Yentl
Rating: 4/5/5
Venue: Marylebone Theatre

Following a 5-star, award-winning run at the Sydney Opera House, Kadimah Yiddish Theatre’s acclaimed production of Yentl transfers to London’s Marylebone Theatre for a strictly limited six-week engagement. This thrilling new bilingual staging reimagines Isaac Bashevis Singer’s revolutionary tale with urgency, intimacy and a vibrant celebration of Yiddish culture. When a young woman dares to defy Orthodox law by disguising herself as a man to study Jewish scripture, she steps into a world alive with possibility and conflict. As Yentl’s search for knowledge deepens, faith, gender, desire and tradition collide—propelling her toward a destiny that challenges every boundary. Bold, lyrical and unapologetically contemporary, Yentl is a powerful story of courage, identity and the fight to live your truth.

Yentl is a story that has transcended :me and despite being set in the 1870s, remains incredibly relevant to a modern society where it is becoming increasingly common for people to be policing each other’s bodies and identities. Set in a Polish Shtetl, the story follows the character of Yentl as she discovers a deep love for learning Jewish scripture and just how far she will go to be able to do so. Historically, only men were allowed to study Talmud and attend Yeshiva (a traditional educational setting for studying Torah and Jewish law), and although that began to change around 1915, this story is set firmly before that point.

Yentl is based off of a short story written by Isaac Bashevis Singer in 1962 called ‘Yentl: The Yeshiva Boy’. It had its first Broadway run in 1975, and was later adapted into the famous Barbara Streisand film in 1983. The film sees the character of Yentl through a lens focused on female empowerment and the feminist struggle against gender roles as she does what she needs to do to get equal opportunities. However, the original short story and many newer adaptations, including this one, centre more heavily on the element of gender dysphoria.

While the whole cast is incredibly talented, Evelyn Krape as ‘The Figure’ was definitely a main highlight for me. Representing the classic Jewish grandmother and the little angel and devil that sit on everybody’s shoulders at the same time, as well as multi-roling other minor characters throughout the show, she provided the comedic relief as well as narrating the show.

The production is bilingual, performed in both English and Yiddish with projected captions to translate the latter. The mixture of languages brings an extra level of authenticity to the production and aids immersion into the story. The fact that the show relies on captioning for translation purposes begs the question as to why the production could not embed accessibility by having creative captioning throughout for all performances.

Right at the end of the play is the only time we hear Yentl referred to as ‘they’. This was a really powerful moment, and suggested that after hiding themselves for so long, the character ended in a comfortably questioning place around gender identity and fluidity, rather than a strict binary transition. I also really liked the symbolism of ‘The Figure’s braid getting longer throughout the show from the moment that Yentl’s braid was cut off, manifesting the lie that continued to grow.

I also want to acknowledge the difficulty in calling a show that uses more than one language and Deputy Stage Manager Ryan Mulgrew did a fabulous job at ensuring the technical elements of the show ran smoothly.

Yentl is a beautiful commentary on queerness and gender identity alongside Jewish history, and I thoroughly recommend catching it while you have the chance!

You can check out Yentl at Marylebone Theatre until 12th April. Tickets available here.

Review by Rachel

**photo credit: Manuel Harlan**