post and The View from the Window.
Paul Foulds | Holy Rabbi/Hersh/ Lawyer
Theatre includes Sleuth (Ambassadors Theatre), The Bed Before Yesterday (Lyric Theatre), The Mousetrap (Norway Tour), Move Over Mrs Markham, There’s A Girl In My Soup (Stockholm) and The Comedy of Errors (The Space).
Television includes Dempsey and Makepiece, The Bill, Boon and Airline.
Richard Gibson | Soskin
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include Free As Air.
Theatre includes Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Winslow Boy (Bristol Old Vic), A Christmas Carol (Birmingham Rep), She Stoops To Conquer (Haymarket Theatre, Leicester), The Winslow Boy (Lyric Hammersmith), Dogg’s Hamlet, The Real Inspector Hound (Palace Theatre, Watford), French Without Tears (Greenwich Playhouse), The Browning Version, Crooked Wood, Cowardy Custard (Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford), Follow the Star (Chichester Festival Theatre), In Praise of Love (King’s Head Theatre), In Praise of Rattigan (Bath), Salad Days, Don’t Look Now, (Southwold), Cymbeline (Minack Theatre), The Dame of Sark (Windsor), Candida (Boulevard Theatre), St Patrick’s Day (World’s End Theatre), Bulldog Drummond (Nuffield, Southampton), Death by Fatal Murder (National Tour), Blue/ Orange (National Tour) and Allo! Allo! (UK and Australia Tours and London Palladium).
Film includes The Go-Between, England Made Me, Omagh, The Key to Rebecca, The Legend of St Patrick and The Birthday.
Television includes Toast of London, ’Allo! ’Allo!, The Gate of Eden, The Tempest, The Coral Island, Armchair Detective, The Children of The New Forest, My Father’s House, Wainwright’s Law, Prospects, Secret Diaries, Four on Four, The Upper Hand, Park Ranger, Hadleigh, Poldark and Penmarric.
Michael Gilbert | Reb Itsche/ Jacob/Yankev
Trained at Oxford School of Drama.
Theatre whilst training includes All My Sons, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Country Wife and Children of the Sun.
Jessie Lilley | Manke/Sarah
Trained at LIPA.
Theatre includes Measure for Measure (Shakespeare’s Globe), Double Falsehood (Union Theatre and Charing Cross Theatre), Robin Hood (Newbury Corn Exchange), The Man Inside (Cheltenham Everyman and Landor Theatre), Cinderella (Hexagon Theatre Reading), Julius Caesar (Shakespeare’s Globe) and Generation of Z (Riverside Studios).
Theatre whilst training includes As You Like It, The Vagina Monologues and After Mrs Rochester.
Vocal work includes recordings for Starlight Express (National Tour).
Fiz Marcus | Jachne-Braine
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include Enduring Freedom and A Man With Connections.
Theatre includes Amy’s View and Sweet Revenge (Theatre Royal Windsor), Confessions of A City and Suitcase City (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield), Star Quality (Apollo Theatre and National Tour), A Kind Of Alaska (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond), In Extremis (National Tour), The Lady In The Van (Hull Truck National Tour), Equus (National Tour), On Saturdays This Bed Is Poland (Tour), Occupied (Theatre503), Good People (English Theatre Frankfurt), Life After (New End Theatre, Hampstead), A Small Family Business, Enduring Freedom and The Stronger (Chichester Festival Theatre) The Rise And Fall of Little Voice (Sheringham Little Theatre), My Matisse (Jermyn Street Theatre), Private Lives (Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke), Red Princess (Warehouse Theatre, Croydon) and Four Portraits – Of Mothers (Bridewell Theatre).
Film includes Stained, Heckle, Swinging with The Finkels, A Bout De Truffe, The Penalty King, Oxford Park, Out of Breath, Suzie Gold and Leon The Pig Farmer.
Television includes Skins, EastEnders, Holby City, Jekyll, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, Mayo, Wild West, Life and Death, The Bill and The Sharp End.
David Palmstrom | Reb Chaim/ Aaron/Well-Dressed Man
Trained at Drama Centre London. Theatre includes Don Carlos (Blue Elephant Theatre), Spring Awakening, The Ghost Train (Brockley Jack Studio Theatre), Twelfth Night (National Tour) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare in the Park).
