A great performer in any language Jewish Chronicle April 17, 1998   Mandy Patinkin, "America's finest entertainer," made a promise to a friend, and kept it -- in Yiddish. Tony Mallerman reports Mandy Patinkin comes across much like the dangerously intense and brilliant doctor, Jeffrey Geiger, he played on television in the award-winning series, "Chicago Hope." On the day I met him in London, the resemblance was reinforced by signs of fatigue, as though the perpetually anguished doctor had just emerged from performing life-saving surgery. He had reason to be tired; this was the final interview of a nine-day lightning tour through Europe -- including Germany, where he'd received his most appreciative response -- during which he had worked on audiences of journalists every day from 7am to 8pm to promote his new album. Though not really well known in Britain, Mandy is a major Broadway star, with a busy television, film and singing career. Clive Barnes, of the New York Post, called him"the greatest entertainer in America." Another respected American newspaper hailed his performance at legendary producer Joseph Papp's off-Broadway Public Theatre as a "tour de force of high-wire emoting," and compared him to Al Jolson, Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand. He won a Tony playing the lead in Stephen Sondheim's "Sunday in the Park with George," and an Emmy for his work on "Chicago Hope." Not bad, I suggest to him. But he is not satisfied. [Webmaster's note: Patinkin won a Tony for Evita, but was only nominated for Sunday in the Park with George.] In recent years, he has been driven by a profound need to work in Yiddish; to fulfill a promise he once made to Papp, that he'd record an album of Yiddish songs. The result is his new album, "Mamaloshen" ("Mother Tongue"), a collection of Yiddish standards and renditions of popular songs by Jewish composers from Irving Berlin to Paul Simon. It is both a return to his roots, and a creative breakthrough for a mainstream American entertainer. Talking about his work, his Judaism and his family, Mandy Patinkin wears his heart on his sleeve. "The task of understanding and learning this music and language was so daunting," he says. "I found every excuse to avoid doing it. But this was a promise I made to my friend, Joe, who by then had gone to heaven, and I knew that it was something I had to do before I got hit by a truck. "It became the most important thing for me -- to pay back my culture for what it had given me: courage, strength, and my ability to be who I am today." Though he comes from a traditional Jewish background on the south side of Chicago and went to Hebrew school every day, temple every Shabbat, and was in the choir on Sundays, and though he has fond memories of his father singing "Yome, Yome" to him, he had virtually no Yiddish. "Maybe a dozen words," he says. But once the decision was taken to make the album, the project consumed and inspired him. In the booklet that accompanies the CD, he pays tribute to all the Yiddish experts and musicians who worked with him on everything from the music itself to the pronunciation of the language. Recording "Mamaloshen," he says, "seemed to become the only professional goal I ever had. Previously, what I cared about was making a living in this business, being a success. But they were adolescent goals." In the preface he's written to the songs (the lyrics and translations of which are included with the disc), the singer observes that songwriters like George Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Oscar Hammerstein, Richard Rodgers, Paul Simon and Irving Berlin never consciously became involved in Jewish music. "But I think all these writers did write Jewish music." When I mention his unusual, even idiosyncratic, vocal skills, with his astonishing, gymnastic ability to slip from counter-tenor to baritone within one brief musical phrase, his response throws me. "I am a musical idiot. I don't know why I sing like I do. You tell me, 'Try this,' and I'll try this. Anything." Surprisingly, he cannot read a note. "My sister was better at the piano than I was, so I quit. But my younger son, Gideon, is the most phenomenal piano-player and singer that I've ever heard in my life, and I get so excited when I hear him play, I have to leave the room." At Juilliard, he studied drama, and what he does is dramatize songs. I suggest to him that every song he performs on the album -- from Bernstein and Sondheim's "Maria" in Yiddish ("Mayn Mirl") to chestnuts like "Rabbi Elimeylekh" -- is a theatrical experience. "In America," he says, "I am sometimes criticized for being over the top, histrionic. But this is who I am." He adds: "When I began learning this Yiddishness, it dawned on me that I was born at the wrong time. This is my music. This is who I am. Yiddish lyrics invite acting." And, in his booklet, he records that while working, he kept hearing the injunction: "You have to do this music. This is your job." It sounded like an obsession. Does he, I wonder, feel a responsibility, being identified with such quintessentially Jewish material? He replies: "Israel's 50th birthday is coming up. I get a call a day to participate in the celebration. I've turned them all down." He takes a scrap of paper he from his wallet. "I want Jews in America to know how I feel. And not only Jews. This is something I said to a reporter when I was in Europe, and it sounds right." He reads the scrap of paper. "I have received countless national and international invitations to participate in the celebration of Israel's 50th birthday. "I have to say that it breaks my heart that I cannot celebrate Israel until Israel has a government that will wholeheartedly celebrate the peace process. When that day comes, I will sing my heart out." Which is exactly what he does on this marvelously enjoyable CD.