Jump to content

The Soap Myth: Difference between revisions

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
No edit summary
Historicist (talk | contribs)
11,004 edits
Line 22: Line 22:


[[Time Out]] New York wrote that the play "touches on a host of compelling issues: irrefutable versus empirical evidence, the subjective shaping of history, institutional agendas and, in its most effective scene, the potential seduction of anti-Semitism. But faulty dramaturgy—Annie’s unnecessary narration egregiously flouts the show-don’t-tell rule—and points of view in place of complex people drain the proceedings of any nuance. There’s something dreadfully wrong with a Holocaust drama in which the most engaging character hates Jews.<ref> The Sap Myth, Time Out New York, http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/theater/76576/the-soap-myth-at-seaport-theater-review</ref>
[[Time Out]] New York wrote that the play "touches on a host of compelling issues: irrefutable versus empirical evidence, the subjective shaping of history, institutional agendas and, in its most effective scene, the potential seduction of anti-Semitism. But faulty dramaturgy—Annie’s unnecessary narration egregiously flouts the show-don’t-tell rule—and points of view in place of complex people drain the proceedings of any nuance. There’s something dreadfully wrong with a Holocaust drama in which the most engaging character hates Jews.<ref> The Sap Myth, Time Out New York, http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/theater/76576/the-soap-myth-at-seaport-theater-review</ref>

According to [[NYTheater.com]], "It's the dazzling objectivity and even-handedness of the play that gives it real moral heft..."<ref>The Soap Myth, Martin Denton · July 11, 2009, http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/showpage.php?t=soap8558</ref>


[[The Villager]] found it compelling, There are certain movies, plays, books that one wishes would never end. For me, “The Soap Myth” is one of those extraordinary plays.<ref> Some still deny the Holocaust, some simply refuse to listen, Stand-up comedy, targeted seriousness contemplate ‘how one survives surviving,’ The Villager, Jerry Tallmer, Volume 79, Number 5 | July 8 - 14, 2009, http://www.thevillager.com/villager_323/somestilldeny.html</ref>
[[The Villager]] found it compelling, There are certain movies, plays, books that one wishes would never end. For me, “The Soap Myth” is one of those extraordinary plays.<ref> Some still deny the Holocaust, some simply refuse to listen, Stand-up comedy, targeted seriousness contemplate ‘how one survives surviving,’ The Villager, Jerry Tallmer, Volume 79, Number 5 | July 8 - 14, 2009, http://www.thevillager.com/villager_323/somestilldeny.html</ref>

Revision as of 18:43, 28 July 2009

The Soap Myth is a 2009 play by American playwright Jeff Cohen.

The play had a workshop run in July 2009 at the Dog Run Repertory Company, and will have an Off-Broadway run in the fall of 2009.[1]

Description

Although this is a work of fiction, the events and characters are closed based on actual historical figures and events, in the words of the program, The Soap Myth is "a work of fiction inspired by real people and real events as well as an article written by Josh Rolnick in Moment Magazine profiling Holocaust survivor Morris Spitzer." [2]

Foremost is the evidence that the Nazi regime had a program at the Danzig Amatomic Instituee in 1944 to develop a process for the mass-production of soap from the fat of Jews being slaughtered in Nazi extermination camps. In a dramatic moment, the players re-enact testimony form the Nuremburg trials, including this recipe: "5 kilos of human fat are mixed with 10 liters of water and 500 or 1,000 grams of caustic soda. All this is boiled 2 or 3 hours and then cooled. The soap floats to the surface while the water and other sediment remain at the bottom. A bit of salt and soda is added to this mixture. Then fresh water is added and the mixture again boiled 2 or 3 hours. After having cooled, the soap is poured into molds" [3]

The central character, is an elderly Holocaust survivor called Milton Saltzman, based on actual survivor named Morris Spitzer who worked doggedly to establish as fact the idea that the Nazis produced and used soap made from human corpses, even handing bars of such soap to Jews on their way into the sealed chambers that functioned alternately as gas chambers and as shower rooms in the Nazi concentration camps. [4]

