BY BEN WINTERS
In the last installment of ArtsLine, I reported on the
mini-fracas around the current production of Fiddler on the Roof;
in summary, a writer in the Los Angeles Times criticized the production
for having too few Jewish actors (and an overall lack of chutzpah); the
criticism was reported by Michael Reidel in the New York Post; one thing
led to another, and director David Leveaux punched Reidel at a party.
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It’s one of those rare behind-the-scenes theatre
stories that are so much fun, you hate for them to end. And now—miracle
of miracles—there is more to report, sort of. David Mamet, the brilliant
and brilliantly prickly Chicago Jewish playwright and filmmaker, sat for
an interview recently with the San Francisco Bay Guardian to promote his
new movie, Spartan, and his new book, “Five Cities of Refuge:
Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy,”
co-authored with a rabbi named Lawrence Kushner.
The author of the Bay Guardian piece, Josh Kun, reports
that Mamet’s first question was to ask him what shul he goes to.
(Shul means synagogue). Kun is cute about it—“Am I really
having this conversation with David Mamet? Is David Mamet really making
me feel guilty for not going to shul? Is David Mamet actually making me
use the word shul in a sentence?”—but Mamet is clearly serious
about Judaism, the theatre, and Hollywood.
Asked about an essay of his called “The Jew for
Export,” Mamet asserts that there are certain parts that require
a Jewish actor to “[play] a role to which it is essential that they
be a Jew. There is something essential to the role which is essentially
Jewish and the person who’s been cast in the role doesn’t
understand.” Mamet does not say whether he’s seen Fiddler
on Broadway, which features the Italian Alfred Molina as Tevye; but he
does say that the best non-Jewish actors are “[a]ll the Italians.
Al Pacino or Bobby DeNiro can play a Jew anytime.”
Complicating matters further, Mamet concedes that in
The Human Stain (from the novel by the great Jewish novelist Phillip Roth)
Anthony Hopkins did a great job pretending to be a Jew pretending to be
an African-American. “Anthony Hopkins is a genius,” Mamet
tells Kun. “He played Zorro’s father, for Chris sake. If he
wanted to play Belgium, I’d probably believe him.”
It’s called “acting,” Mr. Mamet.
BEANTOWN BOOM
We also recently reported on a theatre building boom
in Washington, D.C., where at least four major theatres are renovating
or rebuilding in the months ahead.
Next up is Boston, if you can trust the Boston Herald
(which might be the only paper left we can trust, after the most recent
lying-reporter scandal, involving USA Today’s Jack Kelley). On March
17, the Herald’s Robert Nesti wrote, “In the next 18 months,
eight new theatres with more than 4,000 seats will open in Greater Boston,
ranging from the 2,500-seat Boston Opera House, large enough for Broadway
blockbusters, to intimate 'black boxes’ designed for experimental
theatre and dance. That means a lot more choice for Boston theatre-goers.”
By the way, those concerned with the fate of the Boston
Ballet (they were evicted from their home at the Wang Center just before
last Christmas’s Nutcracker due to lackluster ticket sales) can
take heart; a five-year extension of the Ballet’s contract with
the Wang was announced on March 18.
AL-AHRAM WEEKLY SAYS BOO
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We have two theatrical satires on U.S. foreign policy
to report, in two hotbeds of anti-George W. fervor: Cairo, Egypt, and
Manhattan, New York.
The New York Times reported on March 18 about the latest
theatrical sensation in Egypt, “a harshly anti-American show called
Messing With the Mind, [which] has been sold out nightly since it opened
in late January for what was originally to be a two-week run.” The
play is about all sorts of things, says the Times: “the Arab-Israeli
dispute, the inability of young people to afford marriage, the dubious
appeal of American goods and the mushrooming of satellite television news
networks. But it focuses on the American occupation of Iraq and possibly
beyond with biting sarcasm.”
The article offers an example of that satire: “The
show is interrupted by advertisements for products like Condoleezza Margarine—'It’s
a real problem solver’—and a steroid drink called Colin Power.
Just one sip allows you to “trounce four men and conquer four women.”
Maybe you had to be there. Or be Egyptian. Or…something.
I looked for pieces on the play in the Egyptian press,
expecting, perhaps, to find enthusiastic celebrations of its anti-American
themes. But in Cairo’s Al-Ahram Weekly, columnist Nehad Selaiha
(a woman), dismisses Al-Le’b fil Demagh (that’s the title
in Arabic) as “an agit-prop play…on an intractable subject
that has become our bitter daily bread—us and the US, or, more accurately,
us and the western other, forgetting how together we have forged a wonderful,
enlightened culture over centuries, despite the shambles of history.”
Watching the play, she writes, “I remembered the vicious circle
of misunderstanding that has bedeviled us since 11 September.”
For more evidence that pointed political satire is not
always the funniest thing, ask actor/director/activist Tim Robbins, whose
play Embedded recently opened at the Public Theatre. The show “advertises
itself as a satire of censorship and deception in press coverage of the
war in Iraq,” says the Village Voice, and there’s no surprise
there—Robbins, along with his wife Susan Sarandon and his Mystic
River co-star Sean Penn, is a well-known member of Hollywood’s Michael
Moore Wing. Unfortunately, even the Voice, which generally likes anything
that hates Bush, hated Robbins’ play: Alexis Soloski basically calls
it a big mess, with a “script as concerned with wringing pathos
from the plight of U.S. troops as with impishly deriding the Bush cabinet.”
Glass of Colin Power, Mr. Robbins?