Curtain Call

Hot Off The Presses

First-time playwright bases production on life in the newspaper world.

SUZANNE CHESSLER

Special to the Jewish News

B

ed Falbaum, who has writ-
ten for newspapers over the
past 40 years, recently
decided to write about

them.
Setting aside fact in favor of fiction
and shifting from prose to dialogue,
Falbaum came up with No Comment,
a play being produced by the Theatre
Guild of Livonia-Redford.
It will be performed June 1 at the
Livonia Civic Center Library
Auditorium with a reception to bene-
fit the troupe and June 6-9 at the
guild's playhouse in Redford
Township.
The drama has two plots that
together raise ethical issues. While
newspaper executives decide to expose

ReporterJoe Clark
(Dan Gumina)
and Sharon Arthur
(Kate Garfield)
.talk about sexual
harassment in
"No Comment."

a candidate facing very thin charges of
sexual harassment, they simultaneously
work hard at concealing a scandal
within their own operation.
"I feel strongly about some very seri-
ous issues in journalism, and I wanted
to raise some of those issues," says
Falbaum, 63, who frequently offers
political commentary for the Jewish

News.

"I like challenges, and one day, it
-occurred to me to try a play. The the-
ater is a very powerful medium, and in
some respects, it can deliver a stronger
message than a book."
The play, which is directed by
Maxine Parshall, features a cast of 10, _
consisting of Jason Romero, Dan
Gumina, Laura Jerome, Ken Wood,
Jay Edwards, Gary McKenzie, Yvonne
Thomas, Jim Charles, J.J. Reynolds
and Kate Garfield.

"I've had no training in playwriting,
but I have read plays in addition to
seeing them," Falbaum says. "I did get
a book that explains the professional
format and just sat down at the com-
puter."

Falbaum has made time for writing
while running his own public relations
firm, Falbaum & Associates, since
1979. He also has been a part-time
journalism instructor at Wayne State
University, his alma mater, since 1968.

Kidnapped

Jewish parents fight to reclaim their child from the Catholic Church
in surgeon-playwright's first professionally staged drama

SUZANNE CHESSLER

Special to the Jewish News

B

Harry O'Toole as Father Santini and
Eastman Presser as Aaron Congedo, a
Jewish child taken by Catholic authorities.

5/31
2002

72

rad Levinson wants people
to "get serious," and he con-
veys this message by writing
plays.
Dr. Levinson, a Pittsburgh-based sur-
geon who trained at Henry Ford
Hospital, currently shows his artistic
bent with A Ritual of Faith, now being
staged in Chicago. Based on an actual
event, the play relates the emotions of a
Jewish Italian boy removed from his
family and raised by Pope Pius IX in the
late 1800s.
"I think our society is not serious
enough, and I believe the best way to
get other people to think is through the-
ater," says Levinson, 51, whose drama
continues through June 23.
The play was inspired by the true
story of Edgardo Mortara, who was
taken from his Jewish home after it was
learned he had been baptized in secret
by a Catholic servant. Thinking the

beatified Pope Pius IX to be
child needed a religious cere-
a saint, and it became a very
mony to be saved from a
big issue among Jews and
grave illness, the servant took
affected Jewish-Christian
it upon himself to seek' divine
relations."
intervention.
Levinson calls the kidnap-
During the 19th century,
ping of Edgardo Mortara
canon law required that any
"the most important pivotal
baptized child must be taken
moment in Italian history."
from non-Catholic parents,
"Without that act, Italy
and so, the removal of a
might not be unified today,"
Jewish child was not consid-
he says. "It took the church
ered an act of evil by
Playwright Brad
from being a powerful 'coun-
Catholics. However, as the
parents tried to get their child Levinson: Pursuing try' owning about a third of
a dream.
Italy and placed it instead as
back, the incident was
a religious power inside the
brought to public attention,
walls of the Vatican."
and people around the world
One reason Levinson decided to write
denounced Pope Pius IX.
the play was the lack of attention- to the
"The play shows the power of ritual
subject that caught his interest many
and what it can do to people," explains
years ago. His approach, he says, is not
Levinson, who does not follow Jewish
anti-Catholic, and he emphasizes that
ritual closely but has held offices in
the piece has no relevance to the sexual-
Zionist organizations and established
abuse issues confronting church leader-
Israel action committees.
ship today.
"The production is very timely
Levinson's interest in theater preceded
because the present pope two years ago