{"id":8983,"date":"2013-08-26T13:47:52","date_gmt":"2013-08-26T19:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=8983"},"modified":"2013-09-05T08:11:23","modified_gmt":"2013-09-05T14:11:23","slug":"broadway-review-a-call-from-the-soul-doctor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/broadway-review-a-call-from-the-soul-doctor\/","title":{"rendered":"Broadway review: A call from the &#8216;Soul Doctor&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By BEN HARRIS<\/p>\n<p>NEW YORK (JTA) &#8212; Few figures in the last hundred years &#8212; if any &#8212; have had as broad an impact on Jewish life as Shlomo Carlebach. Despite the controversies that dogged Carlebach in his lifetime, today there is nary a quarter of the Jewish world where his melodies have not entered the canon, embraced by everyone from Reform summer camps to Brooklyn hasidim.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8987\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SD_Eric_Anderson_Carol_Rosegg.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8987\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8987 lazyload\" title=\"SD_Eric_Anderson_Carol_Rosegg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SD_Eric_Anderson_Carol_Rosegg-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SD_Eric_Anderson_Carol_Rosegg-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SD_Eric_Anderson_Carol_Rosegg-1024x682.jpg 1024w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/200;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8987\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8987  \" title=\"SD_Eric_Anderson_Carol_Rosegg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SD_Eric_Anderson_Carol_Rosegg-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SD_Eric_Anderson_Carol_Rosegg-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SD_Eric_Anderson_Carol_Rosegg-1024x682.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-8987\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eric Anderson as Shlomo Carlebach in the Broadway production &quot;Soul Doctor.&quot; (Carol Rosegg)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Which may be what lends an air of the inevitable to the central dramas of &#8220;Soul Doctor,&#8221; the musical about Carlebach&#8217;s life that opened last week on Broadway.<\/p>\n<p>The show is not a biopic. There is little effort made at a comprehensive portrait of the man and his influence, nor even to stay very true to the historical record. The father-son struggle over Carlebach&#8217;s path in religious leadership, played up to great dramatic effect in the show, is probably untrue. So, I suspect, is the pained struggle (at first) to break with Orthodox modesty strictures and embrace women. And certainly not Carlebach&#8217;s monastic abstention from romantic love in the name of ministering to his &#8220;holy beggars,&#8221; a particularly odd choice by the producers considering the history.<\/p>\n<p>But watching these struggles unfold on stage, one cannot escape the shadow of vindication we all know to be coming. Today there is little that&#8217;s controversial about the life&#8217;s work of Carlebach, even in the deeply conservative corners of Orthodoxy that once shunned him. The minyan of white-shirted Brooklyn haredim who waved their hands to the music at a recent performance are proof enough of that. In the show, Carlebach&#8217;s critics come off as either naive (if well intentioned), angry or ignorant. Whatever the case, they wind up on the wrong side of history.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8988\" style=\"width: 196px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SD_Eric-Anderson_Amber-Iman.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8988\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8988 lazyload\" title=\"SD_Eric-Anderson_Amber-Iman\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SD_Eric-Anderson_Amber-Iman-186x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"186\" height=\"300\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SD_Eric-Anderson_Amber-Iman-186x300.jpg 186w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SD_Eric-Anderson_Amber-Iman-638x1024.jpg 638w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 186px) 100vw, 186px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 186px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 186\/300;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8988\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8988 \" title=\"SD_Eric-Anderson_Amber-Iman\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SD_Eric-Anderson_Amber-Iman-186x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"186\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SD_Eric-Anderson_Amber-Iman-186x300.jpg 186w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SD_Eric-Anderson_Amber-Iman-638x1024.jpg 638w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 186px) 100vw, 186px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-8988\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eric Anderson and Amber Iman as Shlomo Carlebach and the jazz singer Nina Simone on the Broadway production &quot;Soul Doctor.&quot; (Carol Rosegg)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Nevertheless, there&#8217;s much for the fan of Carlebach&#8217;s music (and even the sappy musical theater lover) to savor here. The lustrous arrangements of Carlebach melodies are among the most gorgeous ever done. And there are a number of delicious ironies, like setting Timothy Leary&#8217;s admonition to &#8220;tune in, turn on, drop out&#8221; to the tune of Carlebach&#8217;s &#8220;Lord, Get Me High&#8221;; or Carlebach&#8217;s father announcing he went to Selma to &#8220;pray with his feet&#8221; (a civil rights activist, Heschel plagiarizer AND an opponent of the folk revival? the mind reels); or the rhyming of hora with &#8220;Sodom and Gomorrah&#8221; (I&#8217;m particularly annoyed never to have come up with that one).<\/p>\n<p>Bottom line: If you have more tolerance than I for lyrics that err on the side of cheesy, and more patience for that bewildering Jewish addiction to clapping along on the downbeat (the performance is a veritable clap-athon), &#8220;Soul Doctor&#8221; will not disappoint.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Broadway%20review%3A%20A%20call%20from%20the%20%27Soul%20Doctor%27\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[8792,8790,8795,8788,660,659],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8983"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8983"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9186,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8983\/revisions\/9186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}