At this point, it looks like the Georgian leadership made a serious error: embarking on a campaign to take control of a rebel area inhabited by one of the many ethnic groups of the Caucasus, in the hope that the United States, NATO, or somebody else would protect it from the likelihood of Russian intervention.

One guess is that the timing was linked to the Olympics, in the hope that the world would not notice the Georgian incursion.

If that was part of the planning, it did not distract the Russians.

Now we hear that the Georgians are stopping their combat, but the Russians are continuing. Reports are that they are attacking the international airport, and demanding the resignation of the Georgian president as the price of peace.

If Georgia disappears as an independent state as a result of this, if it causes another energy crises, produces a renewal of the Cold War or worse, it will rank on the order of American efforts to democratize Iraq and Afghanistan as among the worse mistakes of the decade.

The Caucasus has even more enclaves than the Balkans, and the people may be even less restrained in what they do to one another when annoyed. Wikipedia notes that the region is home to more than 50 ethnic groups. Remember what the Chechens did in Moscow before or after what the Russians did in Chechnya, and the slaughter at the school in Beslan. Since Thursday we have heard about fighting between Georgians, Ossetians, Abkhazians, and the Russian army, with the Russians concerned, among other things, with the Russian population of Ossetia.

It will be a task to learn the spelling of all the tribes, and then to acquire some knowledge of their histories and their hates.

Late Marriage, an Israeli film from about 10 years ago, is a good introduction to Georgian culture.

There are substantial Jewish Georgian populations there and here. We saw the chair of the Georgian parliament on Israeli television news last night, answering questions in decent Hebrew.

Retired IDF officers, including a couple of generals, were involved in training Georgian troops. Today one of them is saying that he would not have done what the Georgians did.

His comments are part of a view widely expressed that, no matter what justice might be found in the Georgians' concern for part of their territory (South Ossetia), it was a mistake to provoke the Russians on what, for them, was bound to be a sensitive issue of controlling their own border area.

We are hearing of the problems of Israeli tourists, many of them on family visits, trying to get out of Georgia as fast as they can. Emissaries of the Jewish Agency are helping Jews leave the war zone, and there is one report of a family deciding to migrate to Israel.

The sudden onset of this war is one more reminder that the future is too complex for any kind of rigid planning. There are many domestic and international variables affecting so many different developments in various domestic and international sectors. And there are dramatic developments, viewed as surprises by people who were not looking closely at everything.

We want leaders to have general goals that we accept, but flexibility is essential.

Coping with fluid realities, and not making things worse are the keys to survival and prosperity. Essential for most countries is staying out of the way of Georgia's war with the Russians, and America's adventures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine.

Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He may be contacted at msira@mscc.huji.ac.il


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MACCABI MACARONI—Shelly Hahne, coordinator of Jewish Family Service's Hand Up Youth
Pantry, pulls one of the most popular donated food items from the Maccabi athletes who
competed last week in San Diego.

LAKE ELSINORE, California—Sports, whether amateur or professional, have a way of encouraging us to rise above ourselves and to think about our “team mates” on the Planet Earth.  I witnessed two instances of this phenomenon recently, both having to do with the collection of food for the hungry. 

The first came during the recent JCC Maccabi Games when 1,400 teenaged athletes from across the United States as well as Israel and Mexico were asked to bring with them to the games donations of non-perishable food items for the Hand-Up Youth Pantry housed at Jewish Family Service. 

The second came at last Sunday’s Class-A California League baseball game between the Lake Elsinore Storm and the San Jose Giants, which the latter won 2-0.  The Storm management advertised that fans could redeem four cans or packages of non-perishable foods for tickets to the game, each worth between $8 and $10.  

The Maccabi effort netted 1,260 pounds of food, enough to fill 12 bins the size of dumpsters, according to Shelly Hahne, coordinator for the Hand Up Youth Food Pantry.

The Storm netted 2, 640 pounds of food at the end of a six-day long promotion, according to Steve Smaldone, the team’s director of public affairs.   The food was picked up by H.O.P.E. (Helping Our People in Elsinore).

