The Golem, Methuselah, and Shylock

Book excerpt: Edward Einhorn blends absurdist humor with philosophy in these critically acclaimed plays about legendary Jewish figures. Golem Stories retells an old Kabalistic legend. It's a ghost story and a love story, about a childlike clay man who may be a demon inside. In The Living Methuselah, the oldest living man survives every disaster is human history, with the help of his wife Serach, the oldest living woman. But when a doctor tells him he will only live until the end of the play, will this be his final curtain? To find the title character of A Shylock, Jacob Levy interrogates every character in The Merchant of Venice, but oddly Hamlet may know the most-although this Hamlet is a woman. And in One-Eyed Moses and the Churning Red Sea, Rabbi Tzipporah Finestein dreams Moses is a pirate captain, but what do the dreams mean? Two congregants hold the key.