Review: Moos ★★★★ - A charming, contemporary comedy set in Amsterdam’s Jewish community

As the 20th UK International Jewish Film Festival gets underway (5-20 November), we take our first look at the selection of films on offer on offer. Job Gosschalk's  beguiling comedy Moos gives an insight into life in Jewish communities in Amsterdam.

This entirely charming and absorbing comedy set in Amsterdam’s Jewish community wears its ‘kosher’ credentials lightly but convincingly from the opening frames. Twenty-something Moos and her widowed father are preparing for a Chanukah party with the relatives. She is his right-hand woman, both in his draper’s shop and as homemaker, though now he is dating a likely single mother whose son is coming up for bar mitzvah, Moos realises her life’s been on hold too long.

The main storyline revolves around Moos’ unsuccessful efforts to get into drama school and her settling for a job in the school’s canteen; and the visit of her long-time childhood friend Sam, now living in Israel and how that chimes with her attraction to sexy singing teacher Chris, who offers (very) private coaching. Meanwhile life in the community – which embraces Moos and her father, family and friends, including Sam – continues to be a vital part of the film’s fabric. The Chanukah latkes, the preparations for the bar mitzvah and the celebration of a ceremonial circumcision in the family all play their part in Moos’ story.

As played by Jip Smit, Moos is an engaging, kind-hearted young woman, unselfconscious and natural, attractive rather than beautiful, and you can’t help warming to her. Frederik Brom is touching as her father Maup; and from the moment he appears at the door, we can see, even if Moos can’t, that Daniel Cornelissen’s open, sincere Sam is made for her.

Writer/director Job Gosschalk and co-writer Judit Goudsmit take their audience to drama school and give us time out in the café with its quirky characters. And they are equally adept at creating an attractive and subtle picture of Moos’ network of family and other relationships. There are delightful flashbacks to Moos and Sam as children and touching glimpses of Moos caring for her father.

Then at the bar mitzvah in synagogue, in a scene reminiscent of Jack Rosenthal’s Bar Mitzvah Boy, it is Moos who is there for the bar mitzvah when he gets stage fright. Meanwhile the story of her efforts to face up to her own diffidence has its own delightful set-piece climax where she gets to duet with real-life Israeli singing star Asaf Hertz. There are some marvellously evocative settings too – the Amsterdam street with folk cycling past the draper’s shop, the lush bales of cloth piled inside and of course that grand synagogue, the men in prayer shawls gathered on the central bimah (platform) around the Torah scroll. Moos is a delight from start to finish.

By Judi Herman

Moos has the following UKIJFF screenings:

Sunday 6 November, 6pm, at Odeon South Woodford, E18 2QL.

Thursday 10 November, 7.30pm, at Odeon Swiss Cottage, NW3 5EL.

Sunday 13 November, 4pm, at HOME Manchester, M15 4FN.

http://ukjewishfilm.org

Review: The Midnight Orchestra ★★★★ - A poignant, magical story about regret and relationships set in Morocco

As the 20th UK International Jewish Film Festival gets underway (5-20 November), we take our first look at the selection of films on offer. Jérôme Cohen-Olivar's poignant The Midnight Orchestra gives an insight into life in Jewish communities in Morocco.

Wall Street whizz kid Michael Abitbol returns to his childhood home in Casablanca to be reunited with his elderly father: legendary band leader and local hero Marcel Botbol, from whom he is estranged. Botbol is returning there himself for the first time since leaving his native city and adoring fans for Israel in 1973, when the Yom Kippur War caused an antisemitic backlash in Morocco. But no sooner do they meet again than tragedy strikes and the son must engage with officials of the local Jewish community to bury his father. But first Michael must fulfil his father’s last wish – to reunite the band and this becomes an overwhelming desire to do so for one last, transcendent gig.

It's Michael's dogged pursuit of these eccentric and impossible, even dangerous old men that drives the narrative. A  pimp and gangster, complete with moll, an eccentric millionaire who prefers life as a beggar and the harmonica player confined in an asylum since he jumped into the nighttime harbour swearing he heard the midnight orchestra playing out at sea.

