To paraphrase the old Levy's Rye Bread ad from the 1960s, You Don't Have to Be Jewish To Like Golda's Balcony. You don't need to be a Zionist or a Socialist or a Feminist to appreciate the political and personal struggles of Golda Meir, who was born in Russia, raised in Milwaukee, emigrated to Palestine, and became Israel's unlikely prime minister from 1969 to 1974. Annette Miller's muscular yet nuanced portrayal of Meir at Shakespeare & Company (through July 3) may be more revelatory if you're not watching through a political prism: you'll see Meir not only as a symbol but also as a woman. Miller brings Meir to life with every ounce of her being, and you can feel the weight of the world on Miller/Meir's shoulders, as the prime minister deals with the 1973 Yom Kippur War and reflects on her journey from collective life on a kibbutz to being alone (more or less) with life-and-death powers. Unlike other characters Miller has played in one-woman shows at Shakespeare & Company (Diana Vreeland and Martha Mitchell), Meir does not come across as an egomaniac. Miller makes her an optimistic, principled battle-ax—a woman who dreamed of peace and wondered whether war was the means to that end even as she demanded more weapons from Nixon and Kissinger. In the playbill, director Daniel Girdon quotes from the play and points the audience towards its universal philosophical question: "What is the price for survival? What happens when idealism becomes power?" Golda Meir was an extraordinary historical figure, and Miller's performance makes clear that there is a grave burden in being simultaneously a pioneering world leader and a mother and grandmother. At the post-show discussion, most of the audience was talking about Israel. But I was thinking about Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Margaret Thatcher, Andrea Merkel, Benazir Bhutto and Indira Gandhi. I was wondering about their struggles and what it would be like if women ruled the world. You Don't Have To Believe in God . . .
There's a big philosophical question to ponder when you leave Freud's Last Session at Barrington Stage Company, which has gotten such good word of mouth that BSC extended its run by a week (through July 3). This world premiere of Mark St. Gemain's play (which had its first reading two years ago at BSC) is the story of a 1939 meeting between the dying Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, and C.S. Lewis, an Oxford professor and ardent Christian (who would later become world famous for books such as The Chronicles of Narnia.) As London is threatened by bombs, the two men are threatened by each other's positions on God and yet they delight in battle. "We cannot survive without enemies," says Freud, who is played with decaying dignity and wry humor by Martin Rayner. Mark Dold's Lewis has the earnest eagerness of the newly religious, and he finally wavers in his certitude. "If God is good, He would make his creatures perfectly happy. But we aren't. So God either lack goodness, or power, or both." Like Golda's Balcony, Freud's Last Session does not demand that you know your history but it does presume you have intelligence and curiosity. It lets you peer into two of the great minds of the 20th century and understand how important it is to believe in something and respect opposing points of view. You won't walk out of Freud's Last Session with answers, but you will have plenty to ponder on the drive home and on the morning after.
