The Man in the Glass Booth; A Play.

Rating:
Summary: Now I want to see the play!
Review: Being a fan of Robert Shaw from his acting career, I decided to pick up The Man in the Glass Booth. Robert Shaw's story takes place twenty years after the holocaust. In this story the reader finds a successful Jewish real-estate man, Arthur Goldman, who is chauffered around by a rabbi named Charlie Cohen. Cohen serves as a type of assistant to Goldman and constantly listens to his sometimes incoherent speeches and thoughts as he babbles on through the first part of the book. A majority of this book is dialogue. (I read that there is a play based on this book. This I must see)
During the dramatic second part of the book, Arthur Goldman is discovered wearing an S.S. uniform by an unsuspecting Charlie Cohen and is soon taken to Israel with war crime charges. This leads the reader, who becomes a juror, to wonder just who Arthur Goldman really is.
During the trial, Arthur Goldman gives an intense testimony of days in the concentration camp that is guaranteed to keep the reader's attention. It is at this trial that Goldman is put in a glass booth to testify, and his testimony is both shocking and unforgettable.
This book is highly intense and worth reading. Mr. Shaw is multi-talented as an actor and author, and this book deserves much merit.

Rating:
Summary: Timeless drama looks at society's own holocaust culpability.
Review: In 1964, the Israeli intellignece group, the Mossad, kidnaps Jewish businessman, Arthur Goldman from his New York City apartment and accuses him of heinous war crimes. During the trial that follows, this man will offer a defense that will shock you, provoke you, and force you, the reader, to become the judge of him, his actions, and yourself. Originally staged in NYC in the '60's, the play was revised in New York City at the Cocteau Theater in 1998. This is a testament to the timeless nature of the drama. Historical references to the Pope's edict, concentration camps, and ethnic cleansing are repeated in recent history. Interesting metaphors are employed in the use of certain music references and references to certain paintings. The reference to Poussin's "Arcadia" bring to mind the scholarly interpretation of the painting "Here too (in paradise), is death." Arcadia is paradise neglected and fallen into ruins. The full title is "Et in Arcadia," which is actually meant as a riddle. Since there is no verb, the reader is meant to infer the meaning. So too is the main character, Arthur Goldman, a riddle, leaving the reader to guess at his true nature. Ultimately the reader is shocked by a surprise twist ending in the script, which reveals Arthur Goldman to be someone wholly different from whom he himself was pretending to be. Often performed with the audience being the jury of the trial, the audience is then forced to make a life or death decision about this man, unwittingly being lead to make the wrong conclusions. The play is a well crafted, dark drama. The gruesome talk of Nazi atrocities, with our main character admitting to shooting a person in the nape of the neck, allowed me to truly hate our main character, and yet to be also fully surprised by the climatic twist. If you're into the dark and gritty, buy this play.