Perhaps just as important is what actually proves to be the film's central relationship, between Michael and an eccentric Arab taxi driver and ardent fan of Botbol. He becomes Sancho Panza to Michael’s Don Quixote, local guide and lifesaver. It's almost a bromance, but given the age gap it's perhaps more a consolation for the father and son relationship he has just lost. Their quest to find the band members is both comical and suspenseful and for Michael a bittersweet nostalgia trip too. His childhood around the band and its members is beautifully evoked by sepia tinted footage of the musicians in their prime. Michael sees the little ghost of his younger self too, haunting the places where he played as a boy.

For the audience the film is an insight into the past and present of a Jewish community little known outside Morocco and into the now cordial relationship it has with the country's Muslim majority. There are stand-out performances from Jewish Moroccan actor Avishay Benazra as Michael and Aziz Dadas as his taxi driver helpmeet. And there's another effective comic cameo double act from two actors, whose names I have searched for in vain, as a pair of officious and oleaginous representatives of the local Jewish burial society. This is a poignant, magical story set in Casablanca now, about regret and relationships, memory and getting old. My one regret is that we had only a brief, tantalising taste of how the fabled orchestra might have sounded. I would have loved to hear the whole of the tribute played at the graveside of their leader.

By Judi Herman

The Midnight Orchestra has the following UKIJFF screenings:

Sunday 6 November, 8.30pm, at Odeon Swiss Cottage, NW3 5EL.

Tuesday 15 November, 7.30pm, at Seven Arts Leeds, LS7 3PD.

Saturday 19 November, 7.30pm, at CCA Glasgow, G2 3JD.

http://ukjewishfilm.org

Two consecutive evenings, two talented young Israeli performing artists, both with so much to offer

knock-and-falling

I rounded off October by spending two consecutive evenings being excited and challenged by the work of two talented young Israeli performing artists, both with so much to offer. Niv Petel is heartbreaking in Knock Knock, his beautifully nuanced account of a devastating situation faced by too many Israeli families, and Hagit Yakira attracted full houses for her exciting new work Free Falling.

Petel is an extraordinary physical actor, wonderfully convincing as a devoted mother whose son is the centre of her life. An engaging and important contribution to our understanding of life in Israel. And at Sadler’s Wells last week, dancer/choreographer Yakira presented four talented performers falling and recovering again as they take what life throws at them. Supporting each other, their eyes and faces as important as the rest of their bodies as they look out for each other. In a beguiling add on, three more dance artists responded to Free Falling – including full audience participation on the studio floor, everyone linked in a joyful dance – a sort of Hora at Sadler’s Wells, which makes Israeli dance so welcome. Niv Petel and Hagit Yakira are certainly names to watch.

Continue through the blog to read our reviews of Knock Knock and Free Falling, as well as an interview with Niv Petel, or click the names to go straight to each one.

by Judi Herman

A Report on Free Falling, the new show from Israeli dancer/choreographer Hagit Yakira at Sadler’s Wells

free-falling1

Hagit Yakira attracted full houses for her exciting new work, four talented performers falling, recovering and supporting each other, as they take what life throws at them. Their eyes and faces are as important as the rest of their bodies as they look out for each other. Yakira says she invites her audience “to experience the unravelling of real life experiences”. What I loved, though, was the synthesis – the building up of the elements that make up this seemingly simple but actually complex work performed on a vast bare stage.

One eloquent male dancer repeatedly falls and rights himself, while uttering the words "fall" and "recover". He’s joined by a second male dancer, full of solicitude for his partner, whom he repeatedly lifts and allows to slip away. A female dancer joins them and composer and multi-instrumentalist Sabio Janiak adds his serenely plangent music to the mix. A second female dancer makes a quartet and all four display the same solicitude for whichever of them is falling – clearly making recovery possible, not just by supporting them physically, but with the empathy in their expressions. I thought of the motto of the Three Musketeers (with D’Artagnan also four of course): “All for one and one for all”. The space is vast but they crisscross through it all. Janiak adds percussion too – and sometimes takes away his music leaving just the dancers in their loose, pastel clothes. It's moving, telling, soothing, startling and always engaging. The dancers are Sophie Arstall, Fernando Belsara, Stephen Moynihan and Verena Schneider.

free-falling2

In a beguiling addition, three dance artists respond to Free Falling – a different trio each night. The night I went there was a considered response from Dr Emma Dowling on video and an immediate response from Rosemary Lee, a choreographer and creator of extraordinary large-cast community pieces for dancers of all ages. It was fascinating to compare Dr Dowling’s conscientious onscreen response with Rosemary’s joyful movement through the space, retracing the footsteps of the dancers and throwing down pages from her notebook in response to what she had seen and experienced in each spot.