Don’t necessarily jump to the conclusion that the Storm fans were more generous than the Maccabi athletes.   Hahne pointed out that most of the teenagers packed light boxes of foods like pasta shells, saltine crackers, macaroni and cheese, and dried soup mixes because they were easier to carry onto airplanes than cans of soups or other liquids.   On the other hand, Storm fans were able to simply load food cans into their cars—without worrying about weight.

Gary Jacobs, owner of the Storm franchise, proved to be a unifying element of both promotions.  Along with David Geffen and Ruthie Warburg, the sports-loving Jacobs was a co-chair of the Maccabi games.

Spicing up the food promotion, the Storm competed against two other teams in its league—the Inland Empire 66ers and the Rancho Cucamunga Quakes—to determine which could generate more food donations.  At the end of the six-day period, the combined total of the Quakes and 66ers  was less than the Storm’s.  The Inland Empire team accumulated 1,017 pounds while the Quakes gathered 650 pounds of foodstuffs, according to Smaldone.  Those two teams’ donations went to the Second Harvest organization in Riverside.

Minor League baseball reminded me and friends Bobby and Ranzy Brindisi of Irvine, California (who met us at the Diamond) of the good old days when airlines, banks, even gas stations so wanted your business they gave you little premiums.  Do you remember when the airline would give the child traveling with you a pair of wings, and you might get a souvenir deck of cards?  Do you remember when banks or savings & loans had piggy banks to get the children in your family started on savings?  Or how about when gas stations gave out little antennae balls for your car?     Well, at a Storm game, the promotions come fast and furious. 

Walking in on Sunday, each fan was handed a toothbrush—courtesy of a local dental group—and a pack of cards bearing the images of current and past Lake Elsinore Storm players.  Among the latter were two current members of the San Diego Padres, infielders Khalil Greene and Chase Headley.  The Boosters club offered small root beer floats for $1, and between each inning Frisbees or other prizes were lobbed into the stands or extracurricular events were conducted on the field. 

As Sunday was said to be the eighth birthday of the team’s mascot, “Thunder,” a big green dog who wears a backwards baseball cap, many of his mascot friends came onto the field to help him celebrate.  Among them were Bernie, the 66ers mascot; Rocky the Ram, the mascot of the Palm Springs Power team; Hamlet, the dinosaur mascot whom Thunder replaced; and such non-baseball mascots as “Curly Top” the Dairy Queen ice cream cone; the Chick Fil-A cow; and Plasma Boy  representing Valley Blood Services.  One of the between-inning activities was a three-legged race {video clip} teaming the mascots and children chosen from the stands.   Thunder “won” by breaking loose of the gunny sack and dashing with his partner toward the backstop.

Whether such activities and giveaways encouraged fans to be similarly generous with food donations is hard to say.   But the fact that the fans were incentivized to bring food items—and trade them for tickets—got me to wondering whether we in the Jewish community ought to similarly consider incentives to get people into the habit of helping the hungry in our town, and around the world.

We have special-event driven programs to collect food.  The idea of donating the food we didn’t eat on the fast day of Yom Kippur has taken hold in many synagogues.  So, too, has the practice of donating the food which we happily would have served Elijah on Passover if only he had joined our seders.  But how do we get the donation of food to become part of our everyday practices?

Hahne, who always is looking for ways to collect food, has suggested that the center pieces at bar/ bat mitzvah celebrations be artistically stacked cans of food which can be donated afterwards to the Hand Up food pantry.   According to Linda Hutkin Slade, a Jewish Family Service senior director for counseling and case management, Hahne even has gone so far as to require food donations as the price of admission to parties she has thrown for friends at her home.  Clearly, Hahne is sold on helping the less fortunate.

In conversation with Hutkin Slade, I noted that at various events we offer age discounts for seniors and for children.  How about a “tikkun olam” discount, which would entitle someone who brings a specified number of food items to a ticket discount?   It might be a way of acclimating our community to the idea that food donations are considered by Jewish institutions to be an important part of our communal life, an expected practice.
 
Harrison may be contacted at editor@sandiegojewishworld.com



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Some individual JCC Maccabi results

Editor's Note: The Lawrence Family JCC continues to compile results of various events of the recent JCC Maccabi games. Here are the results from the dance and table tennis competitions.

