A DYBBUK is the story of a gifted rabbinical student named Chonen who begins dabbling in the mystical text of the Kabbalah. He seeks to use it to prevent the arranged marriage of the girl he is in love with, Leah. Instead, it causes him to die and to inhabit her body. What follows is a wonderful supernatural investigation as to why Chonen has become 'a dybbuk' and how to seperate him from Leah without killing her. I really enjoyed it.

I'm a Kushner fan, and that's what led me here. I thoroughly admired what he did in freely adapting Pierre Cornielle's L'ILLUSION COMIQUE into THE ILLUSION. This DYBBUK another triumph of translation. As a goy (a non-Jew), I had no problem following the parts of the play that delved into Chassidic (their spelling) culture and Jewish law.

Speaking of translation, several other short stories by -- and folk tales collected by -- S. Ansky are included. They are interesting and provide a sort of background to the play. They are bittersweet in that most of them are joyful and about songs, but they are also final traces of a European Jewish culture that, after the terrors of Hitler, can never exist as it once did.

The stories are only a few pages each and read as if they were originally written in English, which is the best you can ask of a translation. Two are in trocaic tetrameter. One is a take off on the book of Revelations. Many of them deal with the origin of songs, or legends about Baal Shem Tov.

But the play is the main thing. It's a great story and Kushner overlays it with philosophical and theological dimensions that will please fans of ANGELS IN AMERICA. For those interested in Yiddish theater, and those who are fans of Kushner, I wholeheartedly recommend A DYBBUK. 5/5 stars.