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How New Yorker writer Ariel Levy adapted Philip Roth’s filthiest book for the stage
(JTA) — A scruffy, bearded Jewish man in his mid-60s — distressed, disheveled but wickedly self-satisfied — is invited to spend the night at the Manhattan apartment of an old friend and benefactor. Put up in the bedroom of the man’s college-age daughter, he slips a pair of her panties over his head and searches her drawers in hopes of finding nude Polaroids.
That’s a scene from Philip Roth’s 1995 novel “Sabbath’s Theater” and now a stage adaptation by the actor John Turturro and the New Yorker writer Ariel Levy. Turturro also stars as Sabbath, a washed-up artist best known for his transgressive puppet theater in the ’60s — and best known to readers, perhaps, as Roth’s most repellant character. Drenched, sometimes literally, in sex, the play begins with a riotous bout of intercourse and climaxes, as it were, with two old lovers remembering their kinks.
But if the book were only about sex it might not have earned its National Book Award. It is also a tender meditation on mourning: Sabbath’s Croatian mistress, Drenka Balich, is dead, as are his mother, his brother and his career. “And there are other kinds of love and loss: about mourning his family and his health and his youth and his virility,” Levy told me when we spoke earlier this week.
As a journalist, Levy often delves into the way sex and gender shape the lives of both celebrities and people on the margins. Her 2017 memoir, “The Rules Do Not Apply,” began life as an award-winning essay on her miscarriage in a hotel room while on assignment in Mongolia, when she was 19 weeks pregnant, and expanded into a rumination on her dissolving marriage and roads not taken.
The New Group’s adaptation of “Sabbath’s Theater” opened Wednesday night and runs through Dec. 17 at the Pershing Square Signature Center in Manhattan. Turturro (who played another Roth character, the craven Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf, in the HBO adaptation of “The Plot Against America”) inhabits Mickey’s filthy, seductive charm. Elizabeth Marvel plays Drenka and other women in his life, and Jason Kravits plays the men. The play is as dirty as Mickey’s torn carpenter’s pants, but also poignant: When Sabbath cradles the belongings of his dead brother, lost in battle during World War II, it’s an echo of the violence and loss that have become overwhelming in recent weeks.
Levy and I spoke about adapting a quintessentially Jewish writer like Roth, the appeal of flawed protagonists and how an Italian actor like Turturro captures the Jewish soul of yet another Roth alter ego.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
With very few exceptions, adaptations of Roth’s work haven’t been all that successful. Do you agree and were thinking about how you might approach the material differently?
Well, I mean, I’d never adapted anything. Adapting Roth properly was like only one of many potentials for crises. Roth is my literary God. I like the way he uses language the most. He might not have liked me saying this because he was obviously very insistent on being an American writer, not a Jewish writer, but nobody captures the rhythm of the language of people whose first language is Yiddish and then move over to English. The way he uses those rhythms, that humor. The cultural familiarity is a powerful addition to my appreciation for his mastery of language and plot, irony and the level of his imagination, the level of his sense of play and his appreciation for what he calls, in ”Sabbath’s Theater,” the “nasty side of existence.”
John Turturro came to you through a recommendation by Hilton Als, a fellow writer at The New Yorker. Tell me about your writing process. What did you both agree on and disagree on — if you disagreed?
Oh, for the first couple of years, we kind of agreed on everything. It was the pandemic so we were going back and forth on Zoom. We had a very, very aligned vision of what the crucial stuff was. You could just tell that certain parts were going to work theatrically and certain parts were not, and then once we started rehearsing, after working on this together for two years and then going on this workshop at the National Theatre in London in January 2023 — once we got through that, we started to have a better sense of what will work theatrically. The unbelievable challenge for John was to be working on his performance and contemplating the script, because every change means a new thing you have to learn [as an actor].
Ariel Levy and John Turturro at the opening night party for The New Group Theater’s new play “Sabbath’s Theater,” at Green Fig Urban Eatery in New York City, Nov. 1, 2023. (Bruce Glikas/Getty Images)
How does a journalist learn to be a playwright? Was there anyone you were taking clues from about how to do this?
I was extremely worried and insecure about it. John knew I’d never written a play. He could have found plenty of playwrights who would have done this, but the way I’ve heard him explain it is that he didn’t want someone who’s gonna come in and say, “I know how to write a play. I’m going to rewrite this.” He wanted to use Roth’s language. We’re barely going to write stage directions, the stage directions are largely lifted from Roth’s writing. The most important thing to John was finding somebody who was Roth-reverent, and then also we just hit it off, we just liked each other. We liked the same parts of the book, and we both felt the book was a love story.