DANCE

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L.A. BEAT


Arthur Miller obsesses mysteriously

By Cynthia Citron 

LOS ANGELES—Because Arthur Miller is considered one of the very best playwrights of the 20th century, and rightly so, it may come as something of a surprise to discover that during his long and prolific career he wrote a number of plays that are almost unknown and almost never performed.

One of these is Some Kind of Love Story, a one-act play  written in 1982 and meant to be paired with another short play, Elegy for a Lady and presented together in an overall production called Two Way Mirror.

Now, for the first time on the West Coast, The Hayworth Theatre is presenting Some Kind of Love Story, starring Beege Barkette and Jack Kehler and directed by Michael Arabian.

It seems to be something of a departure for Miller: a convoluted murder mystery set in a suburb of Boston in 1962.  Jack Kehler plays Tom O’Toole, an Irish private investigator, an ex-cop, who has been chasing a murder case for nearly five years.  The man convicted of the crime, Felix Epstein, is, Tom believes, innocent, and he has been hired by the Epstein family to prove it.

For the past five years he has been pursuing Angela (Beege Barkette), who apparently knows more about the murder than she is willing to tell.  The fact that Tom and Angela had an affair earlier, however, may have loosened her conscience, but it hasn’t loosened her tongue.  (“If I told you what I know, when would I ever see you again?” she asks plaintively).  Now, though, she has called Tom to her apartment late at night under the pretext of telling him more about the murder.  In actuality, she is just lonely, frightened, and horny.

Dressed in a sexy black negligee and peignoir, she begins her attempt to seduce him almost as soon as he walks through her door.  Though sorely tempted, he resists her advances.  He knows from long experience that if he gives her what she wants, she will not give him what he wants: namely, what she knows about the murder.  “You’ve still got a lot of priest in you,” she taunts.

And so they begin their game of cat and mouse, with her teasing him with inconclusive pieces of information and him angrily threatening to leave.  These ploys go on for quite a while and are annoyingly repetitive.  So, to heighten the action a little, Miller has written Angie as a crucible of multiple personalities, and she suddenly morphs into a foul-mouthed prostitute, Leontyne, then a thumb-sucking child, and finally, a scornful, aristocrat with a British accent.  It’s an acting coup for the very talented Barkette, but it doesn’t do much to advance the story line, which, in the end, turns out to be all about crooked cops and drug conspiracies and who framed who and why.

Tom is what you might term an Irish schlemiel.  He keeps falling for her acts and, as she slowly dribbles out the secrets of the murder, he (and the audience) are left with multiple questions: is she really schizophrenic?  Is she delusional?  Is she fantasizing?  Are all the many characters that she introduces as part of the murder story really involved in the activities that she says they are?  Is she?

As is well known, many, or most, of Miller’s plays are about Miller, his life and convictions.  So, even though he wrote this play in 1982, he set it in 1962, the year after he ended his five-year marriage to the legendary Marilyn Monroe.  It is hard not to read Marilyn into the beautiful blonde hooker of Some Kind of Love Story.  And the put-upon, frustrated detective could easily be Miller’s version of himself in that tortured relationship.

John Iacovelli has put the two protagonists into a lush bedroom, bouncing around on a huge bed with lavish silken sheets, and Traci McWain has designed appropriate costumes for both of them.  But if you’re still wondering if Marilyn is the intended role model for the tragic Angela, her final costume has to give you pause.  After receiving a phone call from an admirer, she agrees to meet him at a local hotel.  A few minutes later, when she returns to the bedroom dressed for her date, she is wearing a replica of Marilyn’s famous white dress from Seven Year Itch.        

Some Kind of Love Story will run Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 7 from August 16 through he end of the month.  The Hayworth Theater is located at 2509 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.  For reservations, call (323) 960-4442.

Bureau Chief Citron may be contacted at citronc@sandiegojewishworld.com             




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AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE—Scene from Twyla Tharp’s Rabbit and Rogue at the Orange
County Performing Arts Center. Photo: Rosalie O’Connor.

