Category
Culture
Watch Your Language
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, with front-runners such as T.S. Eliot, Christopher Fry and Archibald Macleish, there was a concerted effort to revive language in the American theater. The buzzword was \”heightened speech\” and, although all of these writers essentially wrote verse, producers tried to steer clear of the word \”poetry.\” They sensed that American theatergoers would recoil from any attempts to have anything as exotic as that foisted upon them. Just as, at around the same period, when they were risking capital on shows like \”The Most Happy Fella\” and the early works of Gian Carlo Menotti, they avoided the word \”opera.\” Music-drama seemed a safer rubric.
Seder Ceremonies
When the Weber family invites the Wolfson familyfor seder, we are asked to prepare a presentation on some aspect ofthe seder ceremony. The presentation could be a d\’rash, an explanation of whatthe Haggadah is trying to say. But, over the years, our presentationshave also been given as a play, a song, and a take-off on a gameshow.
Love Lessons From ‘The Godfather”
Romantic relationships are confusing. So we search for guidance in many places, including the cinema. We look to movies because they\’re a contemporary cultural experience shared with our closest companions. And we\’re too lazy to read.
Building Bridges Through Teaching
I thought the readers of The Jewish Journal wouldbe interested in one of the many things The Jewish Federation does tobuild bridges between Israel and our community.
The Arts
Lisa Cholodenko\’s edgy debut film, \”High Art,\” won a screenwriting award at Sundance and made the Directors Fortnight at Cannes.
Up Front
If anyone was preordained to be a rabbi, it was Jackie Mason. Born in Sheboygan, Wis., in 1937, the Yiddish-accented comedian comes from four generations of rabbis. All three of his brothers are rabbis. And, once upon a time, Mason himself was a rabbi, teaching Talmud in far-out places like Lathrop, Pa., and Walden, N.C.
George Jean Nathan:
Between about 1910 and 1939, no one in the theater made a move without consulting George Jean Nathan. In the midst of scriveners, hacks and stringers, Nathan was the real thing: an erudite theater critic with more than 20 books to his credit, a fabled association with H.L. Mencken behind him (they co-edited \”the Smart Set\”) and a range of European-bred tastes that gave him a sophistication that few of his colleagues could rival. He not only promoted the early Eugene O\’Neill, but was a close friend of the playwright\’s and his staunchest champion. He elucidated G.B. Shaw for the masses and created the appetite that eventually established Sean O\’Casey.
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