Thursday, September 21, 2006

F. Murray Abraham, Oscar Winner; Italian-Syrian, Seeks Tolerance Through Arts, From El Paso?

The ANNOTICO Report

Abraham has appeared in nearly 60 films and 90 plays. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1984 film Amadeus. On Broadway, Abrahams credits include Angels in America, A Month in the Country and Triumph of Love. In July 2004, Abraham was awarded the Premio per gli Italiani nel Mondo by the Marzio Tremaglia Foundation and the Italian government. The honor acknowledges Italian emigrants and their descendants who have distinguished themselves abroad.

Abraham takes particular interest and satisfaction in appearing in works that show audiences the values of tolerance, humanity and peace.

In 2003, Abraham guest-starred in a reading of Paul DAndreas adaptation of Nathan the Wise  by German playwright Gotthold Lessing

Abraham said 18th century European audiences panned Lessings tale of religious tolerance in 12th century Jerusalem, but 21st century audiences warmly received the new version, which features a Jewish merchant, a Muslim leader and a Christian soldier in present-day Virginia.  Based in fact, the story was the gathering together of three great religions, and through a series of amazing coincidences and circumstances that the characters believed were guided by the hand of God, they were able to exist side by side, Abraham said.

 

American film and stage actor has roots in Syria, Italy

By Carolee Walker
Washington File Staff Writer 

Bureau of International Information

Department of State

20 September 2006

Washington  Actors can have a role in diplomacy, Oscar-winning actor F. Murray Abraham tells the Washington File. The physical presence of an actor, guided by a director, can spur viewers imaginations, challenging them to live or think in a completely different way.

The idea of putting yourself in someone elses shoes is a good way to understand someone else, he said. This works in film too, Abraham said, but even more so in live theater. If theyre alive and onstage, he said, actors enforce the audiences identification with characters feelings of love and hate and stories about poverty, hunger and religious conflict.

At 67, Abraham, raised in El Paso, Texas, by Syrian and Italian parents, is committed as an actor and a director to allow the world to stand in his shoes, to see what he sees when he looks around: the humanity of Americans.

The changes in the attitudes toward Americans over the past five or six years at first were subtle, but now there is just plain mistrust, Abraham said. People always seem surprised that Im an American. They say, youre so nice, youre so caring. I dont know what they think we are, but the impression they have of us is that were insensitive.

When Abraham travels abroad, especially with film crews or while performing in live theater, he is grateful when locals meet as many of us as they can, because it is a great way for people to find out that there are a lot of good people in this country.

They are surprised that Abraham cares as much about the same things they care about.

Both of my brothers are buried in a military cemetery in Texas, Abraham said, and my wifes only brother was taken while in the service. I am very interested in doing anything I can to promote America and its humanity.

It has been years since I thought about how my parents suffered these losses. I pray for peace.

Abraham has appeared in nearly 60 films and 90 plays. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1984 film Amadeus. On Broadway, Abrahams credits include Angels in America, A Month in the Country and Triumph of Love. In July 2004, Abraham was awarded the Premio per gli Italiani nel Mondo by the Marzio Tremaglia Foundation and the Italian government. The honor acknowledges Italian emigrants and their descendants who have distinguished themselves abroad. Abraham is proud of his heritage as an Assyrian and as an Italian, but Abraham is above all an American.

Whether on stage or in film, Abraham strives in his work to show audiences the values of tolerance, humanity and peace.

In September, Abraham traveled to Moscow to make the film Perestroika. Set in Soviet Russia during the 1950s to 1980s, Perestroika is about freedom and human rights, Abraham said. He plays the mentor of a brilliant Jewish astrophysicist who wants to emigrate. The film is written and directed by Russian imigri Slava Tsukerman.

Although Abraham is best known for his Oscar-winning performance as the Italian composer and Mozarts rival Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) in Amadeus, European audiences also remember Abraham in The Name of the Rose  (1986), a thriller set in a medieval-era Benedictine Abbey.

Maybe Europeans are closer in their roots to the medieval period, Abraham surmised. But audiences of all cultural backgrounds share the desire to live another persons story for a few hours, he said. Fulfilling that desire by transporting audiences to another time and place is the responsibility of actors and directors.

Abraham takes that responsibility seriously. In the past few years he has sought projects that enable actors to spread the message of peace. In 2003, Abraham guest-starred in a reading of Paul DAndreas adaptation of Nathan the Wise by German playwright Gotthold Lessing in collaboration with Theater of the First Amendment at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Abraham said 18th century European audiences panned Lessings tale of religious tolerance in 12th century Jerusalem, but 21st century audiences warmly received the new version, which features a Jewish merchant, a Muslim leader and a Christian soldier in present-day Virginia.

Based in fact, the story was the gathering together of three great religions, and through a series of amazing coincidences and circumstances that the characters believed were guided by the hand of God, they were able to exist side by side, Abraham said.

Abrahams current projects further his goal of spreading tolerance and understanding. He will reprise the roles of Shylock in William Shakespeares The Merchant of Venice  and Barabas in Christopher Marlowes The Jew of Malta. The plays will be presented at the Duke Theater in New York City in January 2007 and February 2007, and in summer 2007 at the Royal Shakespeare Companys Swan Theatre at Stratford-Upon-Avon in England.

The Merchant of Venice  examines peoples intolerance of each other, Abraham said. The Christians dont come off any better than Shylock [a Jew] does. And the idea that you can try to use your religion as a cudgel against someone else or to separate yourself by your religion is something that we try to examine in our production.

Its going to raise some hackles, but its an important piece, said Abraham.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

 

The ANNOTICO Reports

Can be Viewed, and are Archived at:

Italia USA: http://www.ItaliaUSA.com (Formerly Italy at St Louis)

Annotico Email: annotico@earthlink.net