Not online: the recording is held by the project and is not on Media Collections Online, YouTube or archive.org. Everything below is a paraphrase of a machine transcript, the weaker of this site's two transcript layers — see how it was made.
Audio recording of the interviewee Réti in Debrecen, 17 May 2015, the middle file of a three-file session. Kerler asks about the Purim play (the Joseph play) once performed in the village and the region, then about songs from it and from weddings, wedding customs, livelihoods in the village and a few words for goods. He closes with talk of the expedition route.
Kerler opens with a remark on the sound recording, then returns to the Purim play that was performed for about two hours. He asks where it was performed (in the village, in other villages and in town) and how long the performances ran. The answer is that they went on for about a month between Purim and Passover.
Kerler and the interviewee go through the plot of the Joseph play: the recognition scene between Joseph and Benjamin, the brothers' fear, and the famine that drives them to Egypt. Pharaoh's invitation for Joseph's father and family to come is also covered.
Kerler asks for songs from the play; the interviewee gives a garbled fragment and says he is old. They discuss children's Purim visits to houses and short rhymes, then the large play for older lads from the area. Preparations began two or three weeks before Purim and rehearsals took place at the interviewee's home.
The interviewee says a young man from Uhr (?), about eighty kilometres away, taught them the lines. Kerler mentions a great tsadik, and the talk turns to American Jews who came by plane for a yahrzeit three years earlier. Kerler recalls the lad who taught the play and the audience's laughter and tears.
Kerler asks about a mock sermon by a false rabbi and a mock kiddush from the play; the interviewee recites with difficulty and is asked to repeat slowly. Asked for the song about the messiah's feast, he sings a Hungarian song about sitting on the Leviathan's back and the messiah's banquet, then a few Yiddish lines.
Kerler asks who sang such songs; the interviewee says they sang them in the play. He mentions a Turkish-sounding refrain, not Yiddish, and sings a Yiddish song about Jews in the dark, praying for help from the heavens. It also came from the play; the American Yiddish theater is mentioned as a source.
Kerler asks about the four sons of the Haggadah, Chad Gadya and whether it was sung in Hungarian, then for expressions for an uneducated person. The interviewee gives a Hungarian word, then Yiddish expressions meaning not a scholar and not a fool.
After a brief aside, the interviewee says a song was sung at weddings, and Kerler asks who led the singing and whether there was a badkhn. The interviewee answers that the leader differed from wedding to wedding and no special term is recalled. They discuss the mitzvah dance with the bride, Hasidic dancing, men and women kept apart, and married women wearing a sheytl, sometimes covered with a kerchief.
Kerler asks how people in the village made a living. The interviewee says his father had a field and a small shop, which sold food, drink and goods; a pub (shenk) is mentioned. They try for Yiddish names for cucumbers and tomatoes and the interviewee cannot recall one.
Kerler talks about the expedition's plans: they will not travel to Ukraine because of the war, may reach Zhytomyr, and might visit Medzhybizh (?) if time allows. The expedition lasts until 2 June, he promises to come if possible and notes the interviewee's telephone number.