In a strange way, going to see “Golda’s
Balcony,” a one-woman show about the life of Israeli heroine
and former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, at the Wadsworth
Theatre in Brentwood is a bit like going to synagogue.
To start, the theater itself has a nice but slightly antiquated
feel that could comfortably house a local Jewish Community Center
production. The curtainless stage’s set fits the part as
well, looking like a cross between the Western Wall and that early
1990s office architectural style that somehow found its way into
what seems to be every contemporary Jewish house of prayer.
And when Meir (played with astonishing power by Tovah Feldshuh)
walks on stage, she’s clearly a rabbi sort of figure, and not
only because she’s the only one who talks. She knows how to
handle a crowd, leading it in with a few opening jokes before
getting to the moralizing meat of her greater speech.
You wouldn’t think a play that begins with borsch belt
one-liners like, “How does a housewife choose between
generals?” could eventually work its way to asking real moral
questions like, “What happens when idealism becomes
power?” But “Golda’s Balcony” does, and
does so seamlessly.
The written play itself, scribed by William Gibson, is a marvel
of the growing one-person-show genre. While the one-person show has
typically been used to comic ends (after all, what is stand-up
comedy if not a one-person show?), “Golda’s
Balcony” is certainly not a comedy. But it’s not really
a tragedy either. Instead, to stay in the Aristotelian mode,
“Golda’s Balcony” is really a history, a New
Yorker profile put on stage.
At one point in the play, Meir comments that she had a
ghostwriter for her 1975 autobiography, “My Life.” If
she didn’t write her first autobiography,
“Golda’s Balcony” may as well be considered her
second.
But the strength of the play would be nothing without the
overwhelming success of Feldshuh in the role of Meir. After
originating the role on Broadway last year, Feldshush is clearly
comfortable in Meir’s mannerisms, but what is most astounding
and most impressive in Feldshuh’s performance is her comfort
in the mannerisms of pretty much every major political figure with
which Meir dealt.
Switching from character to character (or, in some of the
Americans’ cases, caricature to caricature), Feldshuh masks
each figure within Meir’s perception, a delightfully complex
bit of method acting. You’re not watching any old
presentation of Henry Kissinger; you’re watching Meir’s
impression of the man.
The performance of that impression is where “Golda’s
Balcony” could either fall apart or, in this case, make an
appeal to be considered a great play as opposed to a very good one.
And Feldshuh, shoulders hunched, arms crossed, doing her best deep
American accent from the perspective of an Israeli prime minister,
makes an appeal that even Meir herself would be proud of.
““ Jake Tracer