Thoughts on arts, life, and current events

On January 9th I was on the Next Generation Committee fundraiser at the USHMM with Ralph Fiennes and Bob Woodward.   We were thrilled that the event was a sell out just a few weeks after the holiday season and our snow storms.  The USHMM does such important work not only on the Holocaust but also on educational efforts for young and old on the roots of this evil - ignorance, racism, propaganda, and collecting data and information that I wish I could do more to help them.

Ralph Fiennes was compelling as interviewed by Bob Woodward.  Woodward’s questions were mostly very interesting(more later).  Fiennes who played Amon Goeth the Plaszow concentration/labor camp commandant  in Schindler’s List and then a number of characters from the Sonnenshein family in Sunshine is an amazing actor.  His recent movies are also remarkable.  Last year the Museum showed the documentary of Helen Hirsch who was a slave as a young girl in the psychotic Commandant’s home.  She lived through the war and came to the museum to discuss the terror and experience of returning to Plaszow with Goeth’s now grown daughter.  The young woman had no idea of what her father was doing at the labor camps and now she speaks in Germany to college students about the Holocaust and the horrors perpetrated at the time.

What is remarkable about film is it’s ability to tell a story - horrific, painful and real.  The clips that were shown from Schindler’s List and Sunshine reminded me how great actors in the hands of brilliant directors can bring forward evil in a performance that is true and as brutal as it is to watch we don’t avert our eyes as we know it is only a performance.  Helen Hirsch and the others experienced this terror first hand and some have lived to tell us about it.

Both Ralph Fiennes and Bob Woodward were gracious to everyone at the end of the evening.  Answering questions, taking photos.  I don’t know how an actor can play the roles that Mr. Fiennes does with such success.  He is not just a great actor but also a humanitarian.  Bravo Mr. Fiennes in your greatest role - illuminating the horror’s of these times and places with performances which tell the story of a history we pray will never be repeated.

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Last night’s opening of The Four of Us by Itamar Moses at Theater J at the DC-JCC provided me once again with an evening where I walk away appreciative of my good luck to live in a city such as Washington DC.   The local theatre scene has grown so much, the audience, the talent that the city attracts that I can only hope the bad economy doesn’t bring it to a halt.   Thank you to the donors and patrons who still make this all possible.

I knew nothing of the play or the playwright until last night although within the theatre world he is well known and acknowledged.  Recent plays I have seen Phaedre and two Tom Stoppard plays were of a different era so to meet a young new talent is really exciting.  The playwright like me is a fan of Stoppard’s work so he and I discussed Arcadia and Rock n Roll after the performance.  The vocabulary of Moses’ play is of our times and the experience of the characters is of this age.  Moses is talented and I am excited to see his work evolve as I have with Tom Stoppard.  (My first Stoppard play was in London in the early 80s- The Right Thing starring Diana Riggs.)  The themes - friendship, competition between friends, love, romance, relationships, sex, rejection, are classic however, only the test of time will prove the ability of this work’s content to be sustained in the future.

Directed by Daniel De Raey the actors and staging all work to great effect.  A one act play approximately an hour and a half long with only two actors it was fabulous.  Benjamin played by Dan Crane and David played by Karl Miller are both so talented that watching them is a true delight.  The self-possessed Benjamin and by contrast the more bohemian David are a perfect point counter point to one another.   The music, staging, and lighting were all beautifully integrated into the play as an element to smooth the transitions of time, space, and memory.

Simply, it is a story of two young men - one a playwright (David), the other an author(Benjamin).  One meets with “success”  the other wrestles with his sense of inadequacy in the face of his friends personal and professional accomplishments.  No one is spared - as these two characters confront the challenges of their decade and their professions (on a micro level this is not about sweeping political ideas but much more about intimate personal conflicts)  creating an oeuvre, getting an education, navigating the world of sex and intimacy, within the context of being friends and all that friends share.  Honestly, I didn’t know men were this open in their relationships with one another.  Perhaps writers and playwrights would be more verbal than the average MBA or PhD candidate?  I loved the last scene of the play which would not have been possible without the material which preceded it.  I would love to see this play again!  Now I have to go see The Real Thing which happens to be running this week at Georgetown University which is an odd coincidence.  And my own childhood friend who I have known since I was three and I are getting together tomorrow which all  gives me quite a great deal to reflect upon.

The creative process whether collaborative in theatre or the more solitary world of writing are both splayed open for us to observe like a documentary on the Discovery Channel.

The play is wordy and fun.  I believe the play will last longer than the friendship of the two characters portrayed but I suppose this young playwright may surprise us in future works where he might explore once again our world and what gives it meaning.

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