It wasn't until The Book of Candy" that anything I had written screamed back at me to be something else and more," says Susan Dworkin, who has adapted her own novel for the musical theater. In light of what is going on in the world, it is now definitely something more.
In The Book Of Candy, the new musical opening October 19, 2001 (preview on the 18th) at the Mill Hill Playhouse in Trenton, a Long Island housewife questions her world and decides to do something about it. Inspired by "The Book of Esther" in the Old Testament, author and lyricist Dworkin, in collaboration with composer Mel Marvin and director Ahvi Spindell, have given the biblical story a contemporary, timely and topical spin. While the plot focuses on Candy Shapiro's inner journey, it also deals with cultural stereotypes. Candy's odyssey, which includes a wise, pontificating mother, a philandering gynecologist husband, an Israeli moving-man lover, friends in politics and admirers in the Mob, affords her the courage to put aside her personal dreams in order to save her community.
The novel, voted one of the year's "best" in 1996 by the Providence Journal and hailed by the Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly and the Women's Review of Books, is the first of Dworkin's many books she has chosen to adapt.
"Esther," she reminds me during our phone conversation," was a kind of sacrificial concubine who saved the nation of Israel from certain annihilation. This, by making the king fall in love with her, and telling him that if he was going to kill everyone else, he would also have to kill her."
Unlike most children, Dworkin says she always wondered what happened to Esther after Israel was saved. For her, as she "grew older," she says she realized that Esther was still stuck in that Harem with that miserable king. "It is Esther's sacrifice, her bravery and selflessness that is a gift in perpetuity to the community. While the pro-feminist angle may be an inherent part of Dworkin's literary mission, she says about "The Book of Candy" that her modern woman is lucky to be born a liberated woman but is born into a culture that doesn't value the contributions of women as citizens. The reason Dworkin says she sees The Book of Candy as a strongly political play is because it is about Candy's personal growth and the courage she needs to take her place as a leader in the community.
Although we digress and commiserate on the plight of the women of Afghanistan, she says that what happens to Candy is a uniquely American phenomenon. "In America, people have the right to do what they want as citizens. They can sit it out on the sidelines or jump into the middle and take a pro-active role. There is no choice in countries that have very draconian laws about women and human rights. The great challenge here is to make a choice, to be part of determining the fate of the collective."
One major issue covered in the musical is the sale and use of guns. Dworkin views the willy-nilly selling of guns as evil. "The people with the most awful intentions get all the guns they need, while the defenders can't get them. There is stolen military hardware in warehouses and storehouses that is available to every terrorist group, mercenary and drug merchant," says Dworkin revealing how this issue is at the core of the play. "At the end of the play, Candy says to the arms merchant, "People like me know there is a difference between using guns to defend the world and using guns to plunder it." Dworkin sees that as a very important distinction to make, because "the person who is selling usually doesn't care."
If one can see a feminist issue in the play it is, according to Dworkin, "the appalling slander of the Jewish American princess stereotype. But just as Queen Esther did, Candy, a lovely woman, grows as a citizen when she realized that the only way to save a situation is to offer herself as a sacrifice. Dworkin stresses how all the old stereotypes are thrown aside in the musical in the wake of Candy's heroism and leadership. But, first and foremost it is "courage" that Dworkin sees as the extraordinary human quality that propels Candy. "It is that quality," she continues, "that guided those people on that plane that went down in Pennsylvania. When I ask myself who has courage, it is not the suicide hijackers. It is the people who were convinced that the only way to prevent a calamity was to keep the plane from continuing on its course. No one sold them bill of goods. They were just ready to defend their countrymen."
I was surprised at Dworkin's answer when I asked her what made her decide to turn her novel into a musical. "I actually started out to write a novel with music," she says. "There are lyrics to songs in the book that move the story." Dworkin explains how the basic unit of Jewish theater for the past 125 years has been the politicized musical called a "Purimspiel," She is continuing the tradition ("now the national passion," she adds laughing) with this play with music about a familiar political situation. I suggest to Dworkin that finding or creating a modern suburban parallel to the bible story may be one of the more practical uses of the bible that we have. "I hope so." Dworkin responds. "In the workshops, women responded enthusiastically, especially those that see themselves like Candy. As we know with the tragedy of the World Trade Center, anybody could be in that spot. There is such a short distance between the little life of the ordinary citizen and HUGE political events."
When people see her play, Dworkin wants people to think how important it is for every single citizen to get involved. "There has to be personal engagement in the process of justice.
"`We are all victims of the unpunished crime," quoting Candy's mother in the play. Dworkin explains the message of The Book of Candy this way -- "No matter how lucky you are or how blessed you are, the real significance of life comes with political courage." The thought that Dworkin says she would like audiences to keep with them when they leave the theater is a line from Candy's mother: "Success, money. None of it means anything without a victory over evil."
The character of Candy is a composite of a dozen women, "including myself," says Dworkin.
As a collaborator on several popular books, often novelizations of films, with celebrities Francis Ford Coppola ("Dracula"), Bess Myerson ("Miss America 1945"), Brian DePalma and Melanie Griffith ("Double DePalma") and Dustin Hoffman and Sydney Pollack ("Making Tootsie"), Dworkin is pleased with the current collaboration with composer Marvin and the musical's director Ahvi Spindel, both of whom have been with the project since it began.
Named "A Woman of the Year" by the New Jersey legislature in 1998, Dworkin was born and raised in Long Island. She graduated from Wellesley in 1962 with a BA in Political Science. As a contributing arts editor to "Ms. Magazine" from 1976-1986, and "having a wonderful time" she interviewed and wrote about such celebraties as Whoopi Goldberg, Roseanne Barr, Meryl Streep and Carol Burnett. A series of articles for "Cosmopolitan," "Good Housekeeping," "Vogue," "Redbook" and "The Ladies Home Journal" would spur Dworkin to write her first book, "The Ms. Guide to a Woman's Health" with Dr. Cynthia W. Cook. Now Dworkin is primarily spurred by the process of "getting the show on its feet." As we talk more about all of us getting back on our feet, Dworkin brings our conversation to an apt close with words from "The Book of Esther" that have now become her lyrics: "How shall I endure to see the evil that has come upon my city."
Author's Note: Prior to its current co-production arrangement between the Passage Theater and Madison's Playwrights Theater of New Jersey (where it opens on November 2, 2001), The Book of Candy had its first staged reading at the McCarter Theater, where the musical's composer Mel Marvin (The 1940's Radio Hour, Tintypes, Yentl, A History of American Film) is well known. A four-piece, on-stage Klezmer band will play his score. The musical director is Vadim Feichtner. The cast includes Lauren Mufson, in the title role, plus Connie Day, Jonathan Brody, Ted Grayson, Adam Heller, Martin Vidnovic, Jill Abramovitz and Beth Glover.
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