Human drama, real and imagined

October is a transitional month, and while some see it as a warning that a Chicago winter is not far behind, I see it as a season of great artistic activity. And I agree with a quote by Shira Tamir, an Israeli writer who has noted: “Anyone who thinks fallen leaves are dead has never watched them dancing on a windy day.”

Here is a look at just some of the many different diversions available this month, all bearing “a Jewish twist” in one form or another, and all bound to delight and/or inform.

A probing biography of playwright Arthur Miller

Ask anyone to name the greatest American playwrights of the past century and without a doubt, the name Arthur Miller will be at or near the very top of the list. John Lahr, a longtime senior drama critic for the New Yorker magazine, and the son of Bert Lahr, the Cowardly Lion of Wizard of Oz fame-has penned a compelling new biography about Miller. The book, titled Arthur Miller, American Witness, is the latest entry in the superb Jewish Lives series published by Yale University Press. Lahr taps into the life and times and creative impulses of the playwright behind such masterful evocations of the American psyche as All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, A View From the Bridge, and The Price.

Lahr begins his book with a fascinating account of Miller’s thinking when, in 1948, at the age of 33, he began to conceive his masterpiece, “Death of a Salesman”- a work about which Elia Kazan, who directed its 1949 world premiere on Broadway, said “He didn’t write [the play], he released it.”

Lahr also comes full circle in that opening chapter in a way that suggests his book will be far more than a traditional biography. He achieves that by recounting the 1998 visit he made along with Miller (and his third and most beloved wife, photographer Inge Morath), to the cabin in Connecticut where he had written Salesman nearly 50 years earlier.

Along the way there is a great deal more, including insights into Miller’s Polish-Jewish immigrant heritage; his initial writing efforts; his sense of the intense antisemitism in America; his deft handling of testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1956; and the creation of his many plays that came after Salesman . There is also an absolutely blistering account of Miller’s disastrous marriage to Marilyn Monroe. 

An eye-opening photo exhibit at the Illinois Holocaust Museum

The photography exhibit “Chim: Between Devastation and Resurrection,” opened at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie in September and is booked for a long run through Feb. 4, 2024. The exhibit features more than 50 photographs by the Polish-born Jewish photojournalist who was born Dawid Szymin (with Chim the abbreviation of that last name), and later became known as David Seymour.

Seymour was renowned for his coverage of the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1938, and a co-founder, along with Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa, of Magnum Photos, the fabled photographic cooperative. Chim was in the U.S. when World War II broke out, enlisted in the U.S. Army, and served as a photographer and interpreter (he was fluent in many languages) in Europe. He became a naturalized citizen of the U. S. in 1942-the same year his parents, publishers who specialized in Hebrew and Yiddish literature, were murdered by the Nazis.

This exhibit featuring Chim’s work captures vivid images of what is described as “the often overlooked details of the aftermath of World War II including the postwar reconstruction of Europe, European elections, the effect of the war on children, the birth of the new State of Israel, and the Suez Canal Crisis of 1956. As it happened, Chim was hit and killed by Egyptian sniper fire in the immediate aftermath of that Middle Eastern conflagration. 

Given the current state of world events, in many ways Chim’s photographs could not be more timely. For additional information, visit ilholocaust.org.

A director’s new imprint on The Notebook

Born into a Jewish family in Brooklyn in 1959, Michael Greif was taken to see such hit Broadway musicals as Hello, Dolly, Man of La Mancha, and A Chorus Line, and was influenced by productions at the Manhattan Theatre Club and Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre. And, as it turned out, he was destined to work on Broadway. The proof can be found in the list of his credits which include the premieres of such musicals as the mega-hit Rent, as well as Grey Gardens, Next to Normal, and Dear Evan Hansen.

These days Greif is helming the world premiere of The Notebook at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater where it will run through Oct. 16. The new musical (which he is co-directing with Schele Williams, and which features a score by Ingrid Michaelson and Ingrid Brunstetter), is an updated version of the bestselling 1996 romantic novel by Nicholas Sparks that also became a popular movie released in 2004.

“Nicholas Sparks gave us permission to bring a more contemporary feel to what is his very universal love story,” said Greif. “His novel also deals with cognitive degeneration, and the heartbreak of Alzheimer’s and similar diseases. And our casting of the show is intentionally inclusive.”

For tickets visit chicagoshakes.com or call 312-595-5656.

Hedy Weiss, a longtime Chicago arts critic, was the Theater and Dance Critic for the  Chicago Sun-Times  from 1984 to 2018, and currently writes for  WTTW-TV’s website and contributes to the  Chicago Tonight  program.