The second character is a young journalist called Annie Blumberg assigned to write a story about Saltzman. She is soon caught between her sympathies for Saltzman and the adamant stand of a number of distinguished scholars of the Holocaust who refuse to publish the Nazi manufacture of soap as fact despite a large amount of eye-witness testimony, including the eyewitness testimony of both Nazis and British prisoners of war at the Nuremberg trial who worked in the experimental soap manufacturing facility at Danzig in 1944, because contemporary documentation is lacking. The scholars fear that without proof beyond the eye-witness testimony, the story of the manufacture of soap from human bodies will become ammunition in the hands of Holocaust deniers. [5] [6]

A character called Brenda Goodsen, an amalgam of a number of Holocaust deniers including David Irving, makes a dramatic case for minimizing the Holocaust or concluding that the Jews brought it on themselves. Comic relief is added by a character called Rabbi Schmooey based loosely on Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.[7]

Public reception

Several reviews ran while the play was being rewritten on an ongoing basis during the workshop production at South Street Seaport in July 2009.[8]

The New York Times called the play a "pointed investigation of the politics of history." [9]

Time Out New York wrote that the play "touches on a host of compelling issues: irrefutable versus empirical evidence, the subjective shaping of history, institutional agendas and, in its most effective scene, the potential seduction of anti-Semitism. But faulty dramaturgy—Annie’s unnecessary narration egregiously flouts the show-don’t-tell rule—and points of view in place of complex people drain the proceedings of any nuance. There’s something dreadfully wrong with a Holocaust drama in which the most engaging character hates Jews.[10]

According to NYTheater.com, "It's the dazzling objectivity and even-handedness of the play that gives it real moral heft..."[11]

The Villager found it compelling, There are certain movies, plays, books that one wishes would never end. For me, “The Soap Myth” is one of those extraordinary plays.[12]

Publicity

In a Youtube video an interviewer asks people in a New York City park about “the soap myth.” The final interviewee is actor Joel Friedman, in character as Milton Saltzman, giving the compelling account, excerpted from the play, of how it felt to be a twelve-year-old boy in a Nazi concentration camp forced to shower using soap made from the bodies of his dead parents.[13][14]

References

  1. ^ Program, Dog Run Rep, South Street Seaport
  2. ^ Program, Dog Run Rep, South Street Seaport
  3. ^ Some still deny the Holocaust, some simply refuse to listen, Stand-up comedy, targeted seriousness contemplate ‘how one survives surviving,’ The Villager, Jerry Tallmer, Volume 79, Number 5 | July 8 - 14, 2009, http://www.thevillager.com/villager_323/somestilldeny.html
  4. ^ False Witness; A play examines the notion that Nazis made soap from Jewish flesh, MARISSA BROSTOFF , July 21, 2009, Tablet Magazine http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/theater-and-dance/10929/false-witness/
  5. ^ Some still deny the Holocaust, some simply refuse to listen, Stand-up comedy, targeted seriousness contemplate ‘how one survives surviving,’ The Villager, Jerry Tallmer, Volume 79, Number 5 | July 8 - 14, 2009, http://www.thevillager.com/villager_323/somestilldeny.html
  6. ^ False Witness; A play examines the notion that Nazis made soap from Jewish flesh, MARISSA BROSTOFF , July 21, 2009, Tablet Magazine http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/theater-and-dance/10929/false-witness/
  7. ^ False Witness; A play examines the notion that Nazis made soap from Jewish flesh, MARISSA BROSTOFF , July 21, 2009, Tablet Magazine http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/theater-and-dance/10929/false-witness/
  8. ^ Program, Dog Run Rep, South Street Seaport
  9. ^ Where Political Agendas and History Intersect, New York Times, Jason Zinoman, July 21, 2009, http://theater2.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/theater/reviews/21soap.html
  10. ^ The Sap Myth, Time Out New York, http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/theater/76576/the-soap-myth-at-seaport-theater-review
  11. ^ The Soap Myth, Martin Denton · July 11, 2009, http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/showpage.php?t=soap8558
  12. ^ Some still deny the Holocaust, some simply refuse to listen, Stand-up comedy, targeted seriousness contemplate ‘how one survives surviving,’ The Villager, Jerry Tallmer, Volume 79, Number 5 | July 8 - 14, 2009, http://www.thevillager.com/villager_323/somestilldeny.html
  13. ^ False Witness; A play examines the notion that Nazis made soap from Jewish flesh, MARISSA BROSTOFF , July 21, 2009, Tablet Magazine http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/theater-and-dance/10929/false-witness/
  14. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FpSCz4SuEQ
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Soap_Myth&oldid=304725684"