Olympia’s Nomy Lamm pens a play that blends the Book of Esther and U.S. politics

Bernie Sanders is everywhere — more so than ever — since his inauguration mittens captured the imaginations of countless meme-makers.

On Thursday, Temple Beth Hatfiloh’s Purim spiel, a creative retelling of the Biblical book of Esther, casts the venerable Vermont senator as the hero of the piece, “Doikayt Now,” by performer-activist Nomy Lamm.

Uncle Mordie — played with a wig, mittens and a New York Jewish accent by Rabbi Seth Goldstein — teams up with his niece Esther (here referred to as EOC) to defeat the evil Haman, played by Lamm’s partner, Lisa Ganser, and inspired by someone whose name you can undoubtedly guess. (Hint: He was impeached twice.)

This all might sound somewhat sacrilegious to the uninformed, but “Doikayt Now” is part of a long tradition of Purim spiels, clever and often humorous takes on what’s not a happy story. (Haman’s plot to kill the Jewish people is foiled, but there’s a lot of bloodshed in the Book of Esther.)

There’s a Purim spiel in which Kermit the Frog plays Esther’s uncle Mordecai, for instance, and a poetic version inspired by Dr. Seuss.

“One of the things I love about Purim is that we’re invited to be irreverent and laugh and make fun of things,” said Lamm, who’ll be voicing the character of Ruth, a mashup of the Biblical matriarch by that name and the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

The character is “played” by a cardboard cutout of Lamm’s great-grandmother, who resembles Ginsberg, and a drawing of George Washington stands in for the king, voiced by Isaac Lord of Seattle.

Those performances will undoubtedly look stiff (ba-dum-bum, as the Muppets’ Fozzie Bear would say), but the substitution of drawings for human actors makes more sense in the two-dimensional world of online theater than it would on stage.

And that’s not the only way “Doikayt” gets creative with the limitations of virtual theater. Instead of asking actors segregated in squares to pretend they’re in the same space, Lamm tells the tale via interviews for the TV show “Doikayt Now,” a takeoff on the PBS news program “Democracy Now.” (“Doikayt” is a Yiddish word that means “hereness.”)

“There’s something about Zoom theater,” she said. “You would think that it would feel kind of detached, but the way that actors are engaging directly with their screens can make it very intimate.”

And while Lamm clearly relishes the opportunity to make fun — there’s a character based on Jake Angeli, the horned actor who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol — Lamm isn’t playing the show just for laughs.

Instead, “Doikayt” will shift from satire to ritual near the end— something that makes sense if you know that Lamm is a Kohenet, or Jewish priestess, and so are some of the other actors, including New Yorkers Sarah Chandler, a.k.a. Kohenet Shamirah Bechirah, who plays “Doikayt Now” host Amy Mazeltov, and Kohenet YA, a.k.a. Yocheved Angelique Rivera, who plays Esther.

“The best spiels have a message,” Goldstein said. “Nomy has done an incredible job putting this together. It really ties what’s happening on the contemporary political scene into the story of Purim.”

He hasn’t acted in a spiel in quite some time, he said, and he’s excited to be playing a character based on Sanders.

“I’ve dressed up as Bernie in the past,” he said. “Nomy was asking me if I knew of anyone who would fit the part, and I jumped at the chance. It’s fun. It’s not just political. My parents and my grandparents are New York Jews. The voice and the mannerisms have resonance for me.”

‘Doikayt Now: A Purim Spiel for the Current Moment’

• What: Temple Beth Hatfiloh’s “Doikayt Now,” written and directed by Nomy Lamm, puts a political spin on the story of the Book of Esther, traditionally recounted as part of Purim festivities.
• When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 25
• Where: Online
• Register: http://tinyurl.com/DoikaytNow

This story was originally published February 19, 2021 at 5:45 AM.