Between these two came the response from dancer Rachel Krische, drawing on the movement quality choreographed by Yakira for the quartet, but relating to members of the audience – using them as her dance partners, first touching, then asking for more – for support and the intertwining of limbs. And finally, gloriously climaxing in full audience participation on the studio floor – everyone linked in a joyful dance – a sort of Hora at Sadler’s Wells, which makes Israeli dance so welcome. Hagit Yakira is a name to watch – and JR will be watching out for more Israeli dance at Sadler’s Wells.

By Judi Herman

Photos by Loy Olsen and Kiraly Saint Claire

Free Falling was presented as part of Wild Card, a series of specially curated evenings at Sadler's Wells Theatre from a new generation of dance makers, bringing fresh perspectives to the stage. www.sadlerswells.com

To read more about Hagit Yakira and Free Falling, click here http://www.hagityakira.com

Review: Knock Knock ★★★★ - A beautifully nuanced account of a devastating situation

Clad simply in a white top and khaki trousers, to which he adds such details as a white apron, Petel bowls a blinder by playing the mother of his young conscript. He stacks the emotional stakes high – she's a single mother and an army therapist, trained to tell bereaved parents the worst, to make that dreaded knock on the door, and to work with them through the grief and loss that will form part of the rest of their lives. For most of the show Petel talks intimately and affectionately to his son. The account of their intense relationship is beautifully paced, starting with Ilad as a babe in arms and then as a toddler; at kindergarten, then junior school; as stroppy teenager and, inevitably, at 18 preparing for the draft.

Petel’s is a beautifully nuanced physical performance that takes the audience with him through the whole of what we know is to be a tragically short life. There's a moment of hope when we discover that as an only child, he can opt out of active service; we live with his mother through the nail-biting agony of trying to dissuade her son from choosing service to prove himself. But mothers must let go if children are to grow up at all.

With the aid of designer Rhiannon White the show is made up of an extraordinarily simple set and minimal, versatile props to set off the physical and vocal skill and simplicity with which Petel tells his story. White lives up to her name, for everything on stage is stark and clinical: a table, chair, telephone and the towel that Petel winds first into baby Ilad and then almost everything else needed to tell his tale. Under lighting designer Oliver Bush’s equally stark white light, the feel is of a waiting room, a surgery or a morgue – perhaps a waiting room in the afterlife even. The only other colour is the khaki of those trousers, suggesting that Petel is Ilad, as well as his mother, which is a touching duality. Overall, Knock Knock is an engaging and important contribution to our understanding of life in Israel.

By Judi Herman

Knock Knock runs until Sunday 6 November, 7.30pm, £8-£10, at Etcetera Theatre, 265 Camden High St, NW1 7BU; 020 7482 4857. http://etceteratheatre.com

Listen to Niv Petel talking about Knock Knock on JR OutLoud

JR OutLoud: Israeli actor Niv Petel tells us about Knock Knock, his beautifully nuanced one-man show

Writer/performer Niv Petel's one-man show Knock Knock is an explicit, heartbreaking account of the agony faced by bereaved parents of young Israeli soldiers killed during compulsory army service. The dreaded 'knock knock' at the door means a trained army therapist has come to tell you the worst. Petel spoke to JR's arts editor Judi Herman on the stage of the Etcetera Theatre immediately after the show.

Photo by Chris Gardner

Knock Knock runs until Sunday 6 November, 7.30pm & 6.30pm, £8-£10, at Etcetera Theatre, 265 Camden High St, NW1 7BU; 020 7482 4857. www.etceteratheatre.com

Review: Ragtime ★★★★ – A timely revival for a musical about immigration, aspiration and discrimination

At this time of post-Brexit xenophobia and with refugees in crisis, Ragtime’s dramatic account of the hardships and hatred faced by early 20th-century immigrants to America is all too timely.

Terrence McNally’s book works seamlessly with Lynn Ahrens’ lyrics to bring EL Doctorow's 1975 novel to the stage. The story revolves around the interaction of three families: well-established WASPs (white Anglo-Saxon Protestants) Mother, Father and their Little Boy, with Grandfather and Mother's Younger Brother; ragtime piano-playing African American Coalhouse Walker and Sarah, the mother of his baby son; and Tateh (Yiddish for daddy), a young Jewish widower newly-arrived from Latvia with his daughter, as well as his hopes. “A Shtetl iz Amereke,” sings Gary Tushaw’s starry-eyed, sympathetic Tateh.

