Golda's Balcony

Synopsis

Golda's Balcony is a portrait of the legendary Golda Meir, the Milwaukee schoolteacher who became Prime Minister of Israel in 1969. From the pogroms of Russia to the halls of the Knesset, Meir's life, and indeed the play, encapsulates the dramatic story of the birth of Israel in the wake of the Holocaust, and its subsequent seemingly endless struggle for peace for much of the 20th Century.

Our Review:

16 June 2008

Every doctor and dentist in North London was at the Shaw on the night I went to see Tovah Feldshuh in Golda's Balcony (so was the Israeli ambassador to London). But there was no remedy. I still suffered, almost as much as Golda herself did over the decision to go ahead with Israel’s secret nuclear arsenal in the early 1970s; her balcony was an observation point of a view of hell.

Golda Meir was an amazing woman in many ways. And the American theatre is full of amazing Jewish women though, personally, I prefer performers like Ethel Merman or Barbra Streisand to politicians. Another minus factor: Golda looked like Jimmy “Schnozzle” Durante and wore medical stockings. But unlike Jimmy, she wasn’t a laugh a minute, either.

The script by Broadway veteran William Gibson (author of The Miracle Worker and Two for the Seesaw) packs Golda’s biography into a night of tension (well, there’s a clock ticking away) on the eve of the Yom Kippur war i...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

Michelle Kelner - 26 June 2008:

An absolute tour de force! Emotional & funny & also informative, what more can you ask for!...

Read more and add your own review