Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 January 2003 — Page 9

Jewish Theater Two Ladies of Note Slug it Out

January 8. 2003 NAT 5

Sivoosie Kurtz ami Cherry fones

By IRENE BACKALENICK Lillian Heilman and Mary McCarthy! Is it Jew against Catholic? Deep South versus Northwest? Age versus youth?

Ugly duckling versus swan? Or the competitiveness of writers? Whatever the drive behind the battle of the two noted women writers, Heilman and McCarthy were long-standing rivals. And they made headlines in 1980 when McCarthy called Heilman "a dishonest writer'' on television's Dick Cavett show. "Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the," said McCarthy. Heilman retaliated by suing McCarthy for libel, asking for $2.25 million in damages. Both women died in the '80s, and the suit evaporated. Now Heilman and McCarthy are slugging it out on the Broadway stage in a new show called "Imaginary Friends." And in those roles two

fine actresses, Swoosie Kurtz and Cherry Jones, make the fireworks explode. They are marvelous reincarnations. One suspects that Heilman and McCarthy were not truly rivals but, in fact, had a very good time baiting each other. It was an opportunity to showcase their sharp tongues and quick wits. On stage, the Kurtz/Jones team has a very

good time indeed, as does the audience. This battle of wits is not a real battle at all, but a welcome diversion from the battles which rage outside the theater and in the real world. It's no surprise that the dialogue is heady stuff, having been written by Nora Ephron. What makes the show, directed by the gifted Jack

O'Brien, especially innovative are video clips and vaudeville numbers, with song-and-dance man Harry Groener playing many roles. The musical numbers, courtesy of Marvin Hamlisch and Craig Carnelia, undercut any semblance of solemnity, making it clear that Heilman and McCarthy themselves were a vaudeville team.

The overriding theme of "Imaginary Friends" is truth versus fiction. McCarthy was ever the ardent believer in facts, a crusader for truth, while Heilman believed that greater truth lay in fiction, in imagining the truth. Arguments can be made for either side. Both were right, and both were wrong. Yet Heilman's work was indeed discredited in her later years. She had turned from playwriting to prose, relating tales that she passed off as true. Her book Pcntunento is about an anti-Nazi friend named Julia. Supposedly, Heilman had gone to Europe, bringing her friend money to rescue victims. "Lillian single-handedly saved every one from Hitler," McCarthy (Kurtz) says contemptuously. But all indications were that Heilman had stolen the story from a real-life antiNazi fighter, turning it into her own tale, making herself the heroine. Both Heilman and McCarthy were women of their time, and whether their works (or their feud) will endure into this century is questionable. But, meanwhile, Ephron has created a frothy entertainment which brings the adversaries once more to life.

The Aft of Observation Pederasty has overshadowed the positive

By RABBI ALLEN H. PODET In the Navy, it is called "stepping on your sword." In the Army (if you will excuse the reference), it is called

"shooting yourself in the foot." Whatever it is called, the Roman Catholic Church has done a remarkable job of it.

The position of the Roman Catholic Church is a dominant one in American religious life. True, the Protestants outnumber the Catholics, but the Protestants are hopelessly divided - far worse, even, than the Jews! The U.S. Navy, compelled to get into the religion business because they are obligated to provide chaplain services to all the sailors (under the "free exercise of religion" clause), now recognizes a total of 502 denominations. One for the Jews, one for the Catholics, one Islamic, and 499 Protestant. Since the Catholics tend to speak with one voice - officially at least - on social issues, that makes them the Church.

And the Church has been greatly losing power and prestige for a long time now. One major blow for American Catholics came when many of them discovered the sordid history of the official Church in World War II. Only the most sheltered of my college students are surprised to find out that Pope Pius XII entered into a cordial concordat with Adolf Hitler or that the Vatican looked on wordlessly as good Catholics of Jewish ancestry. Catholic nuns and priests among them, were led by the Vatican's Nazi partners to the crematoria. The Church is seen to be merely an institution, like any other institution, concerned,

among other things, with its own power, survival, and finances. And property. Thus, the present spate of pederasty revelations in America and now also in Europe and, more, the 20-year-long coverup, provoke among the college students a measure of disgust, but not the stunned unbelief that would once have been expected. This comes at a particularly bad time for the Church, and for the Jews. After centuries of obscurantism and hostility, the Church, since "Good" Pope John, has taken serious and positive steps to repair some of the anti-Semitic damage. Tightly organized as it is, the Church has in but a few years

eliminated everywhere its invidious teachings regarding the Jews. The prayer for the "perfidious Jews" is no more; the historic doctrine that ex ecclesinm nulli sal it* (outside the Church there is no salvation) is not taught; the idea that the Jews stand and have always stood in a perpetual and completely valid relation with God is now heard in the Church schools. And many Catholic leaders and thinkers - it may be at this point a majority, at least in America and northern Europe - are proposing that attempts to convert the Jews are misguided and unworthy for Continued on page 14