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| Linda Lavin, Arthur Storch, Addison Powell. |
THE ENEMY IS DEAD [Comedy-Drama/Jews/Marriage/Politics] A: Don Peterson; D: Arthur Sherman; S: Kert Lundell; C: Joseph G. Aulisi; L: Roger Morgan; P: Lee Schumer and Morton Wolkowitz; T: Bijou Theatre; 1/14/73 (1)
Emmett (Arthur Storch), a heavy-drinking Protestant teacher with hopes of becoming a writer, and his neurotic Jewish wife, Leah (Linda Lavin), arrive at their upstate New York mountain cottage. They proceed to engage in various fantasies, scatological insults, and bitter arguments. She is forever fascinated by his story, which later turns out to be a fib, that he killed three Germans with a grenade during World War II.
They are visited by a local, Mr. Wolfe (Addison Powell), who seems just plain folks at the start, but turns out to be a reactionary with a mean streak of anti-Semitism. He’s also gathering recruits for an army to rid the country of its “Jewish communists.” Emmett succeeds in making a fool of this neo-Nazi and gets rid of him, but he and his wife decide to leave for the city at once.
The characters in this one-performance farrago were “stultifying bores,” thought Douglas Watt; “the story [was] . . . poorly motivated,” cringed Clive Barnes; and the production was little more than adequate, even with three actors of notable name recognition.