48 August 18 2016

arts & life

LET THE
SUNSHINE IN
The Detroit
Actor
s Theatre
Company, under
artistic director
Eric Swanson,
presents the
groundbreaking
musical story of
the 1960s hippie
counterculture
and sexual revo-
lution, Hair: The
American Tribal Love-Rock Musical.
7:30 p.m. Aug. 18-20, at the New Center
Park. No charge. Mature audiences rec-
ommended. Thedatc.org.

MATCHMAKER, MATCHMAKER
Garden City students and residents
have been working hard all summer
on rehearsals for Fiddler on the Roof
which will be the inaugural perfor-
mance of Garden City High School
s
new summer theater program, Garden
City Summer Community Theatre, that
its founder, director Greg Wiklanski,
hopes will become an annual tradition.
Based on Sholem Aleichem
s stories,

the musical will be performed
7 p.m. Aug. 18-20 and 2 p.m. Aug. 21,
at the O
Leary Performing Arts Center
inside Garden City High School. $10.
(734) 762-8350; gardencityschools.com.

THAT
S ENTERTAINMENT!
Join Broadway
s tallest tapper and win-
ner of 10 Tony Awards, Tommy Tune, as
he takes to the stage for an autobio-
graphical stroll through more than 50
years of singing, dancing and tale tell-
ing at Tommy Tune Tonite! Featuring

Editor
s Picks

Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News

AT THE MOVIES
Opening Friday, Aug. 20: The new film
version of Ben-Hur is the third major
movie based on the famous 19th-centu-
ry novel of the same name. Judah Ben-
Hur is an aristocratic Judean/Jew during
the period of the Roman occupation. His
best friend is Messala, a Roman officer.
An innocent accident gets Judah falsely
charged with sedition, and he is sent
to die rowing a Roman ship while his
mother and sister are clapped in a dun-
geon (where they contract leprosy). At
sea, Judah rescues an important Roman
and is given his freedom. He returns to
Judea and confronts Messala, who did
nothing to aid him or his family. Judah
gets his revenge against Messala in the
chariot arena. Then Jesus appears, and
not long before he is crucified, he takes
the hate out of Judah
s heart and cures
his sister and mother.
Most of the novel
s characters were
Jewish, but there haven
t been many
Jewish actors in the films. Carmel
Myers, a rabbi
s daughter, was the only
Jew in the 1925 silent version, and she
played an Egyptian vamp out to seduce
poor Judah (this role did make Myers

a silent movie star). The 1959 version,
starring Charlton Heston as Judah, is
the gold standard: It won 11 Oscars,
including best picture and best director
(William Wyler). The chariot race scene
was then state-of-the art and is still
exciting. A lovely Israeli actress, Haya
Hareet, now 84, played Esther, Judah
s
love interest. The late Sam Jaffe played
Esther
s father. The new version has
Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer, 47, play-
ing Judah
s mother and Judah
s sister
is played by American actress Sophia
Black D
Elia, 24 (D
Elia
s mother is
Jewish, and she identifies as Jewish).
The first two films were easy on
Jewish filmgoers because Jesus and
Christian beliefs weren
t mentioned
until almost the end. Jesus was virtually

Celebrity Jews

Lynne Konstantin
Arts & Life Editor

D
Elia

Hair

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