May ’06 Spotlight

Just in time for Mother’s Day comes a thought-provoking new memoir from a surprising source. Devyani Saltzman is the daughter of two filmmakers. Her mother is Deepa Mehta and her father is Paul Saltzman. “I was their only child, a half-Hindu, half-Jewish daughter, born during a snowstorm in Canada.” Devyani absorbed both cultures, celebrating some holidays with her Nani and Nanu in New Delhi and other holidays with her Bubbi and Zaida in Toronto. Devyani will be in Chicago to read from her book Shooting Water: A Memoir of Second Chances, Family and Filmmaking. She will appear at the Women and Children First bookstore on North Clark Street in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 9.

Devyani told me her goal in Shooting Water became “to balance the political, the cinematic, and the personal stories so that none of them trumped the other.” “I feel lucky,” she concluded. “I am of many. I’ve inherited two diasporas. My multiple heritages gave me the tools to write.”

For more information about the May 9 event, visit the Women and Children First bookstore website:

http://www.womenandchildrenfirst.com

For more information about Devyani, visit her website:

http://www.devyanisaltzman.com

COMING SOON

Israeli percussionist Chen Zimbalista will be in Skokie on Tuesday, May 2 for a special Yom Ha’atzmaut concert at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts. This Israeli Independence Day celebration, which begins at 7:30 p.m., will include additional music by the Solomon Schechter Day School Choir and culminate in folk dancing in the lobby after the show. Zimbalista’s repertoire combines classical music with blues, jazz and soft rock, ensuring an entertaining evening for everyone in the audience. To hear samples, visit his website:

http://zimbalista.com/

To order tickets, visit the AZM website:

http://www.azmchicago.org

CURTAIN CALL

Israeli playwright Motti Lerner is currently a visiting professor at Knox College in Galesburg, where I heard him give a provocative lecture on April 5 on political playwriting. Motti became a committed peace activist after serving in the Yom Kippur War in 1973. He believes that playwriting is an inherently humanistic activity, and that playwrights are typically driven to challenge the established power structure in order to be true to their characters.

Motti’s newest play, The Murder of Isaac, is about the 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. This was not the work of one man, Motti told his Knox audience. Yigal Amir’s crime was an inevitable act that continues to haunt Israel’s political landscape. The Murder of Isaac had its American premiere on Feb. 3 at the CenterStage in Baltimore, and Motti is hoping to use his time at Knox to arrange a Chicago production. The Murder of Isaac was originally commissioned by the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv, but it has yet to be shown in Israel. Nevertheless, Motti concluded his lecture with words of hope: “Books and plays and films do create a change. Sometimes the change is very small. Sometimes the change is hidden. Sometimes the change is so deep that we can’t see its traces on the surface. But even if this change is very minor, even if it’s hidden, it’s worth attempting.”

Note that, in addition to his theatrical pieces, Motti also wrote the screenplay for the Yom Kippur War drama The Silence of the Sirens, which played here in Chicago as part of last year’s Israel Film Festival. Directed by Ori Inbar, The Silence of the Sirens received the Israeli Film Academy Award for Best Feature Film made for Television in 2004.

For more of Motti’s thoughts on The Murder of Isaac, visit the All About Jewish Theatre website:

http://www.jewish-theatre.com

Tziviah bat Yisroel v’Hudah (Jan Lisa Huttner) is the managing editor of Films for Two: The Online Guide for Busy Couples (www.films42.com). Send comments and/or suggestions for future columns to Tzivi@msn.com.