San Diego (special) -- The last of four works presented in the upcoming Lawrence Family JCC's Streisand Festival of  New Jewish Plays poses a startling question. Was the famous Ruth of the Bible a lesbian?

In an interview, playwright Karen Hartman said her fascination with the character of Ruth was ignited by a lecture once given by Orthodox scholar Aviva Zornberg, who focused on the fact that in the biblical story, Ruth is said to "cling" to Naomi.

In Hebrew, the verb "to cling" also has the meaning "to stick, the way honey sticks or glue sticks," Hartman said.

"She talked about Ruth as a character who was not completely pleasant, a character who stuck to people, stuck to Naomi."

According to the San Diego-raised playwright, who now teaches theater at Bennington College in Vermont, "Naomi really doesn't want Ruth there. At no point does Naomi reciprocate that incredible 'where you will go, I will go' speech that Ruth gives to Naomi."

In fact, Hartman added, "Naomi shows up in front of her town and says, 'I went away full and I've come back empty; my life is over' and Ruth is standing right next to her. It never seems that the love between them is as simple or as pastoral as the way it is often read. I think it is a very troubled kind of love and that Ruth is a troubling kind of character because she does cling to people in a way that is uncomfortable."

Traditional Jewish scholarship has interpreted the notion of Ruth's clinging quite differently. For example, the Art Scroll edition of the Tanach, edited by Rabbi Nosson Scherman, suggests that "In Ruth's clinging to her, Naomi felt a spirt of holiness (Alshich)." 

The story of Ruth is put into a new time and place in Hartman's play, Girl Under Grain. Instead of journeying from Moab back to Judea, Ruth and her mother-in-law, renamed 'Sugar,' are returning to Sugar's rural hometown somewhere in post-Depression America. The play examines not only their relationship but also speculates on what ever happened to Orpah, the other daughter-in-law of Naomi, who chose not to join the procession.

The play will be given a staged reading at 7:30 p.m., June 29, at the La Jolla Playhouse, under the direction of Laura Stribling, who previously directed another of Hartman's works, Troy Women, an adaptation of Euripedes' The Trojan Women.

In Girl Under Grain, Ruth at first relates to "Sugar" as a mother figure, but later fixates on her as a potential lover. Although Ruth copulates with Boaz, renamed "Boone," in the play, it is not for the sake of love, but instead is a way of attempting to win "Sugar's" love by producing for her a new son -- to replace at least one of the two sons who had died. Nevertheless, Ruth's love is unrequited.

Is the character Ruth in Hartman's play a lesbian? "Yes," the playwright replied after a long pause. "But I think nowadays those terms are not really defined...I don't think Ruth would say, 'Yeah, I am a lesbian,' but the love in the play is definitely romantic and sexual, so we would look at this character and say, 'yes, she is a lesbian.' She isn't a person who has a modern-day lesbian identity, if I could make that distinction--if I can make a distinction between a person who has romantic and sexual feelings for a woman, which is definitely true of this character, Ruth, and a person who has a gay identity. I would say that Ruth is the former but not the latter." 

Similarly Hartman is uncertain how the biblical Ruth might be identified. "I don't think that Ruth in the Bible was a 'lesbian,' I don't think that. But I think that in our terms, sexual love has an intimacy, a potency all of its own, and for me a love like Ruth's love for Naomi, which I do believe is all encompassing, is desperate, is clinging--to me, that is sexual."

Such speculation obviously is controversial. Ruth is the great-grandmother of King David, whose line in Jewish prophecy is the one which will produce the Messiah. Christians believe that another of Ruth's descendants was their messiah, Jesus. Instead of being the first sincere convert to Judaism--whose story is celebrated at the time of Shavuot--Ruth is depicted as having ulterior motives for her most heart-rending profession of faith. Hartman's play, therefore, prompts questions not only about homosexuality but about such other contemporary issues as
intermarriage as well as a women's place in society.

The playwright said another important aspect of Girl Under Grain is that "Ruth is creating a home for herself; here is a story in the Bible about a woman choosing to call another woman her family, rather than to go back to her parents. I think a theme of a blended family is very important now. I come from a blended family in the sense that I grew up with a mother and a stepfather and a brother, and a father and step-mother and two half siblings, and that is my immediate family--eight people in all."

Hartman's play was developed under a grant awarded to her and the Streisand Festival by the New York-based National Foundation for Jewish Culture. To win one of only six grants that the foundation awarded throughout the country this year, Girl Under Grain had to compete with more than 50 other proposals, according to the foundation's program director Jerome Chanes.

To be eligible for the grants, plays had to "address a Jewish theme or have significant Jewish content," Chanes said, but beyond that there was "no specific guideline in terms of what sort of play it has to be, in form or in structure. The evaluations are done on the basis of artistic merit."

"The fact that a play or any vehicle for artistic expression deals with controversial themes and indeed is provocative on controversial themes is not a disabling factor," Chanes said. "Quite to the contrary, issues and themes need to be addressed as they arise. Clearly these issues are vey much out there in contemporary Jewish society."

Actor/singer Theodore Bikel (who coincidentally will be at the Lawrence Family JCC on June 14, for a musical salute to Israel's 50th anniversary), was the chairman of the panel which selected the Hartman/ Streisand Festival entry for a grant. Other New York-based jurors were Michael Posnick, George Bartenieff, Joanne Green; Karen Malpede, Isaiah Sheffer and Ellen Schiff. All are involved in the theater world.

The JCC's Streisand Festival committee, chaired by Judith Friedel and professionally staffed by Lynette Allen, was introduced to Hartman's work by one of her former San Diego mentors, Deborah Salzer, executive director of the Playwrights Project.

Hartman graduated La Jolla High School in 1988, went on to Yale University for a bachelor's and master's degree in literature, and also spent a year in Israel on a Fulbright scholarship where she researched another play, Wanting a Woman of Valor. Like Girl Under Grain, that work also dealt with a lesbian relationship -- in that instance, between a visiting American woman and an Orthodox Israeli woman. "It was a spiritual awakening for the American woman, and a sexual awakening for the Orthodox woman," Hartman said.

Although Hartman had won some playwrighting competitions as a high school student in San Diego, Friedel said she did not become known to the Streisand Festival's committee until Salzer suggested that the festival apply with Hartman for the grant.

"When we found out about it, we were thrilled," Friedel said. "It brought a playwright with a history in San Diego back to us."

Friedel said she was somewhat troubled by the main message of the play, but believed in its artistic merit. "It has a lot of contemporary nuances; the kind of play that you will love or hate; I don't think there is much middle ground,"Friedel said. 

Asked if the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center ever requested that a representative of the Orthodox community provide input for the play selection process, Friedel responded that "I don't think that this is a religious project. We really feel that if a play is worthy artistically, whether it makes it and whether it is respected--and by whom--is really up to the audience. What we are doing is providing the venue for a playwright to get a reading and this is only a reading, not a fully staged production.

"I also want to emphasize that we consider this, and a lot of playwrights consider this, to be still a work in progress," Friedel said. "It is an opportunity to get feedback from an audience and to find out what an audience feels about a work and why."

Friedel said she was concerned that some in the religious community may object to the theme of the play, but added her concern is "not to the point that we wouldn't do it. We would hope that they would feel free to come and voice their objection. That certainly is part of the
process of the Streisand Festival."

Girl Under Grain, she said, "is a valid interpretation of the story of Ruth. Is it going to please everyone? Absolutely not. Is that a reason not to do the play? I say no. Nor is it a reason to do it. Our objective is not to provoke controversy; our objective in doing the play is that it is a valid, well-written new play by a young playwright who deserves to have her play read."

Agreeing with Friedel, Allen--director of the JCC's cultural arts department--said "we know that everyone is not going to like everything, but this is a forum for people to voice their opinions. I think that brings out discussion. Maybe it even brings greater understanding between different factions, and maybe that is a good thing."

She said Hartman's play expresses "an important point of view, an interpretation."

"It is an incredibly well-written piece," Allen added. "It is a piece that deserves to be seen. I hope people will come and judge for themselves."