Film includes Demon and Hereafter.
James Pearse | Chone
Theatre includes Hamlet (National Theatre), Henry VIII, The Crucible (Royal Shakespeare Company), Measure for Measure (Theatre Royal Plymouth and National Tour), Much Ado About Nothing (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Our Song (National Tour), The Taming of the Shrew (Salisbury Playhouse), Simon is a London Lad (Rose Theatre, Bankside), A Man Who Lost His Mind (White Bear Theatre), Confetti (Lost Theatre), Lot’s Journey (New End Theatre, Hampstead), The Case of the Frightened Lady (National Tour), As You Like It (Arundel Shakespeare Festival), The Caretaker (National Tour), A Weapons Inspector Calls (Pleasance London), A Christmas Carol (Gala Theatre, Durham), Hair of the Dog (De La Warr Pavilion), Chatterton, Family, High Jumpers (New End Theatre, Hampstead), Criminal Acts (Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke), Gangster No 1 (King’s Head Theatre) and The Caretaker (Comedy Theatre).
Film includes Hotel, Flowers, Shiner and Slow Exposure.
Television includes Doctor Who, Rogue Nana, Bunny Town and Inspector Lynley Mysteries.
Sid Sagar | Judke
Theatre includes The Oresteia, The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare’s Globe), The History Boys (National Tour), True Brits (Bush Theatre and Pleasance London), Eternal Love (English Touring Theatre and Shakespeare’s Globe), Orpheus and Eurydice (National Youth Theatre at The Old Vic Tunnels) and The Venetian Twins (C Venues).
Film includes Karma Magnet. Television includes The Hollow Crown, The Lost Honour and Lee Nelson’s Well Good Show.
Andrew Young | Reb Faivish/ Newcomer
Trained at Mountview.
Theatre includes Measure for Measure (Shakespeare’s Globe), Dracula (Italian Tour), Henry IV Part I (Rose Theatre, Bankside, and St James Theatre Studio), In the Thrice Ninth Kingdom (Tristan Bates Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (The Lord Chamberlain’s Men), 84 Charing Cross Road (National Tour) and Hobson’s Choice (National Tour).
Film includes Bill and Down Dog.
Omar Cham | Boy 2
This is Omar’s professional stage debut.
Couper Horton | Boy 3
This is Couper’s professional stage debut.
Film includes The Eucharist.
Joseph Lambrou | Boy 2
This is Joseph’s professional stage debut.
Deniz Ozer | Boy 1
This is Deniz’s professional stage debut.
Ediz Ozer | Boy 3
This is Odiz’s professional stage debut.
Amari Webb-Martin | Boy 1
Theatre includes Monsters of the Marshes (Hackney Empire).
David Pinski | Playwright
Playwright David Pinski (1872-1959) was a Russian-born playwright and novelist. He was one of Yiddish theatre’s most notable dramatists, as well as one of its most prolific. During the course of his lifetime, he wrote over sixty plays including The Last Jew, or The Zvi Family, and The Eternal Jew. He also wrote the novel The House of Noah Edon. Having grown up in a cosmopolitan family in Moscow, Pinski lived in Switzerland, Vienna and Berlin before emigrating to America in 1899, where he lived for fifty years before moving to Israel in 1949. In America, he was an active member of Jewish cultural and political life, and was president of the Jewish National Workers’ Alliance from 1920 to 1922, and president of the Jewish Culture Society from 1930 to 1953.
Treasure, or Der Oytser, is a classic of Yiddish theatre. Written in 1906 and first performed in 1912, it remained popular in the Yiddish repertoire until the 1940s – most notably, Max Reinhardt’s production in Germany in 1919, an English-language version on Broadway in 1920, as well as a production staged in the Vilna Ghetto in 1943.
The first professional production in Yiddish theatre occurred in a wine garden in Romania in 1876, and there followed an explosion of playwriting, with a roster of famous actors performing in the Yiddish theatres that were established all over Eastern Europe, as well as in America and the UK, especially in London, Manchester and Glasgow. Well known works first written in Yiddish include The Dybbuk, The Golem and the works of Sholem Aleichem, later immortalised in the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof. The influence of Yiddish theatre in 20th century arts was far reaching including such varied names as Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, Paul Muni, Danny Kaye, Mel Brooks, Clifford Odets, Harold Clurman, Sidney Lumet, Franz Kafka, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Leonard Nimoy.
