Arts & Culture | Theater

A ‘Sassy’ Jewish Actress, Cured By Globetrotting

04/10/2012 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

After a teacher told her she didn’t have the talent to succeed, Sivan Hadari, an American-Israeli actress who now lives in New York, traveled the world to free herself of debilitating self-doubt.

A Cross-Dressing Judith

04/03/2012 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

She saved her people with an incredible feat of daring and determination. Judith of Bethulia’s seduction and beheading of the Assyrian general Holofernes has inspired paintings, films and countless other works of art. Now comes Charles Busch’s cross-dressing romp, “Judith of Bethulia” at the Theater for the New City, in which the biblical heroine, performed by the playwright, becomes a gleeful combination of Sarah Bernhardt, Mae West and a modern Jewish mother. The 10-member cast includes Jennifer Cody, Jennifer van Dyck, Mary Testa, Billy Wheelan and John Wojda.

Stop, Passover Thieves!

03/27/2012 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

Given the exuberance of the Jewish Festival of Freedom, along with its emphasis on transmitting the Jewish heritage to the next generation, perhaps no holiday is better suited than Passover to being turned into a children’s musical.

LIU Students Revive Play About 1991 Crown Heights Violence

03/26/2012 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

She pioneered a new form of theater by imitating dozens of New Yorkers who played roles in the anti-Jewish riots in Crown Heights. In “Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities,” Anna Deavere Smith brilliantly embodied both black and Jewish subjects, from the Rev. Al Sharpton to Lubavitch Rabbi Shea Hecht.

A Holocaust ‘Myth’ That Can’t Be Washed Away

03/20/2012 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

One of the most horrifying stories to come out of the Holocaust is the one about the Nazis turning Jews into bars of soap. But is it true? In Jeff Cohen’s new play, “The Soap Myth,” which is now in previews Off Broadway, a Holocaust survivor pits his eyewitness version of the truth against historians and museum curators who insist on documentary evidence. The play asks searching questions about how the Holocaust should be remembered and understood in an age in which survivors are dying out and Holocaust deniers spew their own hateful views.

Too Much Jewish Muscle?

03/13/2012 | Ted Merwin | Theater

He added muscle, but it stripped him (so to speak) of his self-esteem. That’s the takeaway from Aaron Berg’s solo show, “The Underbelly Diaries,” in which a twenty-something bodybuilder finds himself performing in clubs as a male stripper — a career that led to stints as both a gigolo and male prostitute. In the show, the playwright reflects on a period in his life in which he learned about a seamy side of American society.