Richard Wagner’s Day of Reckoning
Tom Tugend
June 1, 2006
Was Richard Wagner, Hitler\’s favorite composer, a classical anti-Semite and proto-Nazi or has conventional assumption given him a bad rap?
Category
Theater
The Arrogant Poet You Love to Hate
Robert David Jaffee
June 1, 2006
In \”Pound of Flesh,\” at the Odyssey Theater, Ezra Pound spars with Pvt. Cooper, a young soldier who keeps him company while he awaits trial in Italy for his crimes of treachery against the United States in World War II. If this private is not Pound\’s intellectual match, he more than matches the poet on moral grounds.
Power Begets Madness in ‘Steps’
Robert David Jaffee
May 25, 2006
Michael Halperin, who wrote \”All Steps Necessary,\” a new Holocaust-themed play being staged by the Inkwell Theater, concurs with Milgram. Taking place just after Kristallnacht, his play dramatizes a meeting of Nazi leaders and their formal response to the fallout from the pogrom.
Spectator – A ‘Return’ With Echoes
Robert D. Jaffee
May 18, 2006
While Levitin\’s novel, \”The Return,\” won the PEN Award and National Jewish Book Award, one might ask if this is apt material for a musical.
Levitin had never written a play or even lyrics before, but calls the musical the \”most wonderful, creative form,\” an egalitarian template that can depict and appeal to anyone.
High Ideals and a Hot Bod
Robert David Jaffee
May 11, 2006
Writers as varied as Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott have written of the exotic beauty of Jewish women. But what about Jewish men?
‘Wagging’: My Story as Gay Jewish Male
Eric Gordon
May 11, 2006
A couple of years ago, I heard about an oral history project for older gay men and women that resulted in a staged play. I didn\’t see it, but when Bob Baker, the adapter-director, sent out the call for a new cast, I signed up. We listened to each other\’s stories, wrote up the most telling ones and turned remembered conversations into dialogue. After nine months, out came a play.
Treasury Mainstreams Dramatic Plights
Ethan Kanfer
May 11, 2006
Published plays — especially those in anthologies — tend to be dismissed by the casual browser as specialty items, of interest only to students of theater history or to actors in search of audition material. Ellen Schiff and Michael Posnick clearly had something else in mind when they compiled their lively new collection, \”Nine Contemporary Jewish Plays.\”
‘Cabaret’ Glides Into Shoah-Era Tango
Roberto Loiederman
May 11, 2006
Jewish Tango Cabaret — a performance at the New JCC at Milken in West Hills on Saturday, May 13.
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