arts & entertainment

Consta 'Craving

Belle Linda Halpern's one-woman show
explores food and other hungers through song.

Suzanne Chessler
I Contributing Writer

restaurant painting caught the
eye of Belle Linda Halpern more
than two decades ago, and she
mulled it over in her mind. The image of
a voluptuous woman surrounded by food
morphed into a cabaret show that evolved
over all those years.
Cravings: Songs of Hunger & Satisfaction
launched as a song-filled narrative about
food and sex. Twenty-five years later, it has
become an exploration of different kinds
of cravings and their fulfillment.
Halpern, based in Boston, will bring
her show to the Berman Center for the
Performing Arts in West Bloomfield.
Under the sponsorship of the Jewish
Ensemble Theatre, she will appear at 5 and
8:30 p.m. Saturday, March 22.
"The show really has two themes —
food and what else in life really makes us
feel satisfied" Halpern explains in a phone
conversation. "That can mean levels of
fullness in the stomach, heart and soul."
Halpern centers her exploration around
recollections of learning to cook as
instructed by her grandmother, and she
prepares charoset, ultimately served to the
audience. The Passover food becomes a
reminder of sweetness and bondage, sub-
jects covered in the production.
"The show is really about my trying
to figure out what is really good in life

A

Jews

says the actress, who works with Sabrina
Hamilton as both director of the current
version and the presenter who encouraged
its development for a theater festival.
"That was one of the major lessons from
my grandmother, who was part of the
immigrant generation. Her lesson was to
be satisfied with what you have.
"In our current culture, we're constantly
on this wheel of not enough. 'I don't have
enough; I'm not good enough: I look at the
question of what is enough and how I can
learn from my traditions, grandmother
and own life"
Accompanied by pianist Ron Roy,
Halpern has a long list of songs — "I Got
the Sun in the Mornin"' from Annie Get
Your Gun, "My Favorite Things" from The
Sound of Music and "Romania, Romania"
from the Yiddish theater — that further her
topic with some alternations to the lyrics.
"I'm a believer in live music, and the
relationship between Ron and me is very
palpable on stage" she says. "The electric-
ity and energy of live music can be felt in
the theater. I hope there will be a renais-
sance in the tradition of live music"
Halpern can recall an earlier musical
visit to Michigan. She appeared with a
friend, Jeffrey Goldberg, in a program
required for his master's degree at the
School of Music, Theatre & Dance at the
University of Michigan.
"When I was 12, I decided I wanted to
be a singer and went to a wonderful arts

Nate Bloom

Special to the Jewish News

At The Movies
Opening March 21:
The Grand Budapest Hotel, a Wes

Anderson comedy-drama set in a myth-
ical Central European country during
the 1930s, has already opened to rave
reviews in New York and Los Angeles.
Here's a short summary: A very
rich married woman (Tilda Swinton)
mysteriously dies at the hotel and, in
her will, leaves a valuable painting to
Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), her recent
lover and the hotel's concierge. Gustave
is framed for her murder and jailed.
His escape and the relentless hunt for
him is the subject of most of the film's
second half.
Those appearing in important sup-
porting roles include Adrien Brody, 40;

Jeff Goldblum, 61; Mathieu Amalric,
48; and Harvey Keitel, 74.

Anderson says the film's script was

34

March 20 • 2014

inspired by the novellas of Austrian
Jewish writer Stefan Zweig (1881-
1942), and the New York Times notes
that Fiennes' performance pointedly
evokes Zweig's physical appearance
and mercurial energy.
Zweig's fame, which has waned in
America and Europe, may get a boost
via this film and with the May 2014
release of a new scholarly biography,

The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at
the End of the World (Other Press), by
George Prochnik.
The film Enemy promises to smartly

revive the somewhat overused dra-
matic device of the doppelganger in
which two unrelated
people discover they
have a physical twin.
The thriller stars Jake
Gyllenhaal, 33, as
Adam Bell, a history
professor in such a
funk he's even unin-
Laurent
terested in his pretty

school in New
Jersey" she says.
"When I was
14, my parents
Belle Linda Halpern in
took me to hear
[Jewish] folksinger
Martha Schlamme, who made every song
like a mini-play.
"I studied with her for a year, and she
became a mentor for me. She took every
audience on a journey"
Halpern, who went on to earn a bach-
elor's degree from Harvard/Radcliffe, has
performed as a cabaret singer and actress in
many clubs, taking her to distant cities that
include San Francisco, Paris and Jerusalem.
Theater credits include the title role in
Elizabeth Swados' rock opera Esther, Alice
in Swados' Alice in Concert and Sally in the
Kander and Ebb musical Cabaret.
"A side part of my life is taking theater
exercises outside of the theater world and
making them applicable in other contexts"
says Halpern, who teaches singing and
performance at Harvard and through sum-
mer programs in Italy.
"I started a company teaching leader-
ship using theater. I did that for 20 years
before recently selling the company. Now,
I'm teaching leadership using theater to
principals in low-income schools.
"While I'm in Michigan, I'm going to
meet with someone from one of the major
charter schools to talk about that initiative.
I wrote a book about the ideas behind it,

girlfriend (played by Melanie Laurent,
31, of Inglourious Basterds fame).
Then Bell spots his double, a bit-
part actor, while watching a movie and
decides to track him down. They meet,
and complications ensue.
In Blood Ties, James Caan, 73, is
the father of two sons, one a cop (Billy
Crudup) and one a newly released crim-
inal trying to go straight (Clive Owen).
Mila Kunis, 30, co-stars as Owen's
love interest, with Noah Emmerich, 49,
(FBI agent Stan on the FX series The
Americans; see story on previous page),
as a police lieutenant. James Gray, 45,
co-wrote the flick.
Cheap Thrills is a graphic black com-
edy about a down-on-his luck guy who
wanders into a bar and meets a rich
couple who offer him, and a buddy,
money for tasks that grow increasingly
violent. Sara Paxton, 25, who began in
sweet teen roles on the Disney channel,
plays the female half of the rich couple.
Muppets Most Wanted takes the pup-

Cravings: Songs of Hunger & Satisfaction

Leadership Presence: Dramatic Techniques
to Reach Out, Motivate and Inspire
Last year, Halpern started a nonprofit,
Inspiring Educators, and that's the vehicle
with which she trains principals. Her
goal is to help leaders engage all the
people around school and help bridge the
achievement gap.
Halpern, 50ish, actually loves to cook for
her family, which includes husband Michael
Rosenberg, who has started a new educa-
tional robotics company, and two children.
The family is active in the Boston-area
Congregation Beth El, where she leads
chants. She also performs religious songs
with an eight-women a cappella group.
"One of my favorite metaphors in Jewish
text has to do with the Promised Land"
Halpern says. "We know we're in the
Promised Land when we feel sustenance
and sweetness in everyday experiences"

❑

Cravings: Songs of Hunger &
Satisfaction will be performed at

5 and 8:30 p.m. Saturday, March
22, at the Berman Center for the
Performing Arts in West Bloomfield.
$16-$48. (248) 788-2900;
jettheatre.org .

pet gang on a European tour, and they
unwittingly get involved in a big crime
caper. Tina Fey has the largest "real
person" role.
The script was co-written by
Nicholas Stoller, 33, who also co-wrote
the hit 2008 film The Muppets. His
father-in-law, writer Nicholas Delbanco,
71, directed the MFA program at the
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor
from 1986-2002.

TV Notes
Andi Dorfman, 26,

an Atlanta attorney
who dramatically
dumped Juan Pablo
Galvais on the lat-
est season of The
Bachelor, has been
Dorfman
named the titular
star of the upcoming season of ABC's
The Bachelorette, coming in May. She'll
be the first Jewish woman to be "the
Bachelorette."

❑