So, how did I learn to do it? I figured out that storytelling is storytelling. And also, I had John guiding me, John knows what a play is, and I had [the director] Jo Bonney guiding me through the process once we were in rehearsal.
You talked about your affinity for Roth. Was there something about “Sabbath’s Theater” that particularly connected to the things you’ve always been writing about and thinking about?
I’ve written a fair amount about the fundamental human drives for domesticity and comfort and kinship and security on the one hand, and adventure and novelty and stimulation on the other — those conflicting poles that human beings stretch between. And that’s very much in there in the realm of Sabbath. And John and I both cared a lot about the depiction of grief and the way the dead can become more real for you than the living sometimes and how, as you age, the accretion of missing people in your life just starts to pile up.
And then there is thinking about — not just sex, but the body. “Sabbath’s Theater” has so many amazing meditations on what it is to live inside a human body. I think we’re both really interested in all of that and the kind of animal reality of being a human who’s alive versus dead.
Were you worried at any point that some of Mickey’s transgressions — he has been tossed from a teaching job at a university after a phone-sex scandal with a student, he visits an old friend and rifles the dresser drawers of his host’s teenage daughter — would make him unredeemable in a post-#Me-Too era? And on the flip side, do you feel the play is pushing back against the #MeToo orthodoxy in some way?
I think that, you know, we didn’t put in every transgression from the book, but we put a lot. There’s a beautiful Garth Greenwell essay in The Yale Review about the book where he talks about how he teaches “Sabbath’s Theater” to undergraduates, and it bothers him when the question becomes whether a protagonist should be an example of moral rectitude. That’s not what art is for. This isn’t meant to be propaganda. This is raw. This is art. In some of my favorite literature of the 20th century, the moral compass, the moral core of the whole thing is reminding us that a human being is more than their worst or most repellent urges and behaviors. A human being contains multitudes. This is Mickey in all his humanity, and we certainly didn’t want to sanitize him. I mean, I think the play is still plenty, plenty dirty.
I’m going to quote your own words to you. I was rereading a profile you wrote about the film director Nicole Holofcener, and you say something about her that made me think, “Oh, this is why Levy wrote ‘Sabbath’s Theater.’” You wrote: “This is the kind of creature Nicole Holofcener is drawn to: weirdly alluring, mangled by life, and unable to resist lashing out against her own best interests.”
That’s so funny. Yeah, that’s it, isn’t it? That’s Mickey Sabbath. That’s eerie. That is Mickey Sabbath.
I have to ask you to weigh in on what I think is the world’s most boring debate, which is whether a non-Jewish actor like John Turturro should be playing a Jewish character like Mickey Sabbath written by a Jewish author like Philip Roth. Do you have any qualms about that?
I feel so culturally connected to John Turturro. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if we had genetic overlap. I mean, it’s like the food’s different, and the accents are different, but it’s the same shit, you know? John in particular to me is very culturally recognizable. And, you know, he’s married to a Jewish person. He’s raising children with a Jewish person. He’s steeped in it. We are not an exotic.
Also, he’s an actor. It’s like a novelist, which I’m not: They can inhabit other realities. That’s what their job is.
I sometimes feel that the readership for Roth is a men’s club. I’ve rarely come across women who idolized him the way I did. Do you feel that?
I mean, until his mature period, [his] women weren’t as interesting. They didn’t come off the page the way the men did. So I can understand, you know, it’s a drag reading a novel where the women aren’t coming off the page. It doesn’t feel great. But then everything changes: When he grows up he becomes this incredibly sophisticated, nuanced writer who realizes that women are half the human race. “Sabbath’s Theater” is the work that preceded the American trilogy [“American Pastoral,” “I Married a Communist” and “The Human Stain”]. That’s when everything starts to become like a masterpiece, and that’s when the women get really interesting. I defy anyone to find a richer, more complicated and fascinating and alluring female lead than Drenka. I mean, she’s unbeatable.
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The post How New Yorker writer Ariel Levy adapted Philip Roth’s filthiest book for the stage appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Oct. 7 Survivors to Visit Churches Across America for Holocaust Remembrance Day
The personal belongings of festival-goers are seen at the site of an attack on the Nova Festival by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Oct. 12, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Survivors of the Hamas terror group’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel will be visiting churches across the US this weekend to tell their stories as a way to mark Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, known as Yom HaShoah.
On Sunday, the survivors will travel to churches from New York to California. Eagles’ Wings, a pro-Israel organization, is partnering with the Moral Hearts Alliance and various Jewish communities to make the initiative happen.
