Take a Letter

The most powerful aspect of Frank Dunlop’s stage adaptation of Kathrine Kressmann Taylor’s best-selling book Address Unknown is the way in which it explains the enveloping evil of Nazi Germany and its terrible human cost. Taylor’s story, originally published in 1939, takes two close friends and details through their correspondence something far worse than the end of a relationship: We witness how basically good, decent people can lose their moral bearings.

Jim Dale plays Max Eisenstein, a German-Jewish art dealer in San Francisco. He misses his dear friend Martin Schulse (William Atherton), a partner in the company who has just recently returned to his homeland. These two write letters to each other that quickly establish the pivotal plot point: Martin, though married, once had an affair with Max’s younger sister and the flame of that earlier love still smolders in Martin’s heart.

But there are other fires burning: Martin, caught up in Hitler’s rise to power, ignores the brutal violence around him and (literally) writes it off as the cost of re-inventing Germany. Max, of course, is appalled. He’s always known Martin to be a liberal and is at first hurt, then deeply offended when his old friend takes an anti-Semitic stance and breaks off all communication with him except insofar as business matters are concerned. When Max’s sister, an up-and-coming actress in Europe, travels to Germany to perform, the political differences between the two men blossom into something much more personal and profound.

The story, edited for the theater and masterfully directed by Dunlop, has the structure of an O.Henry short story but with a far darker and more chilling twist ending. At the beginning of the piece, each character has his own half of the stage in which to play but, eventually, each invades the space of the other as their letters become a matter of life or death. Dale and Atherton are both superb, infusing their characters with specificity and individuality. Once they are revealed as genuine human beings, we find ourselves more deeply drawn into their relationship even as it deteriorates from deep affection to disdain.

Address Unknown is at The Promenade Theatre and that address should be known (Broadway and 76th Street) because it’s where this season’s first important work can be found.

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Up Late With Bebe

Bebe Neuwirth is working the late shift at The Zipper several nights a week, putting on a Kurt Weill show at 11pm called Here Lies Jenny. Written and performed in high theatrical style, it’s not for every taste. Trust us, this is not your mother’s musical — unless your mother lived in Weimar Germany. Neuwirth takes a mix of Weill’s songs from his German and American canons and melds them into an atmospheric story about a wayward woman who relives her past while holed up in a dingy saloon.

If Neuwirth’s singing voice isn’t anything special, her acting is. She gives a soulful performance in the show, which is just over an hour in length. The three other actors with whom she shares the stage are also quite good and not your typical back-up boys; they’re real character types. Roger Rees directs, lending an artful, stylish sheen to the undertaking.

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[To contact the Siegels directly, e-mail them at siegelentertainment@msn.com.]