Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree There aren’t too many novels that can lay claim to a second, much less a third, lease on life as both a film and a play, especially when the subject at hand has to do with religion and faith. But “The Chosen,” Chaim Potok’s novel of Orthodox Jewish life…
Eric A. Goldman shares his discovery of the classic Canadian film “Lies My Father Told Me.” Katherine Preston looks at the similarities between “The King’s Speech” and “Going With the Flow,” a short documentary about speech therapy. Debra Nussbam Cohen praises the accomplishments of Jewish feminist Judith Plaskow. Philologos gets out his trunk. Jeremiah Lockwood…
It is sadly fitting that in a play about language’s inability to explain political and religious differences, set design and subtitles conspired to thwart the actors. But such was the case at the opening of the Tel Aviv-based Cameri Theatre’s production at Theater J in Washington, D.C. of Return to Haifa, which runs until January…
In this, the second annual Forward Fives selection, we celebrate the year’s cultural output with a series of deliberately eclectic choices in film, music, theater, exhibitions and books. Here we present five of the most important Jewish performances of 2010. Feel free to argue with and add to our selections in the comments. Hapless Hooligan…
Although they aren’t nearly as dysfunctional as the narrator and the old man with the “vulture eye” in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” or Allie and Hedy in “Single White Female,” Oscar Madison and Felix Ungar make up a lousy pair of roommates in Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple. But however rave the reviews…
“Rehabilitated? It’s just a bullshit word,” Ellis Boyd ‘Red’ Redding (Morgan Freeman) notoriously tells the parole board in “The Shawshank Redemption.” “So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don’t give a shit.” Three decades into her incarceration as an accessory to…
Crossposted From Under The Fig Tree For centuries, taking to the road has been the stuff of grand adventure and equally grand literature. From Benjamin of Tudela’s 12th century “Book of Travels” to Jack Kerouac’s 1957 “On the Road,” travel has been bound up with freedom and an enhanced sense of self. But what if…
Much flak was given last week to Theater J in Washington, D.C., when the company, at the behest of Elie Wiesel, canceled a play about the Bernard Madoff scandal. Wiesel was apparently upset about being depicted in a fictional jailhouse scene. But now, the play is back on — this time at a different locale…
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