romeo and juliet in yiddish

when i was in high school in my modern orthodox jewish high school romeo and juliet  as well as west side story were on the syllabus. i read the cliff's notes version of romeo and juliet because the shakespeare version was so dry. west side story was a modern tale of feuding families which i found much more entertaining.
yesterday i saw the film romeo and juliet in yiddish. i'm not sure that the title really catches the essence of the film. yes this is a film about the telling of romeo and juliet but it is also a tale about what people who grew up only speaking yiddish would think of the shakespeare classic if they grew up in the shtetl of williamsberg, brooklyn or i would even venture to say that if it was your great grandparents who grew up in a very frum shtetl in europe and suddenly heard of shakespeare.
i've  often wondered how isaac bashevis singer has remained such a beloved writer since most of the people who read his books now are jewish but have no clue what frum jewish life is about. singer writes well, but a person really misses out on all of the jewish references if you aren't familiar with orthodox judaism.
many of the audience members at the showing yesterday of romeo and juliet in yiddish were non-orthodox jews over 65. some of them may have actually understood the yiddish, but i can't be sure. i do know that they did not understand the jewish references.  the secular 65+  jew is the typical moviegoer for this type of film but they are not really the target audience.
i am frum, but not necessarily yiddish speaking . after viewing this film i would say i would be more of the target audience for this film. i found that i understood most of the yiddish because it was really frum-speak not actual yiddish or perhaps the frum -speak is mostly  hebrew which is part of yiddish. i found the english subtitles distracting  because they didn't accurately translate the yiddish words that were being spoken.  i found the dialogue hysterically funny.and i was probably the only one in the audience laughing   (because most weren't frum and were over 65).
the film's story is about ava ,a  secular jewish nurse who is also in graduate school and is forced by her advisor to write a production of romeo and juliet in yiddish. ava finds twenty something chassidish juvenile delinquents to help her create this yiddish version of romeo and juliet.
the back story is that the chassidishe dropouts in this film are playing versions of themselves as they are all native chassidishe yiddish speakers. though they are experimenting with a world outside the one they grew up in they haven't completely rid themselves of their chassidishe upbringing. the idea of crab or pork makes them ill even thought they might do drugs or sleep around. because they were so sheltered from american secular culture they haven't even heard of shakespeare or romeo and juliet and in the accent of a greenhorn they mock the story even though they  eventually  realize that it is not as foreign as they think.. romeo and juliet is the story of two feuding families not unlike the satmar and the chabad and  not unlike the struggles these rebels have with their own families.
in dreamy sequences they imagine what it would be like for a satmar and a chabad to fall in love and what their families would say and do. to see portrayal  was laugh out loud funny. its not only a yiddish language  version of romeo and juliet but also a jewish re-imagining of romeo and juliet that has not been brought to us by woody allen or philip roth ( baruch h-shem) the english subtitles do not do the dialogue justice. i'd like to see the film once more to just watch it listening to the yiddish because im sure i missed out on a lot juggling between listening to the spoken words and reading the subtitles.it will also be easier now that i know the storyline.
the chassidishe drop-outs  were played by individuals who attend the chulent group  that gathers every thursday night .
the point of the movie is that there is too much jew vs.jew going on out there even in the frum world and its just as ridiculous as shakespeare's version of it. maybe just maybe the world would be a better place if we could all figure out a way to get along  and perhaps even try to understand where the other person might be coming from.
romeo and juliet in yiddish is playing at lincoln center this week.