REFLECTIONS

Separating dance text from dance midrash

By Sheila Orysiek

COSTA MESA, California—Having purchased my Orange County Performing Arts Center season tickets well over a year ago, I spent these many months looking forward to the August 9, 2008 performance; an evening of dance with American Ballet Theatre.  However, upon learning what the program would be, particularly a work by Twyla Tharp - not a dance creator who appeals to me - I was almost dreading a disappointing evening.  Well, I thought, I could occupy my mind with why my checkbook was showing $200.00 extra dollars (not that I'm complaining about that) or visualize the new painting I'm planning - but what I really wanted was an evening of beautiful, exciting, worthwhile dance from one of my favorite ballet companies.

Adding further to my dread was having read the several reviews of this program - which I should know better than to do - but curiosity won out.  While not totally condemnatory, praise seemed to be distinctly lacking or at least thin enough to err on the side of kindness rather than stark truth. 

First let me say, it was a stellar evening - literally.  Seven of the Company's twelve stars - principals - came out and tore up the stage.  It was great to see Ethan Stiefel back in top form (and then some) after a spate of injuries.  This is the man who once told me in an interview that his favorite role is Albrecht in Giselle but here he was full out dancing as the Rogue in Tharp's Rabbit and Rogue, and obviously enjoying himself hugely.  Watching a superb dancer in full throttle is always a wonderful thing. 

Speaking of throttles, I don't think Herman Cornejo (as the Rabbit) knows the meaning of the word.  He was the perfect counterpart to the Rogue - no rabbit ever moved as well, as quickly, or spun his way around the stage as surely.  Gillian Murphy and David Hallberg, as the Rag Couple, and Paloma Herrera with Gennadi Saveliev as the Gamelan Couple, completed the constellation of star dancers doing star dancing.  I would have liked, however, to have seen Hallberg given more solo work - just so I could indulge myself in watching this much heralded dancer for the first time.  The appearance of a new "prince" is no small matter.

As for the work itself, well, except for the lovely dreamy sequence in white, I found it frenetic Tharp.  The choreography is certainly difficult, a minefield for mind and body but after a while, the observer longs for some content - well, at least I did.  True, the Rogue and the Rabbit have their differences of opinion, but one wonders why, or why not, until one stops wondering.  The music, again except for the dreamy white section, was ear plug mandatory - not a genre I enjoy, but then Mozart and his pals aren't writing any new stuff.

The costumes, by Norma Kamali, were black, black, black with an occasional white.  There is no listing for set design because there wasn't any - only a black curtain backdrop behind the black, black, black costumes.  I try to imagine a costume designer sitting with a sketch pad, thinking about costumes and coming up with a brain storm.  I'll make them black!  What a wonderful new idea!  And better yet - I’ll make them the same shade of black as the black back curtain!  What an innovation!

Harald Lander's intent in Etudes is to remind us of the basic text upon which all else stands - dance as well as life - anything more than the basic text is midrash.  When in doubt go back to the basic text - what does the Book say? 

Etudes made this old ballet teacher smile.  Who else would enjoy seeing top drawer dancers doing tendues (pointing feet) or grand battements (large kicks)?  As I watched them executing these exercises at the barre it was possible to see the individual schooling of the dancers peeping out.  When they dance as an ensemble, they come together, but while doing basic barre work it's a different view.  In rond de jambe en l'air and a terre, (circle of the leg in the air and on the ground) one could see various methods of accomplishing the same end.  The accents and impulse differed from dancer to dancer.  This was also true in attitude derriére - the shape and placement of upper/lower leg to body exampled the various acceptable schools of thought on this particular classical pose. 

Watching advanced dancers going "back to school" is a reminder how difficult it is to do the "simple" stuff of ballet.  Simple never translates into easy in this art form. A single slow pirouette ending in a clean fifth position takes a great deal more concentration than spinning off a series of turns ending with a flourish. 

I adored the a la Sylph segment.  It was a wonderful dose - a visual vitamin pill - of that ole time ballet religion; the Romantic Era.  Careful to keep height of leg within the parameters of the style was appreciated by this observer.  Michele Wiles was beautiful - I could find a fancier word - but that's what she was.  Corey Stearns and Jared Matthews were a pleasure and then some.  Stearns is in the corps de ballet, and obviously someone upon whom to keep an eye. 

And, yes, I would go see this program again.

Columnist Orysiek may be contacted at orysieks@sandiegojewishworld.com

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ADVENTURES IN SAN DIEGO JEWISH HISTORY

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