Wonderful
Ruth Sims | Illinois, USA | 06/20/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"How much do I love this performance? Funny you should ask. I first saw it on PBS many years ago. Either I didn't have a VHS recorder or they hadn't been invented yet; I don't recall which. I very much wanted my own copy. Flash forward to about five years ago. I saw a VHS on E-Bay; I ordered it and paid more than common sense allowed. I loved it just as much as when I'd seen it before. Now I see it's on DVD, which, as we all know, is better quality than VHS. So I'm ordering the DVD for myself and giving my VHS to my older sister who doesn't have a DVD player.
It made me laugh, it made me cry. Ellen Gould is amazing as she portrays both herself and her two grandmothers in the greatest one-woman show I've ever seen. The grandmothers are totally different from each other and Gould portrays them perfectly as they recall their lives and loves, the hard times and the good of their many years, and even take sly verbal potshots at each other. And at the end she pays a tribute to them that will leave a lump in the throat to anyone who has a heart.
I wish everyone could see this performance. And I'm not even Jewish.
And I swear, if I'm still alive when they come out with it in yet another improved format....!!!
Ruth Sims, author of The Phoenix"