44 | SEPTEMBER 16 • 2021 

JEWISH PERFORMERS
Sussman, an architect, sits 
on the Village Players Safety 
Committee made up of Village 
Players members, including two 
physicians. They have worked 
tirelessly to implement safety 
measures such as requiring that 
the cast and crew are fully vacci-
nated. In addition, the first row 
of seats has been removed in the 
auditorium to provide greater 
spacing and separation between 
the audience and onstage actors. 
There are no afterglows or gath-
erings, and audience members 
can greet the cast only outside 
following the show. The theater 
is cleaned and sanitized after 
each performance.
Besides COVID protocols 
to consider, rehearsals had to 
be changed to accommodate 
the Jewish holidays for the two 
Jewish actors in the cast of 25 
— Sussman and Alan Binkow 
of Troy.

“Because our director, Holly 
Conroy, moved around our 
dress rehearsal and brush-up 
rehearsal, I was able to attend 
services at Temple Shir Shalom,
” 
says Binkow, who plays Wabash, 
the stuttering tailor. “It’s so great 
to be back on stage. It’s been 18 
long months without theater, 
but I hope we are here to stay.
”
Sussman’s family and in-laws 
enjoyed Rosh Hashanah din-
ner outdoors at his home in 
Bloomfield Hills.
When Sussman wasn’t 
onstage rehearsing his role of 
Richard Burbage, he was cho-
reographing the three sword-
fight scenes, including one 
with Sussman as the dueling 
theater owner.
“While fencing is very phys-
ical, it also has a mental com-
ponent that they call ‘physical 
chess’ because you’re always 
plotting moves and planning 
your strategy,” says Sussman, 

who was on the fencing team 
at Michigan State University as 
a freshman. He also volunteers 
once a week as the begin-
ner foil fencing coach at the 
Honor Guards Fencing Club in 
Auburn Hills.
“There is a big difference 
between the sport of fencing 
and sword-fighting on stage. 
In fencing, the goal is to hit 
your opponent. In theater, it’s 
the exact opposite. With stage 
combat, the number one thing 
is that both actors are safe. It’s 
kind of like a dance number 
where it’s choreographed so 

you know each other’s move-
ments while making it look 
realistic and exciting,” Sussman 
adds. 
In rehearsals, they practiced 
with wooden swords. In the per-
formances, they use steel rapiers.
“Just like the Three 
Musketeers,
” says Sussman. “It 
looks great on stage. Shakespeare 
in Love is a very entertain-
ing production with period 
costumes, lots of humor and 
romance, live renaissance musi-
cians and singers, a marvelously 
talented cast and even a dog. It’s 
got everything.
” 

continued from page 43

COURTESY OF STEVE SUSSMAN

Alan Binkow 
and Steve 
Sussman

NEW SERIES: CATCH-UP 
Scenes from a Marriage, 
a five-part mini-series, pre-
miered on HBO Max Sunday, 
Sept. 12. New episodes will 
be streamed on successive 
Sundays. The series is based 
on an acclaimed Ingmar 
Bergman Swedish TV mini-se-
ries (1973) of the same name. 
It was about the dissolution of 
a marriage over a 10-year peri-
od. The series was condensed 
as a film for American audi-
ences and the film won many 
awards. Woody Allen has 
cited it as a major influence. 
The original Scenes starred 
two Berman “favorites”: Liv 
Ullman and Swedish Jewish 
actor Erland Josephson 
(1923-2012). Scenes was 
so well-received and so 
important to Bergman that 

he made Saraband (2003), 
an acclaimed TV/film sequel 
about the divorced couple 
(Ullman and Josephson) and 
their adult children’s problems. 
It was Bergman’s last work. 
This is quite a legacy, and 
advance reviews almost 
all say that the HBO series 
doesn’t live up to that lega-
cy. It stars Jessica Chastain 
and Oscar Isaac as Mira and 
Jonathan, an upper-middle- 
class American couple whose 
marriage dissolves over sever-
al years. The acting, critics say, 
is first rate and there are truly 
very good “fireworks” scenes. 
However, most reviewers 
say that changes Israeli direc-
tor/writer Hagai Levi, 58 (In 
Treatment, The Affair) made to 
the original story are not inter-
esting or illuminating. There 
is one potentially big change 
that caught my eye: Jonathan 
is Jewish (the Swedish hus-
band was not). 
Daniel Fienberg, 55ish, the 

Hollywood Reporter’s chief 
TV critic, writes: “[Levi] has 
also added a surface coat of 
Jewishness … the fact that 
Jonathan was once Orthodox 
is treated as an empty series 
of data points — a challah on 
a table in one scene, a kippah 
attached to his hair with bobby 
pins in another. At no point 
did that minor embellishment 
make me think, ‘Well, now, this 
is a tale for 2021’ in the way 
that changes to the economic 
circumstances, race or, par-
ticularly, sexuality might have 

done.”
Ordinary Joe, an NBC 
series, stars James Wolk, 36, 
as Joe Kimbreau, a guy who 
faces a pivotal decision after 
college. The decision could 
lead to three different lifepaths 
and the series follows all 
three possibilities — he could 
become a police officer, a 
music star (like his father) or a 
nurse. Veteran character actor 
David Warshowsky, 60, has a 
supporting role as Frank, Joe’s 
father. (Premieres Sept. 20, 10 
p.m.).
Wolk, as I have noted in 
this column before, is a hand-
some guy who was born and 
raised in Farmington Hills. 
He was raised a Reform Jew 
and emceed at bar and bat 
mitzvahs. A U-M grad, he has 
been steadily working in film 
and TV since 2008. Career 
highlights include a recurring 
role on Mad Men and a star-
ring role on Zoo, a CBS drama 
(2015-2017). 

NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST

CELEBRITY NEWS
ARTS&LIFE

BY SAMHSA VIA WIKIPEDIA

James 
Wolk

