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Review by G. L. Horton
Copyright © 2002
Geralyn Horton.
Golda's Balcony
by William Gibson
Shakespeare & Co. at Tremont Theatre
Quick Takes on . . .
I have to admit upfront: What I most love about theatre is not
so much the acting as the reacting--the way that a play can capture
the complex permutations within an interlocking set of relationships
over time. I prefer large cast plays to small ones, and I do not
like one-person shows, period. Yes, I've performed two of Rosanna
Alfaro's monodramas, enjoying them tremendously, and written six
of the seductive things myself. But as an audience member I find
them unsatisfying. The solo character is shown off or shown up,
the actor likewise; as spectator I feel conned, or complicit.
However, Annette Miller in Golda's Balcony proved to be the
exception. The shear acting power manifested on the Tremont Theatre
stage was uncanny, but thanks to the guiding hand of director
Daniel Gidron I never for a moment felt that the acting or the
character was on display for its own sake. Actor, author, and
audience; we had come together to understand this character because
it is a matter of life and death for us. By understanding her
we may better understand our singular selves and our still tribal
world. Gibson has fashioned a Golda who is a force-- not of nature,
but of human nature-- because she can say "we" with
utter assurance; and because she believes that the survival of
a particular ideal "we" is of absolute value, more important
than the survival of individuals, she is able to lead people to
extraordinary effort and sacrifice. Miller's towering performance,
while it has a few deft touches of impersonation, succeeds because
the actress is able to re-create and embody that huge primitive
almost impersonal force we recognize as leadership.
However, because we recognize leadership doesn't mean that the
play insists that have to approve of it. I don't think that anyone
who goes in to Golda's Balcony thinking that Zionism was a bad
idea will come out of it a convert. For every "we" there
is an implied "they", and Gibson's script makes it easy
to imagine the same sort of passionate intelligence at work on
the other side, conspiring to survive and uniting to prevail whatever
the cost. And Golda's Balcony certainly makes clear what the cost
may be: a nuclear exchange that exterminates "us" and
"them" alike.
Shakespeare & Co. at Tremont Theatre, Jan. 3 - Feb. 22. (866)
637 - 3353.
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