1 min read
It is billed as a comedy, but there is also a hard edge to They Came to Leeds.
New arrivals from der heim think they have found heaven near Leeds city centre, and therein lies much of the humour. No more Cossacks, no more pogroms. But it does not take long before they come face to face with street violence aimed at "bloody Jews", shouts of "go back to Palestine!"and stones being thrown at funeral processions. The dream is shattered.
The play is set in 1888, during the big influx of immigrants from eastern Europe. But it was written and first performed in 1950. At that time, in the wake of the Holocaust and the founding of the Israel, its central theme would have been all the more poignant. Should the Jews of Leeds interpret literally the biblical imperative to take an eye for an eye and fight back against antisemitism? Or should they take it lying down?
They Came to Leeds was a collaboration between Alec Baron - who wrote scripts for Coronation Street - and local historian Louis Saipe, and is based on true events of pitched battles in "Sheenie" Park, in North Street, and on Woodhouse Moor.
It has rarely been performed since, and copies of the play are hard to come by. But it was specially adapted and shortened to just over an hour by Harry Venet for this amateur production by the Limelight Drama Group, and performed as part of the Leeds International Jewish Performing Arts Festival, to mark 150 years of Jewish life in the city.
Performances were at the Northern Ballet theatre, on the edge of what locals still remember as The Leylands - the slum area where the first Jews in Leeds took refuge and where the play is set.
Alec Baron's widow Judith gave Limelight an original script to work from, and free rein to alter it. And she was there to see the first night.
A vast cast of almost 20 - the full show has even more characters - lurched happily between Leeds and Yiddish accents as they played out the love story between Jack Simon (Simon Glass) and Rose Benjamin (Hayley Warner). Simmering violence between Jews and "the hooligans" threatens to wreck their chupah, and the bride is left waiting as her groom goes off to join the fight. Sadly the action here is off-stage rather than on.
It was very much a community event, with guest appearances from chazan Anthony Gilbert, from the Etz Chaim Synagogue, and a local klezmer band. The house was packed and very lively. The audience had flocked to see their own people doing their own show. For many it truly was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put their own heritage on stage, and the audience was not slow in showing its appreciation.