Berlin  - Jewish groups in Germany criticized plans Thursday to stage a controversial play by the late film-maker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, saying it revived stereotypes of Jews.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany urged director Roberto Ciulli not to go ahead with the premiere of The Garbage, the City, and Death, which has been criticized as anti-Semitic.

Ciulli rejected the demand and said he would go ahead and stage the play on October 1 at the theatre he runs in the western German city of Muelheim.

The play, in which one of the main characters is a "rich Jew" who makes huge amounts of money from property speculation, has never been performed in Germany, although it has been staged in New York and Tel Aviv.

A planned performance in Frankfurt in 1985 had to be cancelled after widespread protests and an attempt to stage it in Berlin 13 years later was also also abandoned.

The Central Council of Jews said the play, written in 1975, presented its characters "as stereotypes burdened with the usual cliches." The Jewish community in Muelheim backed the protest.

A statement released by the two groups urged the Theater An Der Ruhr not to stage the play "out of respect for the small number of Holocaust survivors and the millions who died."

Fassbinder, one of the most important figures in the New German Cinema, is best known for his film The Marriage of Maria Braun, starring Hanna Schygulla.

He died in 1982 at the age of 37 from heart failure caused by taking sleeping pills and drugs.(dpa)