“We view this ‘Solidarity Sunday’ as a sacred responsibility,” Bishop Robert Stearns of Eagles’ Wings said in a statement. “Isaiah 63:9 says, ‘In all their affliction, God was afflicted.’ God identifies with the suffering of the Jewish people, and as the Christian community, we must feel their suffering, too.”
On Oct. 7, Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas invaded Israel from neighboring Gaza, murdering 1,200 people and kidnapping 253 others as hostages. It was the biggest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Mounting evidence has documented Hamas’ systematic use of torture and sexual violence, including mass rape, against the Israeli people during the onslaught.
“We are proud to partner with Eagles’ Wings on Solidarity Sunday to shine a light on the atrocities committed on Oct. 7 and to build deep and lasting alliances across religions based on our shared values,” a Moral Hearts Alliance spokesperson said in a statement. “We share a commitment to support Israel and combat antisemitism in all of its forms.”
According to a press release for Sunday’s church visits, the Oct. 7 survivors’ stories include “a grandmother who hid from her Gazan neighbors with her three grandchildren, a Nova Music Festival survivor who barely escaped the scene and then returned the next day to serve in his reserve army unit, an Israeli official whose family member is still being held hostage in Gaza,” and other such incidents.
“Evil must no longer be able to hide in the shadows of silence, in the terrorist tunnels of Gaza, or behind the propaganda of Israel’s enemies,” Stearns said. “These brave Israelis will expose what they have suffered at the hands of Hamas.”
“Hitler’s antisemitism has taken a new form today through Hamas and its supporters,” he added.
Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz of Congregation Kehliath Jeshurun in Manhattan called “Solidarity Sunday” a “truly a sacred day” in a statement. “Christians and Jews will join their hearts together in support of Israel, at a time when Israel needs it most,” he continued. “Solidarity Sunday is a true fulfillment of Psalm 133:1: ‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!’”
Yom HaShoah begins on Sunday evening and will be observed by much of the Jewish world on Monday.
The post Oct. 7 Survivors to Visit Churches Across America for Holocaust Remembrance Day first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Somebody Is Radicalizing Our Students’: NYPD Finds Weapons, ‘Death to America’ Poster in Pro-Hamas Encampment
Pro-Hamas demonstrators at Columbia University in New York City, US, April 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
Anti-Israel protesters who occupied an academic building at Columbia University had signs that read “death to America” and “death to Israel,” a New York City Police Department (NYPD) official said on Friday.
“Pencils, books, laptops — those are the tools of students and what you expect to find on a college campus,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry wrote on X/Twitter. “However, when the NYPD entered Hamilton Hall — which encampment protesters took over — to remove the occupiers, it found “gas masks, ear plugs, helmets, goggles, tape, hammers, knives, ropes, and a book on TERRORISM [sic].”
Additionally, the NYPD found a poster that read “death to America,” “death to Israel,” and “long live the intifada” — the last of which refers to a violent Palestinian uprising.
“Continue to peacefully and lawfully protest,” the deputy commissioner emphasized, “but know that if you engage in illegal conduct, the NYPD will hold you responsible and hold you accountable — someone has to.”
Pencils, books, laptops, those are the tools of students and what you expect to find on a college campus. But here’s what the NYPD found in Hamilton Hall at Columbia University after we were able to arrest the protestors and agitators for commandeering and barricading themselves… pic.twitter.com/EKQV6nJySu
— NYPD Deputy Commissioner, Operations Kaz Daughtry (@NYPDDaughtry) May 3, 2024
In a statement to reporters a day earlier, Daughtry drew attention to the broader trends driving the activity seen on college campuses across the country. “Somebody is radicalizing our students,” he said. “We will find out who that is.”
Meanwhile, Chief of Patrol John Chell said it was particularly notable to observe the “complete hatred for Israel that was being spewed and the hatred for the NYPD being spewed by the youth of this school.” He described it as “upsetting as a father and as New York City people.”
While speaking with reporters, NYPD officials said the materials were found during a raid at New York University and the New School, not Columbia. But Friday’s post said it was from Columbia.
“Somebody is radicalizing out students” Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz spoke after NYU and New School raid this morning, “we will find out who that is”. Chief of Patrol John Chell showed literature found inside the New School ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment’ after it was… pic.twitter.com/LObfkp5Vmd
— Oliya Scootercaster (@ScooterCasterNY) May 3, 2024
These revelations by the NYPD came amid a wave of anti-Israel protests on university campuses, many of which have featured students removing the American flag and replacing it with Palestinian flags. At The George Washington University, employees cut the rope to the flag pole in the middle of the night after demonstrators hoisted a huge Palestinian flag and defaced a statue of George Washington. On Friday, reportedly with the support of the school, a massive American flag was unfurled on a building right next to the encampment.
