{"id":34241,"date":"2020-02-21T03:55:48","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T11:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=34241"},"modified":"2020-02-19T18:18:54","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T02:18:54","slug":"question-that-wont-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2020\/02\/21\/question-that-wont-die\/","title":{"rendered":"Question that won\u2019t die"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHow does a housewife decide between generals?\u201d asks Golda Meir (played by Tovah Feldshuh) in Golda\u2019s Balcony<\/em>. In this instance, she must decide between the counsel of David (Dado) Elazar, her chief of staff, left, and Moshe Dayan, her minister of defence. (production still)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Tovah Feldshuh is incredible to watch in Golda\u2019s Balcony, The Film<\/em>. Not just in her passionate and sympathetic portrayal of Golda Meir, Israel\u2019s prime minister from 1969 to 1974, but in her depiction of all 45 characters in William Gibson\u2019s one-woman play. She\u2019s Meir, David Ben-Gurion, David (Dado) Elazar, her husband Morris, Holocaust survivors and Israeli soldiers, among many others. She moves as easily between the personalities as a child raised in a multilingual household moves between languages. And with powerful effect.<\/p>\n

Golda\u2019s Balcony, The Film <\/em>has two screenings at the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival \u2013 March 1, 1 p.m., and March 2, 3:30 p.m., at Fifth Avenue Cinemas. See it. You will have a more nuanced understanding of Meir, as well as of Israel, its origins and the struggles it has faced and will face. Gibson\u2019s text is superb; it is engaging and insightful, with enough humour along the way that you\u2019ll be able to breathe on occasion, as Meir deals with the existential crisis of the Yom Kippur War. Fluidly switching from wartime to other parts of her life, the play depicts, if nothing else, the stressful, heart-wrenching, thankless job that is being prime minister of a country that is constantly under threat.<\/p>\n

The film is a recording of the play\u2019s soldout Off-Broadway premi\u00e8re on May 4, 2003, at the Manhattan Ensemble Theatre, presented by Issembert Productions. After a four-month soldout run at MET, the show moved to Broadway, and the Helen Hayes Theatre, where it ran for 15 months, making it, apparently, the longest-running one-woman show in Broadway history. It has won countless awards.<\/p>\n

The set is relatively simple. A table with a couple of chairs on a tile floor. On the table, a dial telephone, a pitcher and water glass, an ashtray, cigarettes. Light shines on the table from the right, as if from a window. The backdrop is a wall of reddish stone or metal slabs of varying sizes that protrude outward. Images are projected onto the wall or chairs when relevant, giving the audience a visual of the person Meir is talking about, or that Feldshuh is portraying \u2013 though it is hard to see these images in the film version. To the side and a step down is a small piece of stage covered in dirt, with a few rocks, which acts as refugee camps in Cyprus, the kibbutz on which Meir lived for a time, Russia when Meir visits on a diplomatic tour, etc. The focal point for the entire production is Feldshuh.<\/p>\n

The play begins in darkness, a man chants a prayer, the words \u201cGolda\u2019s Balcony\u201d appear briefly on the wall. Thunder claps, lightning flashes, gunshots ring out, then darkness again, but the sound continues: guns firing, bombs exploding, planes overhead. A housecoat-garbed Golda, sitting at the head of the table, strikes a match and lights a cigarette; the lights rise a bit and calmer music prevails.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m at the end of my story,\u201d says Golda. \u201cI\u2019m old. I\u2019m tired. I\u2019m sick. Dying, the doctors tell me. The picture you have of me as Mamaleh Golde, who makes chicken soup for her soldiers, it\u2019s a nice picture. And I do make chicken soup. But let\u2019s empty it all out for keeps right now because, at the bottom of the pot, is blood. At the bottom of the pot is the question that won\u2019t die. I can do without that music!\u201d she yells. It stops. The lights come on more fully, as Golda then starts to relate the story of her first voyage to Palestine, with her husband, in 1921 \u2013 52 years later, she would become prime minister.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember, starting with a phone call, that woke me up at four o\u2019clock in the morning. Saturday, Yom Kippur, 1973,\u201d she says, as she closes her eyes, looking exhausted, her right arm holding up her head, the left one sliding off the table. The phone rings. Startled, she answers it, hearing the news that Egypt and Syria have attacked Israel. As she takes off the housecoat, Golda is in her familiar muted woolen skirt suit; energy, anger and fear all come to the surface as she relates her generals\u2019 differing views as to what Israel needs to do. Dado: attack! Moshe Dayan: don\u2019t be seen as the aggressor! \u201cHow does a housewife decide between generals?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n

Of course, she does decide. But the agonizing and tension-filled process leads her \u2013 and Israel \u2013 down some very dark paths and the play masterfully depicts her sadness, anxiety and frustration; the sacrifices to her family, her health, as well as to others. Throughout the many narratives, it is the story of the Dimona nuclear facility to which she will get, the story that haunts her, that took her to hell; the story she needs to gather the strength to tell.<\/p>\n

Thunder, lightning and gunfire divide the scenes in the whirlwind of action that Golda describes, her domestic life almost as tumultuous as her political life. We see her humanity, but also her toughness. Luckily, she never had to answer the question that \u201cwon\u2019t die\u201d: if Israeli forces hadn\u2019t been able to cross the Suez Canal and if the United States had not come through with the needed military aid, would she have ordered the dropping of the nuclear bombs with which she had armed Israel\u2019s planes?<\/p>\n

Golda\u2019s Balcony<\/em> is a must-see in a festival with many excellent films. For the full schedule, visit vjff.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHow does a housewife decide between generals?\u201d asks Golda Meir (played by Tovah Feldshuh) in Golda\u2019s Balcony. In this instance, she must decide between the counsel of David (Dado) Elazar, her chief of staff, left, and Moshe Dayan, her minister of defence. (production still) Tovah Feldshuh is incredible to watch in Golda\u2019s Balcony, The Film. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[787],"tags":[5465,4242,4330,6208,9683,2280,2281],"class_list":["post-34241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv-film","tag-golda-meir","tag-history","tag-israel","tag-theatre","tag-tovah-feldshuh","tag-vancouver-jewish-film-festival","tag-vjff"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}