KAMPFIRE PR
  • KampFIRE PR
  • Kampfire News Room
  • Kampfire Klippings
    • KampFIRE Calendar
  • About Us
    • Join our Mailing List
    • Client Testimonials
    • KampFIRE Media Kits
    • Kampfire Services
    • Kase Studies
    • Kampfire Archives
  • KampFIRE Films

The Jewish Daily Forward: The Arty Semite

6/26/2011

0 Comments

 
Picture
June 26, 2011, 10:34pm
The Yenta in Question Is Charles Busch
By Benjamin Ivry
COURTESY OF TWO LIONS PRODUCTIONS

In anticipation of his eagerly-awaited new play, “Olive and the Bitter Herbs” which opens at Primary Stages on July 26, veteran playwright and actor Charles Busch continues to rake in the tributes. On June 27, The New York Innovative Theatre Foundation will present Busch with its 2011 Innovative Theatre Luminary Award at a benefit performance at Therapy/The Upstairs Lounge hosted by Harrison Greenbaum, a Harvard-educated stand-up comic.

Starring Marcia Jean Kurtz, the off-Broadway diva who also appeared in such noteworthy 1970s films as Jerry Schatzberg’s The Panic in Needle Park and Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon, “Olive and the Bitter Herbs” recounts the fate of Olive Fisher, a failed old actress whose career peak was landing a sausage commercial in the 1980s, in which her catchphrase is “Give me the sausage.”

TV viewers of a certain age will doubtless recall the actress Clara Peller, who since 1987 reposes in Cook County’s Waldheim Jewish Cemetery, but who achieved sudden fame in the 1980s after working for decades as a manicurist, after she was cast in a series of “Where’s The Beef?” commercials for Wendy’s fast food. In Busch’s dramatic version, Olive is unexpectedly asked by neighbors to host a Passover Seder, which alters her view of those around her and life in general.

Busch’s works, sometimes unfairly reduced to a mere edulcorated version of Charles Ludlam’s more radically brilliant Ridiculous Theatrical Company, have long contained a good degree of Yiddishkeit. Busch discusses his Judaism in the 2006 documentary “The Lady in Question Is Charles Busch” and such pricelessly grumpy characters as Sol Sussman in the 2003 screen comedy “Die Mommie Die!” or the stage characters Marjorie and Ira Taub in 2000’s Broadway success The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife are mainstream, middle-of-the-road, yet piquantly amusing sketches of urban Jewish life today.

Although most celebrated for drag incarnations of filmstars whom he idolizes, such as Susan Hayward, Busch has also contributed dramatic performances, as when he played the role of a murderous prisoner Nat Ginzburg in the wrenchingly brutal HBO television drama “Oz”. More in the gently amusing vein of “Allergist’s Wife,” “Olive and the Bitter Herbs” was written as a vehicle for Kurtz, whom Busch admires to the point of even stalking her, accompanied by a friend, as he confessed to a recent interviewer: “[Kurtz] thought we were goofing on her. I said, ‘No, no, we really think you’re the Jewish Duse!’”

Watch Charles Busch chatting with Israeli-born Amir Blumenfeld an actor from www.collegehumor.com, during the run of Busch’s 2010 play “The Divine Sister.” 

Watch Harrison Greenbaum’s standup routine from 2009. 

Permalink | Comments (0) | Share | Email | Filed under: Marcia Jean Kurtz, Harrison Greenbaum, Clara Peller, Charles Busch

Read more: http://blogs.forward.com/the-arty-semite/139135/#ixzz1QVbRUdLh
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    June 2013
    May 2013
    November 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    April 2012
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011

    Categories

    All
    Ailey Citigroup Theater
    Andrea Day
    Apac
    A Wonderfully Flat Thing
    Bad Evidence
    Bruce Vilanch
    Cabot Parsons
    Captain Crash
    Carla Ching
    Cary Hoffman
    Charles Busch
    Children's Theater
    Children\'s Theater
    Children\'s Theater
    Crystal Skillman
    Dance
    Dixon Place
    El Gato Teatro
    Eric Rockwell
    Frank Sinatra
    Gabriella Barnstone
    Gentrifusion
    It Awards
    Janine Nabers
    Janine Nina Trevens
    Jon Kern
    Joshua Conkel
    Kdny Dance
    Laba Theater
    Laba Theatre
    League Of Professional Theatre Women
    Michael John Garces
    Midsummer Night's Dream
    Mother Of God!
    Music
    My Sinatra
    Nancy Manocherian
    Neuvo Lardo
    New Perspectives Theatre Company
    Ny1
    Nymf
    Off Broadway
    Off Off Broadway
    Off-Off Broadway
    One-Woman Show
    Performing Tribute
    Planet Connections
    Prison Dancer
    Puppets
    Queens Theatre In The Park
    Railroad Playhouse
    Red Fern Theatre Company
    Repertorio Espeñol
    Richmond Shepard Theatre
    Seth Soloway
    Stevie Ray Soloway
    TADA! Youth Theater
    The Bev Leslies
    The Cell
    The Hive Theater Company
    The Human Comedy
    The Passion Of The Hausfrau
    Tom Wojtunik
    Tony
    Wppac

    RSS Feed

    Label Out Loud, Order Now!

#KampFIREUpYourAudiences


Telephone

(917) 512-2626

Email

press@kampfirefilmspr.com
  • KampFIRE PR
  • Kampfire News Room
  • Kampfire Klippings
    • KampFIRE Calendar
  • About Us
    • Join our Mailing List
    • Client Testimonials
    • KampFIRE Media Kits
    • Kampfire Services
    • Kase Studies
    • Kampfire Archives
  • KampFIRE Films