Arts & Entertainment
A Superb Price
play in its 1968 debut,
The Price, playing at
the Jewish Ensemble •
Theatre through Nov.
12, enjoys a staging that
breathes great life into
its naturalistic candor.
Under Evelyn Orbach's
impeccable direction
and the talent of her
cast, the produc-
tion may war-
rant a tour de
force label — if
that isn't underselling it.
For Miller, the sug-
gestion that a scheduled
demolition of a fam-
ily home could break
down the walls between
estranged brothers is an
allegory: Their house
was torn apart long ago.
The brilliant younger
brother, Victor (Phil Powers) deferred
his dreams to take care of their father,
broken by the Great Depression. Victor's
unwavering ethics are a badge of honor,
glinting against his New York City police
uniform's blue serge. The older brother,
Walter (Loren Bass), less naturally gifted
but more knowing of their father's true
character, abandoned the family's miser-
ies to chase after and secure success as a
physician.
Following the twisted rules of the
American game, Walter has sidestepped
and strategized and triumphantly won;
Victor has given all he had, played fair
and seemingly lost. Now, the remain-
ing family relics in the building must be
tallied up, a task given to the venerable,
shrewd, even sage-like appraiser Gregory
Solomon (Sol
Frieder).
All of our
choices in
life, tangible or otherwise, have a price;
Victor's wife, Esther (Lynnae Lehfeldt),
just wants him to get what he's due.
From the moment one walks into the
theater, the proverbial bar, like the stage,
has been set to the rafters. The carefully
vetted properties of Diane E. Ulseth and
Harold Jurkiewicz (playing a dual role
as stage manager), mounds of them, lie
in wait for the characters' arrival. Mary
Copenhagen's meticulous costumes allow
us a glimpse into the lives and savings
accounts of her characters. Even Michael
Beyer's lighting seems, as necessary, to
emit a harsh cast or rosy glow.
- Phil Powers' Victor Franz exudes the
sheer decency required as the play's
moral center, from the gravity and sub-
stance he amply supplies to the flashing
R E VIEW
Phil Powers and Sol Frieder in The Price
JET's production
of a Miller classic
is a tour de force.
Susan Zweig
Special to the Jewish News
T
here was hardly ever a play-
wright more willing to stab
at the heart of the American
Dream than Arthur Miller --to expose
what was rotting in there.
.
Nominated for a Tony Award for best
ews
Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
or=
-Ls
Soomekh Stars
Persian-American Jewish actress
Bahar
Soomekh, 31, has her first
111111111
starring role in the horror-thriller
(10
Saw III, which opens
in area theaters on
(11111)
Friday, Oct. 27. She
plays a doctor who
is kidnapped and
brought to the room
of the Saw series vil-
lain, Jigsaw, to keep
Bahar
the cancer-ridden
Soomekh
Jigsaw alive. Jewish
actress Dina Meyer has a supporting
role.
Soomekh was born in Teheran and
.
56
October 26 • 2006
came to the U.S. when she was a
young child. She grew up in a reli-
gious household in Los Angeles, was
a bat mitzvah and is still very much
a practicing Jew. She said she long
wanted to be an actress but did the
sensible thing and first earned a sci-
ence degree from the University of
California.
A couple of years after graduat-
ing, she realized she would not be
happy unless she pursued her acting
dream. Once she - made her decision,
she said she had to scramble to
catch up with actresses who began
their careers out of high school.
Soomekh's first roles were almost
all as the wife or girlfriend of some
Middle Eastern villain. However, she
broke out of that mold with her stel-
lar performance as the daughter of
a troubled Muslim shopkeeper in
Crash, last year's Best Picture Oscar
winner. Since then, her career has
soared with a large supporting role
in Mission Impossible III and her
selection to People magaiine's list
of the 100 most beautiful people in
the world.
Frears' Latest
British director Stephen Frears' new
film, The Queen, now in theaters,
covers the period following the
death of Princess Diana in which the
royal family was heavily criticized for
not appearing to share the country's
sadness. Queen, the first dramatic
film ever made about Elizabeth II,
received great reviews, and Helen
Mirren, in the title role, is a shoo-in
for an Oscar nomination.
Frears, 65, has directed many
other hits, including My Beautiful
Laundrette, The Grifters, High
Fidelity and Dirty Pretty Things.
The filmmaker,
who isn't religious,
didn't know his
mother was Jewish
until he was in
his late 20s. His
brother, who knew
the.truth, told
Stephen Frears
Stephen about their
mother not long
after Stephen married his current
wife, highly respected Jewish painter
Annie Rothenstein.
In a 2001 interview, Frears specu-
lated that his mother hid being
Jewish because of the low-key anti-
Semitism so prevalent in Britain