|
...They were enthusiastic, they rushed down the
aisles at the conclusion of the performance and
gave the Habima Players repeated curtain calls,
but one felt that their endorsement was entirely
a tribute to the artistry of the players rather
than to the substance of the play...
The
scene is laid in Prague in the sixteenth
century. The Jews are being persecuted by the
Inquisition. the prophet Elijah frees the bonds
of the Messiah, preparatory to delivering the
Jews from their persecutors. At the same time
the rabbi Maharal, skilled in Kabbalist lore,
resolves to create a temporal instrument to
defend his people. He molds out of clay a
monster, half man and half beast, in human form
and of enormous strength. This monster, the
Golem, thus becomes the symbol for all temporal
powers molded by religion for the physical
advancement of religious purposes...
...No one who has seen the acting of the Habima
troupe can be in two minds as to the quality of
their performance. Action, word and gesture are
welded into a unity which combines the vividness
of accomplished pantomime to the sonority of
dramatic speech.
B.
Tchemerinsky as Maharal, A. Meskin as the Golem,
and Ben Ari as Tahchum, the Lunatic, were
outstanding in their interpretations of
extraordinarily difficult roles. Meskin's
grotesque and clumsy movements, his enormous
physique and his simple expressions reeked of
the clay from which the Golem was molded. As he
groveled at the rabbi's feet, making convulsive
efforts to escape the words of power which were
to return him to the dust, panting and sobbing,
he conveyed a sense of bestial and pathetic
helplessness that stirred one curiously. It was
superb acting..." |
