THEATER
59E59
The Pianist of Willesden Lane
This was the most emotional performance we have attended since moving to New York. The story, the relationship of the performer to the story, and the music produced a moving experience.
"Set in Vienna in 1938 and in London during the Blitz, The Pianist of Willesden Lane tells the true story of Lisa Jura, a young Jewish pianist who is dreaming about her concert debut at Vienna's storied Musikverein concert hall. But with the issuing of new ordinances under the Nazi regime, everything for Lisa changes, except for her love of music and the pursuit of her dream.
Featuring some of the world's most beloved piano music played live, The Pianist of Willesden Lane is performer Mona Golabek's true family story; a story of music, family survival, and hope.
The Pianist of Willesden Lane makes its New York premiere after critically acclaimed, sold out runs in Chicago, Boston, Berkeley, and Los Angeles."
"A STIRRING CASE OF ART PRESERVING LIFE."
-Chicago Tribune
-Chicago Tribune
"A RESONANT TALE OF SURVIVAL."
-Los Angeles Times
-Los Angeles Times
"STUNNINGLY GOOD!"
-San Francisco Chronicle
-San Francisco Chronicle
"MONA GOLABEK IS TRIUMPHANT!"
-San Diego Jewish World
-San Diego Jewish World
.jpg)
.jpg)
THEATER | THEATER REVIEW
Repertory of Fear and Hope
‘The Pianist of Willesden Lane,’ a Jewish Girl’s War Story
Playing your mom onstage would be a challenge for even a seasoned actress. Playing your mom at 14? Yikes! So it’s all the more remarkable that Mona Golabek, who is undertaking this feat in “The Pianist of Willesden Lane,” seems to slip so effortlessly into the persona of her mother, the pianist Lisa Jura, during her tumultuous adolescence in Vienna and London.
For Ms. Golabek is not a trained actress, but a concert pianist herself. In this deeply affecting memoir-once-removed, adapted and directed by Hershey Felder, and based on a book by Ms. Golabek and Lee Cohen, Ms. Golabek tells the story of her mother’s youth during World War II in her mother’s voice. Underpinning the story are selections from the classical piano repertoire — Bach and Beethoven, Chopin and Rachmaninoff — which Ms. Golabek performs on the Steinway grand piano that gleams on a gilt-edged platform at center stage and is her sole co-star.
After introducing herself, Ms. Golabek glides to the piano and plays a few bars from the Grieg Piano Concerto, as the sound of a recorded orchestra swells behind her. “My name is Lisa Jura, and I’m 14 years old,” she says, her voice taking on a girlish lilt and a slight accent. “It’s Vienna, 1938, and it’s a Friday afternoon. I’m preparing for the most important hour of my week — my piano lesson.”
But this week the lesson will not take place. After Lisa makes it past the German soldier with the rifle at the front door, her beloved instructor tells her he has been forbidden to teach Jewish students. “I’m not a brave man,” he says, and bids her goodbye.
This melancholy farewell will be only the first for Lisa, who soon finds herself separated from her family. Her father, a tailor whose work has fallen off as the authorities begin destroying Jewish businesses, takes to gambling to keep the family afloat. With his winnings at a card game, he scrapes together enough money to buy a seat on the kindertransport, the “children’s trains” supported by British charities that moved thousands of European children to safety in England as the full terror of the Nazis loomed.
But the windfall purchases only one seat — and Lisa has two sisters. They will be left behind as she sets out for London, where her father’s cousin has agreed to take her in. Yet when she arrives, there is more disappointment: The family has to leave London and does not have room in its new home to take Lisa with them. Eventually she ends up at a group home for children of the kindertransport, run with loving sternness by a Mrs. Cohen, on the street that gives the play its title.
“The Pianist of Willesden Lane,” which opened on Tuesday at the 59E59 Theaters, tells the remarkable story of Lisa’s years in wartime London with an economy of means and a simplicity that only enhance the emotional effect. Packed with startling setbacks (the house at Willesden Lane is destroyed during the Blitz) and equally dramatic triumphs (against all odds, Mrs. Cohen has it rebuilt), it’s the kind of tale that would probably seem melodramatic if it were fiction.
Mr. Felder, who has experience mixing music and drama onstage — he wrote and performed “George Gershwin Alone” on Broadway, and last week played Leonard Bernstein in a similar show at Town Hall — has captured the voice of the adolescent Lisa effectively. And while Ms. Golabek doesn’t entirely disappear into the other characters in the story, her performance is graceful, restrained and quietly captivating. (I wish she’d managed to acquire a less distracting red wig, however.)
The musical selections are mostly classical favorites: Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata, Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C sharp minor, representing the standard repertoire that a young woman of Lisa’s age and background would have learned. The story takes a romantic turn when Lisa begins earning a living by playing the piano at a hotel frequented by soldiers, and finds herself wooed by several. Here the music turns briefly to standards: a slow-tempoed “Strike Up the Band” and “These Foolish Things.”
The story of Lisa’s life in London has both dark passages, as the war cuts off communication from Europe, and all the children at the home lose track of their families, and moments of unexpected joy. Throughout, the bedrock of Lisa’s emotional support remains her almost desperate love of music, which sustains her in the face of calamity, confusion, loss.
“Never stop playing,” her mother told her just before she boarded the train in Vienna, “and I will be with you every step of the way.” Lisa took the words to heart. Spiritually speaking, her fingers never left the keys, because only through her music could she maintain a connection to the vanished happiness of her Vienna childhood and the love of the family she feared lost forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment