Actor Mullavey '55 Noted
6 April 2012 Actor Mullavey '55 Noted
A review of Soap Myth, a play in which Actor Greg Mullavey 55 plays a Holocaust survivor was recently reviewed in The New York Post. The writer noted Mullavey delivers a forceful performance as the survivor.
Mullaveys acting career spans five decades and, for the past four years, he held a recurring role on iCarly as Grandfather Shay. In addition to numerous television and television movie appearances, he has held recurring roles on The Bold and the Beautiful, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Bonanza, Marcus Welby, M.D., and Dynasty.
Mullavey earned his B.A.in philosophy from Hobart College. He was active in a number of clubs and organizations as a student, including Orange Key, Chimera, the Druids, Newman Club, and Schola Cantorum as well as the Board of Control. He wrote for the Herald and worked at WEOS and Saga. Mullavey was also a member of the baseball team.
The full review of The Soap Myth follows.
The New York Post
Soft-soaping a real horror story
Frank Scheck March 26, 2012
Holocaust deniers are a reprehensible lot. But they can be transfixing.
Thats the uncomfortable message one takes away from The Soap Myth, presented by the National Jewish Theater. In it, an attractive and articulate British historian named Brenda Goodsen delivers a mesmerizing diatribe in which she doesnt exactly deny the Holocaust, but simply disputes the figures: There were hundreds of thousands of victims, she argues, not millions.
Must the Jews be greedy even in this? she asks.
Shes one of several characters arguing forceful positions in this drama, which takes its title from an elderly survivors claim that the Nazis made soap from their victims corpses.
When a young investigative journalist, Annie Blumberg, tries to argue his case to officials at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, she discovers that it doesnt meet their evidentiary criteria. They tell her that if even one undocumented charge about the Holocaust is proven untrue, it could provoke widespread skepticism.
Your argument feels like fear, Blumberg says.
Jeff Cohens play has its powerful moments, including a lengthy description of horrific medical experiments performed on concentration-camp inmates. But it too often mistakes impassioned intellectual arguments for drama. Blumberg (stiffly played by Andi Potamkin) is less a character than a device to awkwardly feed the audience information via direct-address monologues.
Under Arnold Mittelmans low-key direction, Greg Mullavey (Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman) delivers a forceful performance as the anguished survivor, while Dee Pelletier makes a strong impression in two wildly contrasting roles: the British denier and a Jewish historian.
But its Donald Corren who steals the show with several brief but memorable roles, including a British POW, a Russian prosecutor and a Borscht Belt comic.