The Zulu and the Zayda is a musical play by Howard Da Silva and Felix Leon, with music and lyrics by Harold Rome (his last musical score), and directed by Dore Schary. It was based on a story by Dan Jacobson. Described as a comedy with music, the play has two acts and 18 scenes. Produced by Theodore Mann and Dore Schary, the Broadway production, opened on 10 November 1965 at the Cort Theatre, where it ran for 179 performances. The cast included Menasha Skulnik, Ossie Davis, and Louis Gossett. It also featured Yaphet Kotto in his first Broadway appearance. The production's costumes were designed by Frank Thompson.

Plot

Set in Johannesburg, South Africa, this comedy is about a lively Jewish grandfather (zayda is the Yiddish word for grandfather) who moves to Africa from London, whose family (the Grossmans) hires Paulus, a native (a member of the Zulu tribe), and brother of a family servant, as a companion, and "grandfather sitter." The relationship between the zayda and Paulus, the Zulu, bridges the gulf between black and white, Africa and Europe, and age and youth, as Paulus teaches his new friend local Zulu phrases while he himself learns Yiddish expressions. Eventually, local prejudices interfere, but there is a happy ending. The play description written by C. Burr, included on the original cast album, notes:

Background

Dan Jacobson, the author of the original story upon which this work was based, was born in 1929 in Johannesburg, South Africa, where his family had fled to escape persecution of Jews in Europe. His grandfather had been a rabbi in Lithuania. Many of his stories and novels dealt with issues of prejudice and racism. The original story, "The Zulu and the Zeide", was also the basis of a one-man performance without music, created and performed by Michael Picardie of the Everyman Theater in Cardiff, Wales as part of the 2004 Leeds (UK) International Jewish Theater Festival. Harold Rome was familiar with the Jewish background of "the zayda" because of his own Jewish background, but he was also familiar with African culture since he had been a collector of African art since 1939, eventually bringing together one of the most important collections of such art in the world. Additionally, he was intrigued with African music, resulting in a score that combined elements of music from both African and Jewish cultures. It has been suggested that the reason the production is sometimes referred to as a play with music or a comedy with music, rather than a "musical," is the absence of dance numbers. The play was originally scheduled to open on 9 November 1965, but the massive power outage that hit the northeastern United States that evening forced the opening to be postponed a day.

Cast album

A cast recording of the original production was released by Columbia Records in 1965. The album cover includes a number of Yiddish and Zulu words and expressions used in the play, translated by Harold Rome, including "awuyelelemama," translated as the Zulu equivalent of the Yiddish word, "oy." The album was reissued on CD in 2011 and an MP3 download is available on iTunes.

Musical numbers

The musical numbers and original cast performers, as listed on the 1965 original cast album (Columbia Records, KOL 6480), include: Act I Act II

Opening night cast

The cast and characters on opening night included:

Opening night production credits

The following list includes credits noted on the production's opening night:

Reviews

The New York Daily News called the play "...something to warm the heart, lighten the spirit." Some reviewers noted that this production showed that "the social conscience that had marked" Harold Rome's early works was "still intact," as evidenced by the way this work dealt with racial and religious intolerance. Even reviews that were not completely positive about the production as a whole noted Skulnik's performance. For example, a Time magazine reviewer wrote that: Pearl Harand, who recreated the production as a one-woman performance, interspersing dialogue, story description, and song, described the work as follows: