arts & entertainment
Epistolary Drama
Israeli theater company brings
Address Unknown to the Berman.
Suzanne Chessler
I Contributing Writer
T
he play Address Unknown, to
be staged April 6 at the Berman
Center for the Performing Arts,
has a strong behind-the-scenes history
with the area's Jewish Community Center.
The drama, developed in Israel and part
of a national tour, gained attention in book
form with the help of the late Irwin Shaw,
a popular JCC executive director who
organized staged readings and encouraged
its translation into Hebrew.
Address Unknown, being produced by
the Kibbutz Theatre Company and pre-
sented in Hebrew with English surtitles,
recounts the breakup of a friendship
between Max Eisenstein, a Jewish art deal-
er in San Francisco, and Martin Schulze,
his non-Jewish German business partner.
The story is told solely through their
letters, written after the business partner
returns to Germany in 1932. The audience
follows the erosion of their relationship
with the Nazi spread of hatred.
Tzvika Schwartzberg plays Max
Eisenstein, and Rafi Kalmar portrays
Martin Schulze.
"The play takes place in the early 1930s
with the rise of Hitler; says Schwartzberg
in a phone conversation from Tel Aviv. "I
portray the Jewish character, and the play
begins by showing his great friendship
with a German Christian.
Jews
"As Hitler is gaining more power, the
man in Germany asks that the letters stop.
It's as if the author has put together two
atoms and shows the reaction with the
poison of racism:'
Address Unknown, written in story form
by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor, was first
published in 1938 in Story magazine and
went on to be included in Reader's Digest.
Simon & Schuster published the story
in book form during 1939. As Europe was
fighting in World War II, the book was
banned in Nazi Germany.
Address Unknown was reprinted in
1995 to mark the 50th anniversary of the
liberation of the concentration camps,
and it was subsequently translated into 20
languages.
In 1996, Shaw sent a copy of the book to
Asher Tarmon, a Hebrew educator based
in Israel. The two had become friends
while Tarmon served as an emissary at the
JCC in the late 1960s.
Tarmon translated the book into
Hebrew after Shaw contacted the author
for permission, and it came out in print in
Israel in 2001.
The theatrical version has been per-
formed by companies in many countries,
and the Michigan performance pays trib-
ute to Shaw.
"It's going to be 12 years that I've been
performing this play:' says Schwartzberg,
57, whose tour includes stops in
Tennessee, Florida, Nevada and California.
Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
At The Movies
Opening Friday, March 28:
Big biblical epics represent a risk/
reward for Hollywood movie studios of,
well, biblical proportions. Such an epic
can become a mega-hit if the product
pleases both general audiences and
religious believers.
However, since the Bible text usually
provides only a "bare-bones" story,
the filmmaker has to invent dialogue
and situations to create a dramati-
cally satisfying film. The rub: Any such
invention inevitably displeases some
religious believers.
Paramount Studios bigwig Rob
Moore, a rare devout Christian among
studio execs, knew he was taking a
big chance when he agreed to provide
filmmaker Darren Aronofsky (Black
Swan), 44, with $135 million to make
Noah — the dramatic story of the
prophet and the mother of all floods —
54
March 27 • 2014
JN
with great special effects. Aronofsky,
who co-wrote the film, sought out the
counsel of many regarding his script,
including Rabbi Geoffrey Dennis, 54,
an expert on Jewish mysticism.
Aronofsky says
he depicted Noah
as something of an
environmentalist, and
this depiction has
upset some conserva-
tive evangelicals. So
Paramount has added
a tag line about Noah
Aronofsky
being "inspired" by
the Book of Genesis.
Russell Crowe stars as Noah, with
Jennifer Connelly, 43, as Noah's wife,
and Logan Lerman, 22, as Ham, one
of Noah's three sons.
The films of Danish filmmaker Lars
von Trier, 57, (including Dogville and
Breaking the Waves) divide audiences
and critics alike. He makes movies set
in America but films them in Denmark
because he is afraid to fly.
Rafi Kalmar as Martin Schulze and Tzvika Schwartzberg as Max
"I'm the son
Eisenstein in Address Unknown
of a Holocaust
survivor and
remember the influence of the Holocaust
thought I was very sad and suggested I
on my childhood. Onstage, it all goes
learn about acting. As soon as I finished
through me, and I don't have to push. I
school, I began working in Israeli theaters.
just have to be there because the words are Now, I'm more on my own with produc-
deep in my heart."
tion partnerships for my work onstage.
Schwartzberg, who partnered with the
"As I began working, the wife who didn't
theater company to produce the play, has
want me to do theater became a drama-
brought the drama to theaters, schools,
tist with 12 finished works. One son has
community centers, kibbutzim, military
become a director who has directed me
bases and the Yad Vashem Holocaust
twice, and the other son is an actor."
memorial museum in Jerusalem.
As a family, they are working to turn
It was adapted for the stage and directed the documentary film Paper Clips into a
by Avi Malkah.
play. The documentary follows students in
Schwartzberg, whose acting experi-
Tennessee as they collect 6 million paper
ence dates back to his early teens as he
clips to get a concrete idea of the number
did some work on radio and in a movie,
of Jews killed in the Holocaust.
has gone on to perform with theater
As Schwartzberg tours to Tennessee with
companies throughout Israel. His acting
Address Unknown, he will visit the Tennessee
range is represented by parts in Macbeth,
school where the documentary was filmed.
Pygmalion and Waiting for Godot.
"With these projects, I feel I bring
Kalmar's career has spanned Israeli film, important messages to audiences:'
theater and television.
Schwartzberg says. "Those are great expe-
Schwartzberg's acting career did not
riences for any actor:'
have a straightforward path after he
finished military service. Although mar-
Address Unknown, presented in
ried for 35 years, his wife, Orli, originally
Hebrew with English surtitles, will
opposed that professional direction.
be
presented at 7 p.m. Sunday, April
"She told me that if I was going to learn
6,
at
the Berman Center for the
theater, she didn't want to marry me:' he
Performing
Arts in West Bloomfield.
recalls. "I learned electrical engineering and
$17-$22.
(248)
661-1900; theberman.
worked in my father's factory until I was 30.
org
.
"When we had two small children, she
❑
Some describe his new film,
Nymphomaniac, as denigrating women.
Most critics, and von Trier's female
cast members, disagree.
The film is divided into two parts;
Vol. 1 opens exclusively at the Main
Art Theatre in Royal Oak on March 28
while Volume II is scheduled to follow
on Friday, April 11.
Each volume is divided into discrete
stories, or chapters. The central char-
acter uniting all the chapters is Joe,
a sexually voracious woman played
by Anglo-French actress/singer
Charlotte Gainsbourg, 42.
As the movie opens, a kindly older
man finds Joe badly
beaten. He takes her
to his apartment and,
as he tends to her
wounds, she tells him
her life story. Shia
LaBeouf, 27, plays
Jerome Morris, the
title character of
Gainsbourg
Chapter 2 of Vol. 1.
No one under 18 will be admitted to
either film.
TV NOTES
Zoe Lister-Jones, 31, and her profes-
sional/romantic partner, Darryl Wein,
also 31, make interesting movies,
including Breaking Upwards and Lola
Versus. She didn't have as much luck
as a co-star of Whitney, a 2012 sitcom
that didn't turn out to be the hit many
thought it would be.
Here's hoping that Friends with
Better Lives, a CBS comedy-drama
that debuts at 9 p.m. Monday, March
31, will do better. It's about six
friends, at different stages of their
lives, who all think
the others in their
group are doing bet-
ter than they are.
Lister-Jones plays
Kate, a successful
career woman who
doesn't have much
Lister-Jones
luck with dating.
❑