Arts & entertainment
A
15% OFF
TOTAL BILL
Visit the Thal Restaurant tka blends
,
atmospheric elegance with culina delights.
Featuring the bubble Drink 1afe
5092.5 Woodward Ave. • Royal Oak, MI +8075
(248) 288 0002
-
Open: Mon - Thur. I I am -1 0 m • Fri. I am- i pm
`sat.2.pm-11 pm • 5un. 12-10pm
Lunch served ti13pm Mon-fri
15 mile & Woodward in The Northwood ,51-lopping Center i3
The One & Only
Creperie in Town!
• 10 Gourmet Soups Daily
• Daily Lunch Specials
(Save $1.00) available 11-3 p.m.
• Sweet Crepes
Open Monday -Saturday
for Lunch & Dinner
• Fresh Salads
FRESH SOLIDS, SALADS & CREPES
172 N. Old Woodward (NE corner of Maple & N. Old Woodward)
Independently owned
I*1
(248) 2830260
0
22556
Orchard Lake Rd.
Just N. of 13 Mile
On the East Side
(248) 626-0804
rti
Dine-In • Carry-Out
Open Mon.-Sot. 6:30 - 3:00
Sun. 8:00 - 3:00
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
COUPON
10 /0 OFF
TOTAL BILL
EVERYDAY
Huge Eggwhite Omelets
Homemade Soup
Waffles
Lo-Cal Menu
Bagels & Lox
Not Valid With Any Other Offer
Fresh Salads
Expires 06/30/02
Fresh-Baked Muffins
I.
a
r
COUPON
MI MI MB
-MI
FREE
CUP OF HOMEMADE
SOUP
WITH ANY SALAD FROM
OUR LARGE SALAD MENU
Not Valid With Any Other Offer
Expires 06/30/02 0000596 1 50 a
Real bagel size, Real bagel taste.
6/21
2002
70
Phone (248) 960-3111
14 Mile 6,- Haggerty Rd. in the Newberry Snare Shopping Center
from page 69
approach [Shakespeare] more freshly.
American audiences have probably
seen more Shakespeare. There are so
many Shakespeare festivals all over
America.
with coupon.
Expires 7-31-02
• Savory Crepe Sandwiches
TASTE FOR BLOOD
JN: Our readers will be interested in
your Jewish background. How has your
background influenced you, do you
think? Was it a big part of your life?
SB: I was born and brought up in the
Jewish East End of London part of the
time. It obviously informed me and
shaped me in my early youth. And
created in me a taste for that culture,
which has never really left me.
I've always been keenly aware of my
Jewish origins and antecedents and
have pursued it fairly passionately in
terms of the literature that I read. And
I make sure that I keep up with the
thoughts, and the ideas and the art —
[the] creativity.
Some of my favorite writers are
Jewish writers. Mainly people like
Bashevis Singer, Franz Kafka, Bernard
Malamud, Arthur Miller, Norman
Mailer. But also Maimoriides and
Spinoza. The Jewish writers have
always featured very much as part of
my influence in my life, as well as
Jewish culture.
JN: Has your Jewish background
influenced your interpretation of
Shylock, do you think?
SB: Yes, certainly. I see it written very
much as a Jewish cliche, certainly as
an anti-Semitic construct.
When you play Shylock, you can
play it with dignity. I think it works,
and I think the breadth of Shakespeare
allows you that.
I choose not to because I want to
play it as he is painted, so that we see
- how he was painted as a villain, as a
clown, as a horror.
And if you attempt to dignify him,
you're trying to escape the image that
was painted of him at the time.
JN: Several years ago, you played-
Hitler in War and Remembrance.
What was that like? How does that
performance connect to your ideas
about the depiction of villainy?
SB: That was a pinnacle for me, and I
really enjoyed playing it. It was a fasci-
nating and horrifying character.
And I enjoyed it more the more
because it was a villain that everybody
knew. I was challenging the public
conception of him. When I created
Hitler, with the aid of a little make-up
and a mustache, I felt I was convinc-
ing.
JN: Did it give you any additional
insight into the psychology of his
evil?
SB: Absolutely. Yes. You can see what
he was all about.
Not a lot that I didn't know already.
It was simple. I don't think there's any-
thing complex about Hitler, really. He
was using scapegoats as all villains do.
It's the nature of the villain to need
a scapegoat. You need an opposition to
prove in some way that you are being,
not only persecuted yourself, but that
you have to overcome these people by
destroying them. It's only weak people
that do this, that need scapegoats.
JN: Is today's conception of villainy
different than it was in Shakespeare's
time?
SB: Everybody was a villain [in the
Elizabethan period]. Kings were vil-
lains. Princes. Half the nation was
engaged in villainy. It was much more
part and parcel of everyday living.
The villain was shown to be the
devil — a Machiavellian devil — that
we must be aware of. There were bat-
tles between good and evil.
Today, very few plays have this. If
you pick up any play, there's very sel-
dom a villain even in it. Films have
villains. But for some reason, they're
absent from today's drama.
Drama has become so weak that
there is no need for the villain.
Everybody is so weak and vapid, that
there is nothing to fight against, noth-
ing for the villain to "dislodge," if you
like. Because they're all so spinelessly,
uselessly, drearily vapid.
JN: What are you working on cur-
rently?
SB: I've written a play called The
Secret Love Life of Ophelia. It's a treat-
ment of the relationship between
Hamlet and Ophelia. It's my own text.
But I've written it in iambic pen-
tameter and rhyming couplets. It's a
play which I would love to be put on
in America as soon as'possible.
❑
Steven Berkoff performs
Shakespeare's Villains: A
Masterclass in Evil at the Power
Center in Ann Arbor 8 p.m.
Wednesday, June 26. $20-$30.
(734) 647-2278 or
http://vvww.mlive.com/aasf/
At 8 p.m. Thursday, June 27,
Shakespeare's Villains will be per-
formed at the Wealthy Theatre in
Grand Rapids. Call (616) 451-
8001 for performance times and
ticket information.