Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

134 Air. Monday and Other Tales of Jewish Amsterdam

Henri de Lagardiere ("He's not dead, he is alive!")...

Lazaro the Herdsman ("My Father a Murderer?")...

Rose Kate ("or the Tragedy of the Blacksmith"). In this immortal genre, "The Two Orphans" form the culmination point. One night a couple of teenage girls are watching the "Two Orphans". On the stage the two orphan girls drift on waves of syrup, from misfortune to calamity. The teenagers are giggling at this sentimental sugar cake, but in the row in front of them, a woman is sobbing as if she has just heard for the first time of the destruction of the Temple. Annoyed by the giggles of the girls, she turns around and reproaches them with tears in her eyes, "How can you spoil my evening so?"

The theatre in French Lane also presents a never ending series of Emil Zola's play "The Pub." The Jewish audience never seems to get enough of the delirium scene. Perhaps this is so because they never drink a drop of alcohol themselves, they prefer pickled herring. After the play, when they leave the theatre they re-enact the scene. "Rats... Rats...Rats. I see nothing but rats..."

At this point there's always some funny relative who advises, "Then take a cat!"

The Tip Top theatre is in Jewish Breestreet. The people so love this theatre, that they call it "Tsip Tsop".That is how one calls a beloved child, not by its official name but by a word that mispronounces it in child-talk.Tsip Tsop, blessed may it be, omein-we-omein.

Others contemptuously call it the peanut theatre because shiploads of peanuts are devoured there daily. After each performance, cleaning women have to shovel tons of