REVIEW Bitter Friends JET's production poses questions for the audience as well as the United States and Israel. How far can you go with loyalty? One of Metropolitan Detroit's Most Beautiful and Exciting Restaurants Wonderfully Prepared Catering in Your Home, Office or at Our Restaurant NOW APPEARING . . . SUSIE & DAN Tuesday Through Saturday 28875 FRANKLIN RD. at Northwestern Hwy. & 12 Mile Southfield 358-3355 000 g , 1 10Ad TAVERN WHEN YOU COME TO MATT BRADY'S YOU'LL FEEL AT HOME WE ALSO FEATURE TURKEYBURGERS DETROIT'S 1 BURGER AND A WHOLE LOT MORE! "The after-theater place to be" . . . Danny Raskin Open 7 Days 'Til 2 a.m. STEAKS, CHICKEN, HOMEMADE SOUPS AND OUR FAMOUS SALADS 642-6422 Southfield Rd. Just North of 13 Mile f _j "-- ■ -- ----- - --- - -- -- -- ___,----- __ ■ _______—_. % -- .2 ,. ---- ,. . " - " 1101.1 MN NM 1111.111 MIMI UM MEM T I FREE ___1 /2 LB. 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IN ROBIN'S NEST SHOPPING CENTER L West Bloomfield 68 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1991 737-0160 EDWARD KARAM Special to The Jewish News I n November 1985, Jonathan Jay Pollard, a United States naval in- telligence analyst and a Jew, was arrested for passing classified information to Israel. Mr. Pollard's arrest embarrassed the Israeli government and the American Jewish community because it raised uncomfor- table issues of loyalties. Can a Jew love the United States and Israel equally? Should Jews be loyal to other Jews before their non-Jewish countrymen? Gordon Rayfield's play Bit- ter Friends, which is being presented by the Jewish Ensemble Theatre at the Maple-Drake Jewish Com- munity Center through March 3, is a schematic, fic- tionalized attempt to address the questions presented by the Pollard case. The problem is that Mr. Rayfield's characters are not real peo- ple; they're points of view. Even T. Andrew Aston's set suggests that geopolitics over- whelms the characters. A map of the Middle East stret- ches across the backdrop, on the flats, and on the floor, from the Gulf of Sidra at the left to Baghdad at the right. But it's also an awkward reminder that almost no character seems to have any life outside the debate. David Klein, an idealistic young Jew, has been passing U.S. military secrets to an Israeli agent named Ephraim. Pursued by the FBI, David, like Mr. Pollard, seeks asylum at the Israeli Embassy and is turned away. Unlike Mr. Pollard, he has been recruited by the Israeli government (Pollard volun- teered to spy), and he has taken no money. He is also the son of an Israeli war hero. Most important, David refuses to admit, even to his wife, that the Israeli govern- ment recruited and abandon- ed him. The beleaguered Mr. Pollard, whose wife knew everything, took his case public to win sympathy. But David is not the central character here. Instead, it's Rabbi Arthur Schaefer, a pro- minent American Jew and an old friend of the Klein fami- ly. Rabbi Schaefer fought alongside David's father Sam to establish the state of Israel. Despite his initial condem- nation of David, the rabbi agrees to help him at the behest of David's wife, Rachel. David, however, refuses to cooperate, so the rabbi in- vestigates on his own. Along the way, stepping forth to ad- dress the audience as a nar- rator, Rabbi Schaefer raises important questions: "What is the law?" "How can we know what to obey?" "Is Israel always right?" Robert Grossman, a silver- haired actor who resembles Paul Scofield, has tremendous presence as the rabbi, but he's not convincing as the stand- up comedian the rabbi brief- ly was. Dressed like a Wall Street arbitrageur, Mr. Grossman tries to be folksy and warm, but he's too solemn, too stuf- fy. Rather than being drawn closer, the audience remains distanced. Rabbi Schaefer tries to un- cover the truth through meetings with a sympathetic congressman, Frank Fit- zgerald (Andrew L. Dunn); with Ezra Ben-Ami (William Premin), the ruthless Israeli ambassador to the United States; and with Wingate Whitney (Charles W. McGraw), a prosecutor with the Justice Department. None of these characters has any depth, and under Randall Forte's direction, the actors settle for the obvious. We know as soon as we see Whitney's nameplate on his desk that he will be a caricatured WASP who is un- sympathetic to Jews. Rather so than tryiing to make him an ingratiating bureaucrat as well, Mr. McGraw presents us with exactly the cold-hearted bigot we expect. 4 The confrontations among these four are like a gather- ing of bulldogs. They begin growling and within seconds are barking loudly. As David, Allan Fox is also I hampered with a character who starts at one emotional pitch and stays there. He ac- cepts his martyrdom from first to last and resents the rabbi's interference. He wants to be the Jewish hero his father was. "I was always taught to put the Jewish people ahead of myself," David tells his wife. Only Stacie Passon as Rachel manages to introduce some doubt in David, and that tension makes their 4 scenes the best in the play. When David refuses to admit Ephraim recruited him, he says, "I will not betray another Jew to save myself." "I am another Jew," Rachel answers. "Why are you betraying me? . . . You pro- mised to live with me the rest of my life." When Rachel visits David in prison, Ms. Passon shows strength, humor, confusion, tenderness and anger, refusing to accept David's bid to divorce her. Though at times tentative on opening night, Ms. Passon has found a fascinating com- plexity and vulnerability that the other actors lack. Hers is the one character whose humanity shines through. ❑