THEATER
L-R: Apollo Dukakis, Rosina Reynolds and David Ellenstien receive pointers from playwright Lionel Goldstein during rehearsal for "Mandate Memories."
“Your father,” he tells Stirling, “served in my country when it was Palestine.” He was a Captain in the Army. Stirling, who never met her father, explains that he was “an early victim of terrorism.” “Jewish terrorists,” Frolich counters. And so begins an unraveling of longburied truths and surprising revelations about Stirling’s father and the extraordinary one-sided relationship that has existed between Frolich and Stirling. “It’s a play about two people,” says director David Ellenstein, “and the way their encounter unmasks them and makes them see the world in a different way. He alludes to a connection to the past that she doesn’t know about. There’s a secret that is only revealed late in the play.” This isn’t Ellenstein’s first work on a Goldstein creation. He helmed “Halpern and Johnson” at North Coast Rep, where he’s artistic director, also mounting productions in Portland, Maine, and Miami. That play has been produced all over the world: Australia to Argentina, Germany to Israel to the Czech Republic.
In “Halpern and Johnson,” two older men meet over a grave at the cemetery. And they ultimately realize that, throughout their lives, they were both in love with the same woman. “In a weird way,” Ellenstein muses, “this new play has an echo of that one. This guy Frolich has followed her whole life, unbeknownst to her.” “Mandate Memories” was presented as a reading three years ago at the Lipinsky Family Jewish Arts Festival in San Diego. Ellenstein directed and Rosina Reynolds played Stirling. “When she first walked in,” the playwright recalls of Reynolds, “I said: ‘You walked out of my imagination. You are Jane Stirling come to life!’” At that reading, Reynolds reported that the audience was mesmerized. “‘How do you know that?,’ I asked,” says Goldstein. “‘Because,’ she told me, ‘the audience didn’t cough, budge or shuckel’ [Yiddish for ‘shake,’ as in davening or praying].” The last word was Goldstein’s addition. For the reading, Reynolds’ co-star was L.A.based actor Robert Grossman. Now, it’s Apollo
Dukakis, younger brother of Academy Awardwinning actress Olympia Dukakis and cousin of Michael Dukakis, former Massachusetts governor and presidential contender. Ellenstein goes back a long time with Dukakis, who’s performed on TV and in film, but mostly on regional stages. Ellenstein is excited to direct him for the first time. And Goldstein is thrilled to be working with Ellenstein again. “I love the man,” Goldstein crows in a Skype conversation from Israel. “He’s one of my favorite directors. When he does my work, he gets it. He’s a very intuitive and sensitive man, highly intelligent and very experienced.” At first, “the play scared me,” Ellenstein admits, “because it was so loaded with political and historical stuff. But I liked the people and their relationship so much. Lionel did a rewrite, and we’re still working on it. He’ll be here the whole time, and that will be great. “I like his willingness to leave a lot open for the actors to find and live the characters in a personal way. Actors appreciate his willingness to listen to Nisan 5774 l www.SDJewishJournal.com 59