PAVED WITH GOLD (1996) Sun-Sentinel Review

Jewish Musical Glistens With Gold For All

January 10, 1996

By BILL von MAURER Special to the Sun-Sentinel

Say "ethnic theater" and its promoters and enthusiasts have a Pavlovian reaction: Despite this or despite that (usually the language problem), they say, you don't have to be this or that "to enjoy it."

In the case of the musical Paved With Gold, "you don't have to be Jewish" is the appropriate buzz phrase to reassure the general public that it is safe to risk $26 for its special brand of entertainment. Not that Paved With Gold needs wider box office support. It is a hot ticket among South Florida's Jewish theatergoers.

Janice Waldman & Gary Waldman in PAVED WITH GOLD

Seventy-five percent (my estimate) of the songs and dialogue in Paved With Gold are in Yiddish. No need to worry. They could be in Tibetan for that matter, thanks to the two-character cast of the man and wife singing and dancing team of Gary and Janice Waldman. Their great voices, dynamic energy and whirlwind personalities knock down all barriers, ethnic or linguistic, to two hours of sheer pleasure.

Paved With Gold is a tribute to Yiddish theater excerpted from three beloved musicals: The Golden Land; On Second Avenue and Those Were The Days, all created by Zalmen Mlotek and Moishe Rosenfeld.

The result is never mired in sentiment or nostalgia. This is get-up-and-go entertainment with the Waldmans' always having their eyes on the show's amazing pace.

They tell the story of two young Jewish refugees from Russia - who fall in love, of course - and their sometimes bruising encounter with their new surroundings in "Amerike."

They take the audience on a tour of Ellis Island; remind them of the pushcart struggle that many endured in early 1900s New York.

They pay a visit to the legendary Yiddish theater that once existed on Second Avenue; recall the Great Depression (Brother Can You Spare A Dime, sung in English) and express their pride in overcoming adversities to achieve success in a land whose streets they discovered, woefully, were not paved with gold. They even do the "Tcharleston!" along the way.

The windup is a stirring patriotic salute: Amerike, Hurrah for Uncle Sem.

Music is by the eight-piece Golden Land Klezmer Orchestra which, for some reason, remains out of sight behind the minimal set.

Bill von Maurer covered theater for more than a decade for The Miami News and is a frequent contributor to The Sun-Sentinel.