When Father leaves for a polar expedition, compassionate, resourceful Mother proves she can think for herself, rescuing the new-born abandoned by troubled Sarah, taking her in too and effecting reconciliation between Sarah and Coalhouse. There is an immediate connection when she meets Tateh, in danger of having his aspirations crushed by grinding poverty. But the racial hatred faced by Coalhouse leads to violence that threatens to engulf them all.

Famous personalities of the era play a part, the Jews represented by escapologist Harry Houdini (played by winning Christopher Dickins, his accordion part of his personality) and fiery anarchist activist Emma Goldman (the splendid Valerie Cutko), inspiring and advising alongside civil rights pioneer Booker T Washington (impressive Nolan Frederick channelling Obama). The car Coalhouse buys from Henry Ford (Tom Giles) provokes the hatred and envy that drives the story. And as professional femme fatale Evelyn Nesbit, Joanna Hickman, funny and ravishing, perches on a piano, her cello-playing part of the allure that mesmerises Jonathan Stewart’s likeable, hot-headed Younger Brother.

Thom Southerland’s production fills the Charing Cross’s tiny stage with ‘teeming masses’ - his cast of 24 actors, mostly musicians, dynamically choreographed along with their instruments, by Ewan Jones on a versatile set (designers Tom Rogers and Toots Butcher). Their twin balconies swing across stage to double as ocean liners and twin pianos make vehicles, platforms, and magnificent music thanks to dynamite onstage MD Jordan Li Smith and the nimble fingers of Ako Mitchell’s Coalhouse.

The rhythms of Stephen Flaherty’s score, ranging from the syncopation of ragtime itself to the klezmer brought by Jewish immigrants, wrap the auditorium with powerful sound, thanks to Mark Aspinall’s orchestrations. When the cast sing in chorus it is breathtaking, sometimes overwhelming. There are glorious individual voices. Anita Louise Combe’s Mother has rich warm tones to match her generous personality. Jennifer Saayeng’s Sarah moves to tears with the quiet vehemence of Your Daddy’s Son and soars in a duet with Mitchell’s virile, passionate Coalhouse, and Seyi Omooba’s voice is heart-stopping in this often spellbinding evening.

by Judi Herman

Photos by Annabel Vere and Scott Rylander

Ragtime runs until Saturday 10 December, 7.30pm, 2.30pm & 3pm, £17.50-£29.50, at Charing Cross Theatre, The Arches, Villiers St, WC2N 6NL; 08444 930650. http://charingcrosstheatre.co.uk

Review: Lunch and The Bow of Ulysses ★★★ – Steven Berkoff coupling on fine form

I’ll always be grateful to Steven Berkoff. Back in my days as drama lecturer, blown away by his 1983 play West, his second foray into life on London’s gangland manors, I wrote to him via his agent to ask if I might borrow the unpublished script. The hard copy arrived almost as fast as an email might now, by return with a friendly invitation to keep it. My students adored playing the scabrously ornate muscular verse and the body language it demanded.

Lunch dates from 1983, too and although it is prose, the language is often as extravagant – and as bracingly sexual. A man and a woman share a seaside bench at lunchtime. He confides lustful thoughts that she arouses, which make Trump’s ill-judged bragging look prim, and it’s in-yer-face in this intimate space, too. He is yearning, rather than boasting, with every muscle and fibre in Shaun Dooley’s extraordinary performance. Emily Bruni’s woman is equally physical – at first sight primly upright and uptight, but actually coiled like a spring ready to snap – or catch him in those coils...

Thanks also to Nigel Harman’s direction and movement director Alistair David, what follows is a masterclass in physicalising Berkoff’s language that would have enthralled my students. They prowl around each other like courting cats, he wiping from his brow real drops of sweat with a real hanky. At this proximity, audience members might also sweat uncomfortably as the couple eventually end up adjusting their dress at our feet.

But it’s their relish of the language that carries you along, the taste of it on the tongue – even when his chat-up line is trying to interest her in the space he sells for a living “electro-type on quarto double weight” (yes, space on paper, not online, Lunch is of its time) he enunciates alluringly in his attempt to melt “an ice lolly in a whirlwind.” “You’re not looking for me, you’re looking for it, you canine groper,” is her riposte (this comes more like a chat-up line before that apparent tumble behind the beach shelter).

