Four Jews on Parnassus, the 2008 book by chemistry Professor Emeritus CARL DJERASSI, which features a dramatized posthumous conversation between Arnold Schoenberg, Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem and Theodor Adorno, will come to life in two distinct adaptations Feb. 6 and 7 on the Stanford University campus and at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, respectively.
On Feb. 6 at 7:30 p.m. in Stanford’s Pigott Theater, there will be a performance of Four Jews on Parnassus: Benjamin, Adorno, Scholem, Schoenberg: A Dispute About Art, Music, Identity, Wives and Pornography. Stanford drama faculty and actors RUSH REHM and KAY KOSTOPOULOS, along with Ken Sonkin, William Wolak and Obie Award winner Gerald Hiken as well as London-based soprano Loré Lixenberg, will perform what is described as a “genre-busting exploration of history, art and identity.” Stanford students also will participate.
On Feb. 7 at 2 p.m. at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, Lixenberg, Hiken, Kostopoulos, Rehm, Sonkin and Wolak will perform in the American premiere of Schoenberg on Parnassus: Schoenberg’s Chess, Klee’s Jewishness, Benjamin’s Obsession and Other Puzzles. The play features the imagined posthumous conversations of Schoenberg, Benjamin, Scholem, Adorno and Schoenberg’s wife, with songs by Schoenberg and others, and audiovisuals dealing with the art of Paul Klee. Following the performance, Djerassi will converse with Larry Schoenberg, Arnold Schoenberg’s son. Both performances will be directed by Vienna-based Isabella Gregor, who has already directed earlier performances of Djerassi’s pieces in London, Vienna, Berlin, and Bayreuth.
The performances are co-sponsored by the Stanford Institute for Creativity in the Arts (SiCa) and the National Center for New Plays at Stanford.
“Under my SiCa grant, it was possible to bring a superb soprano from London and a very experienced director from Vienna to stage these two events. There will be rare or unknown music as well as first-class audiovisuals, including some little-known aspects of Paul Klee’s oeuvre, together with five Equity actors and some Stanford students,” Djerassi wrote in an email.
