Dorothy Silver is luminous in ‘Golda’s Balcony’
BY: FRAN HELLER
Contributing Writer
She’s
luminous.
From first to last, and for 95 uninterrupted minutes, Dorothy
Silver dominates the stage as Golda Meir n Russian refugee, American Zionist,
wife, mother, and Israel’s first and only female prime minister in William
Gibson’s one-person play “Golda’s Balcony.” It’s at Actors’ Summit through April
13.
Silver’s tour de force performance is a
capstone to a long and illustrious career that shows no signs of slowing down.
Sharing the podium as co-directors are Reuben Silver and A. Neil Thackaberry.
The end result from this accomplished trio is pure gold.
Walking slowly, her stooped figure wrapped in a well-worn
bathrobe, a weary Golda emerges from the shadows, obviously sickly and nearing
the end of her years. Pouring a cup of coffee, she takes a sip, oblivious, at
first, to her audience. Gradually, she looks up and around, her expressive eyes
taking in everyone as she begins her story.
It’s a journey that takes Golda from Russia, where her family
flees the pogroms, to Milwaukee and Denver, where she discovers her life’s
calling, and later to Palestine, where she helps build the new state of Israel
and becomes its prime minister.
“Golda’s Balcony” is not only the story of
the birth of the state of Israel and the bittersweet aftermath; it is also the
saga of a strong and independent-minded woman breaking out of the conventional
female mold and forging a life for herself at great personal sacrifice and
cost.
This production is superior to the one I saw at
Playhouse Square in 2005 starring Valerie Harper.
Silver’s formidable acting skills illuminate her character in
ways that are deeply moving. That Silver is a Jewish actress gives her
performance even greater authenticity and visceral connection. And the intimacy
of the Actors’ Summit stage is far more suitable than the Playhouse Square stage
for a one-person show.
The play’s dramatic
center revolves around the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when the 75-year-old prime
minister receives a call in the middle of the night that Israel is being
attacked by Egypt and Syria. Israel faces certain annihilation unless Golda’s
armies get the planes and military equipment they need to fend off their
enemies. Her ace-in-the-hole is the threat of unleashing nuclear power if U.S.
President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger fail to comply with her request for
materiel.
The action yo-yos between the dire
political crisis surrounding the war and Golda’s life story. Leapfrogging
between past and present, the personal and the political, makes the rapid-fire
chain of events difficult to follow at times.
Silver does not always draw sufficient
distinction when impersonating the other characters. But these are minor tics in
her galvanizing performance as the iron-willed Golda, conflicted between her
all-consuming role as nation builder and that of wife and
mother.
Dressed in costumer MaryJo Alexander’s sensible oxfords, dowdy
skirt and paisley blouse, her hair severely parted and knotted in the back
(great wig), Golda recounts her story.
At age
15, Golda, an emerging socialist, leaves home to live with her sister in Denver,
where she meets her future husband, Morris Meyerson. Against Morris’s wishes,
they move to Palestine in the early 1920s. Golda’s devotion to creating a Jewish
state proves disastrous to her marriage.
There are two balconies in Golda’s life: the one outside her Tel
Aviv apartment, from which she sees the shiploads of Jews arriving after
statehood is declared; the other is in Dimona, deep in the Negev, where Golda
watches the emergence of a nuclear-power plant, which she describes as a “gaze
into hell.”
Thackaberry’s lighting and set design add
dramatic heft to the monologue.
Especially moving is Golda’s visit to Yad Vashem and the Hall of
Remembrance. As she intones the names of the concentration camps, a single ray
of light immersed in the darkness of death becomes a metaphor for the triumph of
good over evil.
A trio of desks on raised
platforms serves as office and domicile, from which Golda navigates her various
roles as chief of state, wife and mother. Sharp direction keeps Golda moving
from one desk to the other and the audience riveted.
Archival photographs projected from a pair of video screens
dovetail the narrative to great effect. These include family pictures, images of
war, the DP camp at Cyprus, and President Harry Truman in the act of recognizing
the state of Israel.
The intermittent sounds of a ticking clock
and the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire heighten the notion of a people struggling to
survive. Survival is synonymous with the Jewish people, says Golda, which
elicited an audible murmur of assent from the audience, including this
viewer.
This year, Israel celebrates the 60th anniversary of its birth as
a Jewish state. Gibson’s 2002 award-winning play, which was presented
off-Broadway and on Broadway in 2003, sadly resonates with a more pessimistic
ring in 2008.