Banked Fire

By T. E. Kalem

GOLDA by William Gibson

Golda is a conscientious, reverential, monumental bore. The real Golda Meir should sue.

William Gibson has written this play on the accordion principle. So many flash backs, so much research, such fragmentary and confusing changes of locale have been squeezed together that the show unfolds in minute pleats rather than full-bodied scenes. The only substantial character in the play is Golda, played with centripetal force by Anne Bancroft.

Golda's cabinet, generals, personal secretary, children, everybody except her artistically minded husband Morris (Gerald Hiken), seem to have been carted to the stage direct from Mme. Tussaud's. Unlike Mme. Tussaud's waxwork historical figures, these characters do have lines to say, but the play might move a little faster if they were mute.

The central action is the 1973 Yom Kippur war illustrated with film clips and battle noises that could be backdrops for any war at any time. A situation map might have been more helpful since the generals rush in every five or ten minutes asking Golda to choose from their conflicting advice as to what action to take on one front or another. More or less in the dark as to what is at stake, the average member of the audience feels as indecisive as Golda is made to seem.

The inner fire that is one of Anne Bancroft's gifts in lighting up a stage is banked most of the evening, and all that relieves a kind of fatalistic pessimism is a flash of wry humor. "Requiescat in pace" seems more appropriate than "Shalom" for this show.

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