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Beate Hein Bennett From Paradise to Crucifixion “The
Goldberg-Variations”
September 19 to October 6, 2024
The plays of George Tabori (1914-2007) are rarely performed in the United States, and so it is a special treat to see this spirited production directed by Manfred Bormann who has been the primary champion of his work in the US. (He directed Tabori’s “Mein Kampf” and “Jubilee” for TNC.) Tabori had emigrated to England and in 1947 to the US, first working as a translator and screen writer in Hollywood. In the 50s and 60s Tabori plays were directed by Elia Kazan, Martin Fried, Gene Frankel and provided stage debuts for actors, such as Stacy Keach, Morgan Freeman, and Viveca Lindfors. Wynn Handman pioneered in producing Tabori’s experimental work at The American Place Theatre in NYC. In 1970, Tabori moved to Germany where he directed his work in major theaters in Berlin, Munich, and Vienna. All his plays were written originally in English. What makes his plays challenging to direct and act is the mercurial shift in tone from satire, farce, oratorical bombast, political commentary, to tragic revelation. One moment he will indulge in ludicrous puns and absurd, banal situations only to shift into chilling actual tragic facts that stifle the laughter in the throat.
The play title is an obvious homage to Johann Sebastian Bach’s famous “Goldberg Variations” for tempered piano. The play itself is a fierce satire that, typical for Tabori, ranges widely (and wildly) through our cultural and political history and its sacred cows. In this play George Tabori does not shy away from dealing simultaneously with the Bible, the sacred text of Judeo-Christian tradition, the Holocaust, Jewish identity and Anti-Semitism. Tabori’s dramaturgical conceit is a backstage view into a theater rehearsal for a prospective production set in Jerusalem. What starts with a farcical scene in the “Garden of Eden” ends with the enactment of the Crucifixion, the Son (Jesus) sacrificed by the Father (God), i.e. the original Jew on the cross, resonating in the modern equivalent, namely the Jews sacrificed (or abandoned) in the Holocaust. Tabori thus turns the Christian idea of salvation upside down while excoriating any Jewish self-flagellating notion of some fundamental guilt.
We watch the developmental rehearsals of a theatrical project aiming to render salient Bible stories into a viable piece of theater. The central characters are Goldberg (Derrick Peterson), a stage manager and assistant to a director/producer, and his boss, Mr. Jay (Dana Watkins). The latter's blustering superego in search of success camouflages his weak character and lack of moral fiber. As the cast improvises, rehearsing variations on well-known biblical scenes, Goldberg is harassed and humiliated by the overbearing Mr. Jay. Three actors, Masch (Jeff Burchfield), Raamah (Matt Walker), and Japhet (Jee Duman) play Hell’s Angels who create havoc by being incompetent, obstreperous and downright rebellious in rehearsal—each in his own way. The one female actor (Alyssa Simon) in the ensemble shifts with ease into diverse female roles: Mrs. Mopp, the sharp witted cleaning woman; Ernestina van Veen, a designer; Teresa Tormentina, an insufferably arrogant aging Superstar; and The Golden Calf, disguised in a gilded head mask and dress. The ensemble is adept in dealing with the heavily rhetorical text and executes Mr. Bormann’s precise direction with great gusto. The text is weighted by a palimpsest of allusions and direct quotations from the Bible, Shakespeare, Beckett, Milton, and the poet Paul Celan, all of which serves to demonstrate the wide thematic range—God vs. Man, Father vs. Son, victim vs. victimizer, survival in the face of programmatic obliteration (the Holocaust), and collective amnesia vs. historical fact, or denial vs. memory. The actors have to move nimbly (and sometimes with a wink) through this forest of text and yet portray individually the personal pain embedded in the satire.
The comedic aspect of the play is underscored by the costumes, designed by Holly Pocket. Lytza Colon dressed Mark Marcante’s simple functional set and fabricated or collected wonderfully ridiculous props, notably the animals for Noah’s Ark. The basic white lighting designed by Alexander Bartenieff creates the work atmosphere of a rehearsal but shifts also subtly when the moment calls for the audience empathy for Goldberg’s multiple tribulations, as Jew and as a survivor. Tabori’s “variations” on the complex yet familiar condition humaine in Manfred Bormann’s sharp staging is a welcome serious theatrical event for which Crystal Field and TNC should be gratefully acknowledged.
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