Colin Chambers | Adaptor
Colin is Emeritus Professor of Drama at Kingston University. Colin was Literary Manager of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1981 to 1997, and has also been a journalist and theatre critic. He is co-author with Richard Nelson of Kenneth’s First Play and Tynan (both Royal Shakespeare Company), and he selected and edited for performance Three Farces by John Maddison Morton, which were produced at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond. As well as editing the Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre, Colin has written extensively on the theatre including Other Spaces: New Writing and the RSC, Playwrights’ Progress (with Michael Prior), The Story of Unity Theatre, Peggy: The Life of Margaret Ramsay, Play Agent (winner of the inaugural Theatre Book Prize), Inside the Royal Shakespeare Company, Here We Stand: Politics, Performers and Performance – Paul Robeson, Isadora Duncan and Charlie Chaplin and Black and Asian Theatre in Britain: A History.
Alice Malin | Director
Theatre includes The Fever (Old Fire Station Theatre, Oxford), fiji land (Southwark Playhouse and Burton Taylor Studio, Oxford), Fluxorama (Theatre 503), Freefall: A Double Bill (New Wimbledon Theatre), Diggers (Theatre503) In The Garage (Southwark Playhouse), Baggage (Soho Theatre), Loot (Cockpit Theatre), Seven (George Tavern), The Ones Who Kill Shooting Stars (White Bear Theatre) and The Bird Trap (Lost Theatre).
Assistant Direction includes Measure for Measure (Shakespeare’s Globe), Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare’s Globe and National Tour), Play Strindberg (Theatre Royal Bath), Intimate Apparel (Theatre Royal Bath), Dancing at Lughnasa (Theatre Royal Northampton), Where the Mangrove Grows (Theatre503) and Roots (Clwyd Theatr Cymru).
Rebecca Brower | Designer
Trained at Central School of Speech and Drama.
Rebecca was the winner of The Stage Design Award and the Equity Young Members Bursary Award in 2012.
Theatre includes Coming Up (Palace Theatre, Watford), Beegu (artsdepot), Dad Dancing (BAC), Struileag (Glasgow Green), Idylls of The King (Oxford Playhouse), Tender Loving Care (New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth), Canterbury Tales (Palace Theatre, Watford), Pursue Me (The Place), This Child (Bridewell Theatre), Lord of the Flies (Oxford Playhouse), Heartbreak Beautiful, Hello Dolly (Palace Theatre, Watford), Hamlet (Rose Theatre, Bankside), I DO I DO (Riverside Studios) and Gypsy Bible (National Tour for Opera North).
Associate Designs include Peter Pan (Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park), Bugsy Malone (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith), The Great North Run Millionth Runner Ceremony (Newcastle Great North Run), The Roof (National Tour for Fuel and the National Theatre).
As assistant to Jon Bausor, theatre includes Lord of the Flies (Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park), Hang (Royal Court Theatre), The James Plays (National Theatre and the National Theatre of Scotland), Mametz (National Theatre Wales), The Believers (Frantic Assembly), Catch 22 (Northern Stage), Ghost Stories (Arts Theatre), The Little Mermaid (Bristol Old Vic), Hansel and Gretel (Royal Opera House, Linbury Studio) and Firebird (Oslo Opera House).
Rebecca was on the Design Team for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Isobel Howe | Lighting Designer
Theatre includes Future for Beginners (Wales Millennium Centre), Write at the Heart (Southwark Playhouse), Colin (Peckham Asylum), blue/orange (Sherman Cymru, Cardiff), Il Barbiere Di Siviglia (St Peter’s College Chapel, Oxford), Ladies and Gentlemen (Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff) and Marsha (Capital Fringe Festival, Washington DC).
Assistant Lighting Designs include Man to Man (Wales Millennium Centre and Edinburgh Fringe Festival).
Pete Malkin | Sound Designer
Trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Theatre includes The Encounter (Complicité), Unearthed (National Tour), Am I Dead Yet (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh), War Correspondents (National Tour), The Commission/Café Kafka, SUNThe NoiseSpace JunkFarragut North