Arts & Culture | Theater

Shoah Memories At The Deli Counter

06/18/2013 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

More than half a century after the end of the Third Reich, the Shoah still reverberates in the lives of the survivors’ grandchildren. In Dana Boll’s new play, “Bella’s Dream,” based on the refugee experiences of her paternal grandparents, memories of the Holocaust keep seeping and bleeding into the present.

Guide To The Arts

06/12/2013 | Jewish Week Staff | theater

The Buzz: What's Hot in the Arts

BABS ON FILM

The Architecture Of Memory

06/11/2013 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

Can a building do justice to the horror of the Holocaust? In Oren Safdie’s new play, “False Solution,” an egotistical German-Jewish architect (Sean Haberle) engages in a battle of wits with a sexy blonde intern (Christy McIntosh) over his plans for a new Holocaust memorial in Poland. As the two struggle to find common ground in their visions for the building, each is forced to come to grips with his or her connection to the Shoah. The play begins previews this week in the East Village.

Rescued By Patti LuPone

06/04/2013 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

John Houseman once said that Patti LuPone exudes the “smell of the gallows,” but for one gay Jewish boy from Los Angeles, the star was nothing less than a lifeline. LuPone, famed for playing blistering, brutal Broadway divas, became an obsession for theater artist Ben Rimalower when the teen was struggling with his parents’ divorce, his father’s traumatic coming out, and his own coming of age.

In “Patti Issues,” directed by Aaron Mark, Rimalower charts a rocky, bi-coastal, but ultimately exultant journey from LuPone fan to LuPone friend and collaborator.

Gesher Theater Tackles Singer’s ‘Enemies’

05/28/2013 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

Shattered, soul-less husks, wandering in an alien landscape — such is the impression given by the Holocaust-eviscerated characters in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s 1966 Yiddish novel “Enemies, A Love Story.” Paul Mazursky made a film of it in 1990, starring Ron Silver, Anjelica Huston and Lena Olin.

Russian-Jewish Identity, Lost And Found

05/21/2013 | Ted Merwin | Jewish Week Book Critic | Theater

The struggle to free Soviet Jews was one of the most successful protest movements in history, and it brought close to three-quarters of a million Jews to this country. But just a few decades later, studies show, many Soviet Jews feel alienated from both their Jewish and American identities.