That’s just a taste of what’s to come in the Bow of Ulysses, set (and indeed written) 20 years later and as many years into a marriage on the rocks. Rather than trading bracing insults, though, the estranged couple express themselves in longer, bitter monologues, downbeat this time. It was good to see these short companion pieces together, though strangely the first, as a real period piece, seemed less dated than its sequel. Ben and Max Ringham provide an evocative seaside soundscape and designer Lee Newby has a great eye for shades of brown that match at least the dress of this ill-matched pair in a seaside shelter that’s the only restful element in an unsettling evening.

By Judi Herman

Photos by Marc Brenner

Lunch and The Bow of Ulysses  runs until Saturday  5 November, Monday to Saturday 7.45pm Thursday and Saturday 3pm, £19.50-£35, at Trafalgar Studios 2, 14 Whitehall, SW1A 2DY; 0844 871 7632. www.atgtickets.com

Help fund the UK's first ever Jewish farm

Next month Sadeh Farm in Kent is set to open its gates. This may not seem like news in itself, but Sadeh (field in Hebrew) is a unique kind of farm: a Jewish farm. Founded by Talia Chain and co, who have already begun work in the grounds of Skeet Hill House, Sadeh aims to reconnect people with their faiths and each other by working together on the land to grow vegetables. "Here Jewish people of all ages and backgrounds can connect with our rich tradition of Jewish farming and be inspired by a religion based in agriculture," they promise in their mission statement. While the group are almost set up, they still need financial help to acquire polytunnels, sheds, tools, marketing and legal help and more. Visit their Chuffed crowd-funding page for more info and to donate.

By Danielle Goldstein

www.sadehfarm.co.uk

Arnold Wesker tribute: The playwright still packed them in at the Royal Court in an affectionate and celebratory look at his life

“He shone with the sun”, lilted singer Rosie Archer in a soaring paean that took place as part of many poignant moments during an afternoon of tributes to the playwright Arnold Wesker, who died age 83 on 12 April 2016.

Held at the Royal Court Theatre, Wesker's spiritual home despite the theatre having turned down Chicken Soup with Barley (it premiered in 1958 at Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre), the evening was filled with warm memories of the late playwright from luminaries across the arts world.

Mike Leigh spoke of his delight in his teens at discovering this East End working-class dramatist. “What a hero he was. We sought out his plays and read them avidly,” recalled Leigh, reading from a piece based on an article first published in the July 2016 issue of Jewish Renaissance. Later in the Royal Court’s bar, Leigh told me that he had been approached to participate in the event after Wesker’s wife Dusty had shown the organisers the piece.

David Edgar spoke of Wesker’s groundbreaking representation of “political disillusion”; director Fiona Laird remembered her surprise at finding the playwright “charming,” instead of the curmudgeon she had been led to expect. A frail looking Bernard Kops, one of the last of those ‘angry young men’, recalled Wesker’s desire to broaden the reach of culture with his Centre 42 project.

There were some great performances too: Samantha Spiro’s delivery of Sarah Kahn’s final speech (she played Kahn in the Royal Court’s revival of Chicken Soup in 2011) brought tears to my eyes, although puzzlingly she omitted the ultimate rousing imperative, “You've got to care, you've got to care or you'll die!” Ian McKellen performed an excerpt of Chips with Everything with gusto, and Henry Goodman made a mischievous Shylock in a speech from the 1976 play of the same name. Finally, Jessica Raine, who played Beatie in the Donmar Warehouse’s 2014 production of Roots, movingly reprised that character's astonishing final speech.

And there were surprises: who knew Wesker had written lyrics for a Eurovision Song Contest entry? Sadly, Jonathan King rejected Shone With the Sun as “too classical”, otherwise Britain’s Eurovision history might have told a different story. He had been a talented artist too, said set-designer Pamela Howard, who presented several of his fine ink drawings.

As the audience left, speakers played Aaron Copeland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, a favourite with the playwright, and a reminder of the compassion at the heart of Wesker’s own art.

By Rebecca Taylor

CLICK HERE to read Mike Leigh's tribute to Sir Arnold Wesker from our July 2016 issue