[Libri] Burning Words: A History Play

Prof. James Wald (der Geist, der stets verneint) jwald at hampshire.edu
Tue Nov 14 17:19:38 EST 2006


As some of you will recall, the Hampshire College Center for the Book  
and Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies have hosted the  
author on several occasions.  We are pleased to have contributed in  
some way to the progress of the work about to receive its premiere.

Jim Wald


Hampshire Shakespeare Company presents
a new play about one man's courage in the face of religious intolerance
Burning Words
A History Play
Written by Peter Wortsman
Directed by Lucinda Kidder

November 17, 18 and 19, 2006
All performances begin at 8:00 p.m.
Northampton Center for the Performing Arts
17 New South Street, Northampton, MA
Tickets: $25 reserved seating; $15 general admission; $10 students  
(with ID)


Hampshire Shakespeare Company is proud to announce the première of a  
new play, Burning Words, by New York playwright Peter Wortsman. A  
story of courage and dedication to the defense of religious rights,  
long obscured by the veils of history, this powerful drama will be  
performed at the Northampton Center for the Arts at 17 New South  
Street, Northampton, Massachusetts, on November 17-19, 2006, with  
performances each night at 8 PM. The playwright will be available to  
discuss the play after the shows.
  This production is sponsored in part by the generous support of the  
Harold F. Grinspoon Foundation, the German Information Center of the  
German Embassy, the Center for the Word at Hampshire College, the  
Interfaith Council of Western New England, the Yiddish Book Center,  
WFCR FM, Smith College Program for Jewish Studies, and the Hampshire  
College Jewish Studies program.

In the early 1500s, an era marked by the lingering excesses of the  
Inquisition and the initial rumblings of protest by Martin Luther,  
Emperor Maximillian I was persuaded to order the confiscation and  
destruction of holy Hebrew texts by rabidly antisemitic forces. One  
German Christian scholar, Johannes Reuchlin, argued forcefully for  
their preservation as the foundations of the Christian faith, adding  
the “the Jew is as worthy in the eyes of our Lord God as I am.” The  
play tells the story of Reuchlin’s confrontation with his church and  
his society in one of the most religiously turbulent times in  
European history.

Veteran Hampshire Shakespeare actors will flesh out such powerful  
characters as Reuchlin himself; his nemesis Johannes Pfefferkorn, a  
Jewish convert to Christianity; the Emperor Maximillian; and various  
other members of the German Catholic hierarchy at the time. The  
playwright has been working with director Lucinda Kidder and  
dramaturg Lauryn Sasso to hone the action of the play, which has  
received enthusiastic reviews at two public readings in the Valley.  
For the performances in Northampton, reserved seating will be $25;  
general admission will be $15 and $10 for students with ID. The  
Center is handicapped accessible, and there is parking available at  
various locations nearby in downtown Northampton.

Peter Wortsman is a playwright and author who translated Reuchlin’s  
historic defense of the Talmud and other holy books, Recommendation  
Whether to Confiscate, Destroy and Burn All Jewish Books for the  
first time into English. This book on which the play is based was  
published by the Paulist Press in 2000, and was the subject of a day- 
long symposium at New York University in 2001 attended by a wide  
variety of scholars, clergy, diplomats and publishers. An earlier  
dramatic work by Wortsman, The Tattooed Man Tells All, based on  
extensive interviews with Holocaust survivors, was published in 2000.









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