BREAKING: Large American flag has just been unfurled at George Washington University pic.twitter.com/GNW6PFe9et
— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) May 3, 2024
For over two weeks, university students have been amassing in the hundreds at a growing number of schools, taking over sections of campuses by setting up “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” and refusing to leave unless administrators condemn and boycott Israel. Footage of the protests has shown demonstrators chanting in support of Hamas, calling for the destruction of Israel, and even threatening to harm members of the Jewish community on campus. In many cases, activists have also lambasted the US and Western civilization more broadly.
After American flags were taken down on a campus in New York City and the NYPD put it back up, Mayor Eric Adams said, “It’s despicable that schools would allow another country’s flag to fly in our country.”
“Blame me for being proud to be an American,” he added. “We’re not surrendering our way of life to anyone.”
The post ‘Somebody Is Radicalizing Our Students’: NYPD Finds Weapons, ‘Death to America’ Poster in Pro-Hamas Encampment first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Schumer to Join Invite for Netanyahu Address to US Congress After Calling for Israeli Leader’s Ouster
US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) holds a press conference in the US Capitol in Washington, DC, April 23, 2024. Photo: Annabelle Gordon / CNP/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is set to join House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) in inviting Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to address a joint session of the US Congress less than two months after Schumer called for the Israeli premier’s ouster from office.
“He intends to join the invitation; the timing is being worked out,” a Schumer spokesperson told The Hill.
Johnson reportedly sent Schumer a draft invitation last month but had not received a response.
Schumer’s decision to greenlight Netanyahu’s address came after the lawmaker called for new elections in Israel to replace the prime minister during a March 14 speech on the Senate floor.
Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish US elected official, accused Netanyahu of aligning himself with “extremists” and condemned his approach to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
“It has become clear to me the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after Oct. 7,” Schumer said, noting the date when Hamas terrorists invaded the Jewish state from Gaza and started the conflict.
In response, Netanyahu called Schumer’s remarks “totally inappropriate.”
“It’s inappropriate to go to a sister democracy and try to replace the elected leadership there. That’s something the Israeli public does on its own,” Netanyahu said on CNN.
Schumer’s decision to support the invitation to Netanyahu sparked a wave of backlash from progressive politicians and activists.
Former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner condemned the invitation in a post on X/Twitter, writing, “Netanyahu should not be welcomed to Congress. How shameful.”
Matt Stoller, a progressive political pundit and writer, called Schumer’s decision “incoherent.”
“You can’t give a major address on Netanyahu and then immediately backtrack,” Stoller said on X.
Cenk Uygur, founder of the left-wing media outlet The Young Turks, similarly denounced Schumer’s decision.
“After pretending to be tough on him, Schumer is now inviting Netanyahu to speak to Congress,” the commentator posted on social media. “After he’s slaughtered 25,000 women and children, our politicians give him $17 billion, pass laws making it illegal to criticize his government, and invite him to lecture us. Disgusting.”
In the months following Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel — in which the Palestinian terror group killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 253 others as hostages — Democratic politicians have grown increasingly critical of the Israeli military response in Gaza, the Palestinian enclave ruled by Hamas.
In February, a group of Democratic lawmakers from 12 states sent a letter to US President Joe Biden calling for a “ceasefire” in Gaza. The following month, several Senate Democrats penned a letter demanding that Biden stop US military assistance to Israel.
A growing number of prominent Democrats have also made recent statements calling to condition Washington’s military aid to Israel and even suggesting the Jewish state is committing genocide.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said in April that there was “ample evidence” that Israel was committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. Weeks later, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called on Netanyahu to “resign.” She also signed onto a recent letter from several House Democrats urging the Biden administration to halt further arms transfers to the Jewish state.
Polling suggests that the Democratic Party’s voter base has started to sour on Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Sixty-three percent of Democrats believe that Israel has “gone too far” in its military campaign following the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, according to an AP-NORC poll from January. Meanwhile, 49 percent of Democrats believe that Israel is committing a “genocide” in Gaza, according to an Economist/YouGov poll.
Amid the mounting pressure from his own party, Biden has threatened to pull back US support for Israel, citing the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where Hamas terrorists embed themselves within the civilian population and use civilian sites — such as hospitals — to house their command and operation centers.
Corey Walker is a journalist based in Washington, DC.
The post Schumer to Join Invite for Netanyahu Address to US Congress After Calling for Israeli Leader’s Ouster first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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