Last Playwright

Where to begin? An acquaintance mentioned him. But I don't know anything about Tuvia Tenenbom except what I've read. Never met him. Never saw any of his plays. I'm not much of a theatergoer these days.

After reading his "Letter From Poland" and watching his video posted on YouTube, however, I plan to see "Last Jew in Europe," his latest play, when it opens in New York.

How could I not? Tenenbom, who is the artistic director of the Jewish Theater of New York, apparently has a combination of brains and balls rarely found in the world, let alone in the world of the theater.

(Here's a review of his previous play -- billed as a "theatrical journey into the pleasures of chaos" -- "The Last Virgin." Love his titles.)

I'll admit when I read that "Last Jew" -- billed as a tragicomedy on racism and self-hate -- is "the story of love between a young Polish Jew and his Christian fiancée," I thought, Uh-oh. Wait a minute. Here come da schmaltz. But then I read on and was reassured:

Blood and vodka flow on stage, accompanied at times by disco music, as characters move deeper and deeper into their fears, hatred of the foreign, illusions and delusions. Crosses amass on the ground; some portray crucified young females nailed onto them, others young Hasidic males. As time passes, fire engulfs stage, burnt papers fly aimlessly, and images of anti-Semitic graffiti pop in & out of sight, dreamily mingling with the smoke.

Sounds promising. A real spectacular, no? "Last Jew in Europe" is scheduled to open on Feb. 7 at a theater in Manhattan, still to be announced.

Postscript: Word comes that the production is to open on March 4, 2007, at The Triad Theater (158 W. 72nd St., between Amsterdam and Columbus Aves.). Triad tel: 212.362.2590. JTNY tel: 212.494.0050

And just in case you missed the YouTube link:

November 28, 2006 10:11 AM |

Categories:

Me Elsewhere

'WILD SIDE' STILL ROCKS 

Nelson Algren was one of the great American authors of the 20th century, it is no exaggeration to say, and among the most neglected. Consider his underrated classic, "A Walk on the Wild Side." The title -- popularized and co-opted as an idiomatic phrase by Hollywood and Madison Avenue (institutions Algren loathed) -- is familiar to most anyone who speaks English or knows Lou Reed's lyrics. But the novel itself? Hardly.

BUSTER KEATON REVISITED 
Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat is not a biography. "This book is merely a fan's notes," Edward McPherson writes in the introduction, although his publisher ignores the disclaimer and calls it a biography on the cover. In fact, the book is a bit of both, a difficult combination to bring off unless you're David Thomson, who set the standard with Rosebud, his penetrating rumination on the life and career of Orson Welles, which was nothing if not a distillation of every obsessive thought he ever had about the myth and the man and all his movies.
LAUREN BACALL, STILL SALTY AT 80 
When Lauren Bacall writes that her singing voice ranges "somewhere between B minus sharp and outer space," she's being candid and funny. It's not every stage star with two Tony Awards for best actress in a musical whose vocal talent offers so little promise. (OK, Harvey Fierstein excepted.) Still less would one admit it.
THE STARS ACCORDING TO BOGDANOVICH 
Peter Bogdanovich's superb collection of movie-star profiles and interviews -- a sequel to Who the Devil Made It, his interviews of top film directors -- begins with an affectionate tale about Orson Welles that reminds us just how intimate the author's connection to Hollywood's greatest has been. But contrary to what we've come to expect from dime-a-dozen celebrities and celebrity interviews not worth two cents, the tale avoids bromidic egotism and journalistic platitudes.
SAMMY'S WHITE DREAMS 
Four decades ago Lenny Bruce sentenced Sammy Davis Jr. to "30 years in Biloxi," stripping him of "his Jewish star" and "his religious statue of Elizabeth Taylor." Now we have two new biographies of Davis that spring him from ridicule, if not from doubts about his legacy, and restore a measure of dignity to a black entertainer whose huge fame and success never overcame his devout wish -- indeed his lifelong effort -- to be white.
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This page contains a single entry by Straight Up | published on November 28, 2006 10:11 AM.

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