Arts & Entertainment

ON THE COVER

a

Memories of the late Israeli
prime minister shared as
one-woman show spotlights
Golds Meir.

Suzanne Chessler

Special to the Jewish News

Valerie Harper: "It's such a profound honor to bring to life

the representation of this magnificent human being," says

the actress of her role in Golda's Balcony.

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November 3 . 2005

if alerie Harper is not
Jewish, but it sure seems
as if she is.
Harper, who actually attended
Catholic school during part of
her youth in Michigan, played a
very believable Jewish character,
Rhoda Morgenstern, in the long-
running Mary Tyler Moore Show
and its spinoff, Rhoda, on televi-
sion.
The actress, with close friends
who are Jewish, joined one cou-
ple on a tour of Israel and trav-
eled from big city to kibbutz
many years ago. She also has par-
ticipated in events supporting
the Jewish state.
The ethnicity Harper has con-
veyed and her interest in related
issues come into play as she
takes on a new role, the late
Israeli Prime Minister Golda
Meir, in the touring theater piece
Golda's Balcony. The one-woman
production runs Nov. 8-27 at the
Fisher Theatre.
"It's such a profound honor to
bring to life the representation of
this magnificent human being,"
says Harper, 66, who will be
wearing a full body suit, wig and
facial enhancements to capture
Meir's physical appearance. "The
play is designed in such a way
that people really get to feel they
are with her.

"The appeal of working very
hard to do a one-woman show is
the love of the subject, be it the
individual presented or the play
itself. I did a great deal of
research to prepare to portray
someone of this note and
achievement. I read about her
and watched tapes of her."
Golda's Balcony moves through
recollections of Meir's life, public
and private. The story is
enhanced through large project-
ed images of the people and
events discussed.
Playwright William Gibson,
whose credits include The
Miracle Worker and Two for the
Seesaw, completed the script for
Golda's Balcony, which has
become the longest-running one-
woman play on Broadway. Scott
Schwartz, who directed the New
York production, also worked on
the tour and hopes to visit the
show during its stop in Detroit.

Creation Of Israel

"Golda's Balcony is a story about
the creation of Israel:' says
Schwartz, 31, whose personal
connections to Detroit stem from
his Michigan-bred mother,
singer-actress Carole Piasecki.
"When I started working on this
play, I didn't know about the his-

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