Administering compassion

Valerie Harper believes some people might have big dreams, but aren’t able to act on their visions, while some activists can’t see the big picture.

Golda Meir, though, could do both, says the actress best known for her Emmy Award-winning role as Mary Tyler Moore’s best friend, Rhoda Morgenstern. The Israeli prime minister’s success came from her ability to speak clearly, intelligently and in a down-to-earth way anyone could relate to.

Harper will be in town Saturday to promote a screening of “Golda’s Balcony,” a biopic on Meir’s life.

Harper also appeared in the national tour of “Golda’s Balcony,” the one-woman show by playwright William Gibson which won the “Best Touring Play” award for 2006.

She reprises that role in the film version directed by Jeremy Kagan, as well as playing many other characters including Meir’s husband, her parents, Henry Kissinger and Pope Paul VI.

Golda Meir served as Israel’s minister of labour and its foreign minister, before taking over as the country’s fourth prime minister when Levi Eshkol died in 1969. Meir suffered from leukemia since 1966 and was in frail health when she agreed to become the nation’s first — and to date, only — female prime minister.

Meir, who served as prime minister until June 1974, died in 1978 in Jerusalem from viral hepatitis at the age of 80. Harper’s portrayal of Meir spans decades, showing her as a young girl to the end of her life.

Harper characterized the movie as an innovative “hybrid piece.” The text of the movie is identical to the play’s, and Harper is still the solitary performer, but the actress said the only scenery is a green wall, archival film, still photos and original artwork cross-fading between black-and-white and color, make it an “interesting cinematic experience.”

For Harper, the movie’s appeal, and that of the play, is simply Golda’s appeal. This version, rewritten by Gibson 25 years after the original, is “a memory of Golda,” Harper said, without the cast of 20 actors the earlier version had.

Harper was living in New York in the ’60s, and remembers Meir, who was the foreign minister at the time, being there constantly, making speeches at the United Nations and appearing on television giving news conferences.

Meir impressed Harper as a woman with great warmth who carried herself with dignity and was the best combination of a visionary and an activist at the same time.

Gibson’s message in his revised screenplay is Golda’s message, Harper said, which is why the movie focuses on the Yom Kippur War.

With Meir struggling over whether or not to use nuclear weapons, the question she asked was, “How many people do you kill to protect your own world?” In the movie, Kagan has Meir asking, “What happens when idealism becomes power?”

“It kills,” is the answer.

Harper said Meir was a woman who wanted peace. “She was committed to living a life of joy, happiness and peace, and her message was that if we abandon hatred, anything is possible.”

IF YOU GO

WHAT: “Golda’s Balcony” starring Valerie Harper

WHEN: 7:15 p.m. Saturday

WHERE: Regency South Coast Village Theater, 1561 W. Sunflower Ave., Santa Ana

COST: $9.50

INFO: Valerie Harper will participate in a question-and-answer session with audience members after the screening. For additional showtimes, call (714) 557-5703 or go to www.regencymovies.com.

SUE THOENSEN may be reached at (714) 966-4627 or at [email protected].