Arts & 1-11 ,ntertainment

&About

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Curtain Call

Broadway's 2005 Tony winner for Best
Musical, Monty Python's Spamalot,
returns to the Fisher Theatre for a limited
two-week run Feb. 3-15. Directed by Mike
Nichols, the play tells the legendary tale
of King Arthur (played by Dr. Kildare
himself, Richard Chamberlain!) and the
Knights of the Round Table and their
quest for the Holy Grail. Playing Sir Robin,
the role originated by David Hyde Pierce,
is Jewish performer
James Beaman,
an award-winning
cabaret artist. Show
times are 8 p.m.
Tuesdays-Fridays,
2 and 8 p.m.
Saturdays and
2 and 7:30 p.m.
Sundays. $37.50-
$90.50. Info: (313)
James Beaman
872-1000. Tickets:
plays Sir Robin in
(248) 645-6666;
Spamalot.
ticketmaster.com .

Award-winning
Bishoff, the modern
actor-director Yolanda
musical comedy
Fleischer, a faculty
offers a whirlwind
member at University
tour of the trials and
of Detroit Mercy since
triumphs of life and
–
1986, likes to direct
love, set to a score that
Gail Zimmerman
socially conscious
includes tunes like
Arts Editor
theater. She helms a
"Always a Bridesmaid"
production of Stephen
and "Why? Because
Karam's Speech and Debate, a funny and
I'm a Guy" $25-$42 . Call for show times:
touching play about three teens' quest for
(313) 963-9800. Tic kets: (800) 982-2787;
fame and free speech, Jan. 30-Feb. 15 at
ticketmaster.com .
the UDM Theatre Company's Marygrove
Theatre on the campus of Marygrove
Laugh Lines
College, 8425 W. McNichols Road, in
Detroit. Show times are 8 p.m. Fridays and Kwame a River: The Chronicles of
Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. $9-$15.
Detroit's Hip-Hop Mayor, an original
Special events: pre-talk on body-image
play satirizing Kwame Kilpatrick's ten-
issues, 7:10-7:30 p.m. on Jan. 31; panel of
ure as mayor of Detroit, runs through
experts on gay issues following the perfor- March 22 at Second-City-Detroit, 42705
mance on Feb. 8. (313) 993-3270; theatre.
Grand River, in Novi. The ensemble of six
udmercy.edu.
Detroit actors portrays dozens of local
Returning to Detroit's Gem Theatre
characters — from Christine Beatty and
Feb.4-May 17 is I Love You, You're
Mike Cox to Carmen Harlan and attorney
Perfect, Now Change. Helmed by the
Sam Bernstein. Show times are 8 p.m.
show's original New York director, Joel
Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays and 7

and 9 p.m. Saturdays. $15-$20. (248) 348-
4448; ticketmaster.com .
Now based in L.A., comic and U-M grad
Peter Berman returns to the Ann Arbor
Comedy Showcase to share his views
on the bizarre realities that lurk behind
everyday life Jan. 29-31. Show times are
8 p.m. Thursday and 8 and 10:30 p.m.
Friday-Saturday at the old VFW Hall, 314
E. Liberty. $8-$13. (734) 996-9080.

New On DVD

Barbra Streisand made history as the
female producer, co-writer, director
and star of the Oscar winning (for best
original score) Yentl. Available on DVD
for the first time Feb. 3 from MGM Home
Entertainment to coincide with the film's
25th anniversary, The Yentl Extended
Director's Edition is a two-disc set that
includes never before seen bonus features
like Streisand's original concept reel,
rehearsal/final film comparisons, story-
board montages, deleted scenes and more.
The suggested retail price is $29.98.

FYI: For Arts related events that you wish to have considered for Out & About, please send the item, with a detailed description of the event, times, dates, place, ticket prices and publishable phone number, to: Gail Zimmerman, JN Out &
About, The Jewish News, 29200 Northwestern Highway, Suite 110, Southfield, MI 48034; fax us at (248) 304-8885; or e-mail to gzimmerman@thejewishnews.com . Notice must be received at least three weeks before the scheduled event.
Photos are appreciated but cannot be returned. All events and dates listed in the Out & About column are subject to change.

Selective Memory

French Secret joins canon of great Holocaust films.

Michael Fox
Special to the Jewish News

A

gawky, geeky French boy, grow-
ing up in the 1950s, deals with
his athletic father's disappoint-
ment by inventing a strong older brother.
Unwittingly, Francois' innocent act of
imagination cracks the lid on a haunting
family mystery.
The outstanding French drama A Secret
(Un Secret) moves forward and backward
in time, delving into the Holocaust and its
echoes in ways both vaguely familiar and
startlingly up-to-the-minute.
Claude Miller's adaptation of Philippe
Grimbert's autobiographical novel (pub-
lished in America under the title Memory)
works beautifully as a touching reflection
on the burden of being the child of survi-
vors, a pitch-perfect pre-war and wartime
chronicle and a pointed critique of current
French anti-Semitism, all in one elegantly
structured film.
A Secret was flat-out one of the best

B10

January 29 2009

films of 2008 and should not be missed. It
screens Jan. 30-Feb. 8, 2009, at the Detroit
Film Theatre in the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Francois relates the story as an adult,
which is to say with the maturity and
empathy of an adult filtered through
the lingering scars of childhood. There's
not much nostalgia in Francois' voice
(Mathieu Amalric, the villain in the latest
Bond movie, nails the role), but ample rec-
ognition that the world of adults is often
impenetrable to children.
His assimilated parents are fit, beautiful
people, proud of and comfortable in their
bodies, and, therefore, always a bit alien to
him. His father (a broad-shouldered Patrick
Bruel) typically looks at Francois with
puzzlement and disdain, as if the slight,
bookish lad couldn't be his offspring.
It's only when the boy finds a toy animal
in a suitcase in the attic that the truth
begins to emerge, namely that Francois
entered this world, and this family, in the
shadow of a previous child whom he never
knew and can never measure up to.

There's a whole
lot more to A Secret
than an exotic
inferiority complex
and a gaping gulf
between father and
son. (Although ifs
no coincidence
that Francois, like
Cecile de France, left, in a scene from A Secret
Philippe Grimbert,
grew up to be a psy-
choanalyst.) The film revisits the difficult
The real theme of the movie — selec-
choices that French Jews had to make dur- tive memory — is hinted at from the
ing the Occupation as well as their unfore-
opening reels but not fully revealed until
the epilogue. On the one hand, Miller
seen consequences.
Although A Secret doesn't mean to sug-
empathizes with the urge of survivors to
gest that only the fit survived, there is an
live in the present and stow the past in the
unwavering throughline — embodied by
attic. At the same time, he is disgusted by
Francois' parents — of physical strength,
France's amnesia over events that occurred
sexual desire and life force. It can be read
a mere 65 years ago.
as an affirmation of strength in contrast
For all the latent tension between
to the victim role assigned to Jews in most Francois and his father, the film owes
its abundant heart and soul to a trio of
Holocaust films, or as a proud, earthy,
erotic and distinctly French interpretation
memorable female characters. The boy
of Am Yisroel Chai.
admires his elegant mother Tania (Cecile