Teibele and Her Demon is no Yentl, the previous dramatization of a fiction by Isaac Bashevis Singer. There was far more atmosphere, inventiveness, and tension in that enterprise….

It is not the easiest—or the soundest—thing in the world to turn a short story into a play. This adaptation … keeps some fascination in the shtetl tale….

But there is a problem with tales on the stage. A short story is essentially longitudinal; with sufficient forward-hurtling momentum, it can almost dispense with other dimensions. But a full-length play is longer; introduces us to palpable characters in a tangible locale; has, in sum, a breadth and thickness that a short story can forgo. It is the excessive linearity, or thinness, that causes some of my discomfort. Why don't we get more of the life of Frampol, a Polish village circa 1880, where the action is laid?

But there is also...