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Tovah Feldshuh Does
About Face In `Maidel'
MICHAEL ELKIN
Special to The Jewish News
Tovah Feldshuh
I
n ten years, Tovah
Feldshuh has been trans-
formed from a yeshivah
butcher (Yentl) - to A Shayna
Maidel, her current role in
the Philadelphia Drama
Guild's season-opening prod-
uction.
Feldshuh's transformation
from "boy" to "girl" has been
in theater. The evolvement
from novice to established
and respected veteran actress
has been even more dramatic,
taking in all the media.
From television (Holocaust)
to film (Cheaper to Keep Her)
and onto Broadway (Sarava),
Feldshuh has left a trail of
critical kudos in her wake.
Once the audience applause
dies down, there are ac-
colades she earns from her
family. Happily married to
an attorney and the mother
of a toddler, Feldshuh finds
home life as compelling a
proscenium as the one lit by
footlights.
She also welcomes the
opportunity to serve center
stage as activist and fund
raiser on behalf of many
Jewish causes, notably Soviet
Jewry. Feldshuh has been a
frequent visitor to Philadel-
phia on behalf of those con-
cerns.
It has been an active life
indeed for a woman once
known to her high school
friends as Terry Sue
Feldshuh. She changed that
name, she recalls, when a
boyfriend, "who was not
Jewish," questioned what
kind of name Terry Sue was
for a nice Jewish girl. "Why
not use your Hebrew name
instead?" he wanted to know.
Did the change of name
also change her professional
path? Did it restrict her to
ethnic roles, as evidenced by
Yentl, Holocaust and The
Great Triangle Factory Fire, a
telemovie?
"It has given a direction to
my career," she admits. "I
find myself representing my
ethnic group within the
mainstream of America.
When I was younger, I didn't
want to be typecast."
That may explain why she
turned down a role in the re-
cent New York production of
The Golden Land, a musical
celebration of Yiddishkeit.
Feldshuh has won her case,
she thinks, earning diverse
roles to ward off typecasting.
"I have never been or felt re-
stricted in my roles," she
says.
Which is why she feels free
enough now to portray Lusia,
the Holocaust refugee of
playwright Barbara Lebow's
Maidel, who arrives in
America to reunite with the
SERVING BREAKFAST • LUNCH • DINNER
father and younger sister she
barely knew in Poland.
to
speaks
Feldshuh's concern for her
heritage. "I did a lot of re-
search for the play at the
Simon Wiesenthal Center in
Los Angeles, read books
about the Holocaust, saw
Image Before My Eyes, a film
about Polish Jews during the
war." She shakes her head.
"The mind cannot really
comprehend what happened."
Maidel
Feldshuh is hoping A
Shayna Maidel will have a
shayna afterlife, with a
possible Broadway engage-
ment. She is confident. "I
think this play will explode,"
she says.
Documentary Shows
Jews Resisted Nazis
HEIDI PRESS
Local News Editor
Trees are very special to
Jews, especially this month
(Shevat), when we celebrate
the New Year of Trees, Tu
B'Shevat. In Israel, trees are
important to the land de-
velopment and reclamation
process. And in Aviva Kemp-
ner's impressive, new,
documentary film, Partisans of
Vilna, we learn that trees pro-
vided home and refuge to Jews
who chose to defend them-
selves against their Nazi tor-
mentors.
The film, which took nearly
six years to complete, tells the
story of Jewish resistance to
the Nazis in Vilna, Lithuania,
at the height of World War II.
Although narrated by Roberta
Wallach, the subtitled film's
story is actually told by the
partisan survivors.
The survivors tell their
tales, tearfully, in Yiddish,
Hebrew and heavily-accented
English in this 130-minute
film, which will be shown 7 and
9:30 p.m. today and Saturday
at the Detroit Film Theater of
the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Among the survivors is Abba
Kovner, a leader of the Vilna
partisan movement and today
one of Israel's leading poets,
and Chajka Grossman, a
former courier who is now a
member of the Knesset. Film
clips from the YIVO Institute
for Jewish Research and Yad
Vashem highlight the color
film. Of added interest is some
amateur footage taken clan-
destinely by Vilna survivors,
since Kempner's film crew was
denied access to the city by the
Soviets.
Partisans of Vilnais inform-
ative, without being shocking
or explicit. What's touching
about the film is the delicacy
with which Kempner and her
director, Josh Waletzky; treat
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Closed Sun.
Fri. & Sat. 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.
the survivors they interview.
There is no coercion, no push-
ing, and when it looks to be too
painful for the subjects to con-
tinue, the interview is over.
Peppered throughout the
soundtrack are partisan
themes, especially the famous
anthem, The Partisans Song.
Viewers of the film will in-
evitably be left with questions.
One may ask why the Vilna
Jews chose to take up arms
when they were so frightfully
outnumbered. Kovner, who
also was a consultant to the
film, responds: "The only
choice we had was self-
defense."
Partisans of Vilna fills a void
in the sphere of knowledge
available about the resistance
movement. It shows that Jews
defended their rights to live as
human beings, as Jews.
It is a tribute to those who
survived, but more impor-
tantly, to those who died fight-
ing the Nazi terror, for it keeps
alive their memory and makes
clear that not all Jews accepted
their fate at the hands of the
Germans Some fought back.
Harbinger Concert
Premiers Work
"Waiting for the Echo," a
new work by Laurie
Eisenhower, will premiere at
Music Hall Center in Detroit
during Harbinger's concert
series 8 p.m. Feb. 20 and Feb.
21 and 2 p.m. Feb. 22.
Another highlight of Har-
binger's program is "Belle Isle
Days," choreographed in 1976
by Harbinger's founding artis-
tic director Lisa Nowak. Dan
Wagoner's "Round This World,
Baby Mine" and "The Window"
by Dale Andre will complete
the program.
Tickets are available at the
Music Hall Box office, 963-
7680 or at Ticket World out-
lets.
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