| Other Reviews: | San
Francisco Examiner A
charming collaboration of staged short stories |
Traveling Jewish Theatre, Word for Word join forcesFROM THE bustling stage of a Lower East Side Yiddish theater to the ragged, Yiddish-inflected blackbird huddled in an apartment corner, the words of Grace Paley and Bernard Malamud take wing in the enchanting double-bill that opened Monday at A Traveling Jewish Theatre. The characters are drawn with delightful precision, the humor is sharp and beguiling and the pathos tugs gently at the heart. The final show in ATJT's season, it's a first-time collaboration between the 22-year-old company dedicated to explorations of Jewish culture and Word for Word, formed in the early '90s to transform short stories into plays by performing them just as written. The stories told in Paley's "Goodbye and Good Luck" and Malamud's "The Jewbird" fit neatly into both groups' artistic agendas, and provide wonderful material for their actors all around. The result looks more like a Word for Word production, with the actors inhabiting the stories' characters and speaking every word of the text from narrative passages to each "he thought" or "she said." But it's also infused with the unmistakable ATJT deft performance touch, as is to be expected from the presence of ATJT co-founders Corey Fischer and Albert Greenberg. Fischer, with a lead role in both stories, brilliantly reaffirms his standing as one of the Bay Area's acting treasures. In "Goodbye," he's Volodya Vlashkin, "the Valentino of Second Avenue," leading romantic actor of New York's Russian Art Theatre in the early 20th century. He's a tall, commanding, dapper gentleman of the old school, charming and swelled with a sense of his own importance. He also gets to show off his -- that is, Vlashkin's -- acting versatility as a comically over-the-top romantic lead in an ill-fitting black mop of a toupee and a doddering old man. In "Jewbird," he's Schwartz, the bird itself, a magnificently bedraggled old specimen with the comic gravity of a raven, wheedling tone of a sly old beggar and Yiddish inflections and sentence construction of a first-generation immigrant. His tattered scarf alone is a thing of wonder, a prayer shawl one moment, a bird hand puppet the next -- more often, spread over his fluttering hands above his shoulders, it's a pair of remarkably expressive wings. It's a performance to savor and store in the memory. Each story is about a half-hour long, performed on a nicely detailed kitchen set by Melpomene Katakolos -- cleverly redecorated between the acts, right down to the period refrigerators, to reflect the different time and economic class -- in apt period costumes by Valera Coble. Drew Yerys' lights capably enhance the mood and establish the changing scenes. Paley's "Goodbye," the curtain raiser, is the more straightforward story of the two. It's a tale told by Rosie (Word for Word stalwart Patricia Silver) to her attentive niece Lily (Sheila Balter) about the beguilingly unorthodox, meandering progress of the great love of her life. A young immigrant, she lands a job as ticket seller to a Yiddish theater and falls in love with the plays and with Vlashkin. Soon, to the puzzled disapproval of her mother (the versatile Balter), Rosie's taken her own apartment and become his lover, eventually breaking off the affair after she meets Vlashkin's imposing wife (a remarkably imperial Balter). Many years later, with Vlashkin in involuntary retirement and Rosie now "fat and 50," the romance unexpectedly rekindles for a sweetly satisfying finale. It's a charming tale, rife with cogent observations about the ideals of an earlier time and graced with gentle humor. Silver tells it well, giving Rosie a quiet, wondering dignity and love of life, though she could invest the earlier passages with more youthful vigor. It's gracefully and inventively staged by Wendy Radford, with Balter contributing brightly varied cameos as Yiddish theater actresses and Adrian Elfenbaum creating sharp caricatures of Rosie's less suitable suitors. Malamud's "Jewbird" is even more ingeniously comic, strangely poignant and subversively provocative. David Dower, artistic director of Z Space Studio (of which Word for Word is a part), stages it with a deft economy and understated inventiveness that brings out its comic riches without sacrificing its subtler textures. A lightly fantastical parable, "Jewbird" takes place in the East Side apartment of frozen food salesman Harry Cohen (Greenberg), his wife Edie (Jeri Lynn Cohen) and their 10-year-old son Maurie (Balter), "a nice kid though not overly bright." It starts when Schwartz flies in through an open window and identifies himself as a Jewbird on the run from anti-Semites, and develops into a simmering battle of wills between the nervous, watchful stubborn Schwartz and Greenberg's doggedly determined, not too creatively devious Harry. It's an engrossing conflict, beautifully embellished on one side by Fischer's avian mannerisms -- gravely balancing on one foot, cocking his head or an eyebrow, tipping his head back to drink like a bird -- and by the increasing depth of Greenberg's dissatisfaction and escalating harassment on the other. It's brightly supported by Balter's portraits of puzzled Maurie, who gets much-needed help on his homework from the bird, and of a bloodthirsty cat. And it's solidly anchored by Cohen, who endows Edie with a quiet, firm generosity of spirit that makes it clear why Harry has to resort to underhanded devices to achieve his ends. Malamud's story ends on a disquieting note that resonates back through the whole evening, but its tone enhances the enormous pleasure these one-acts provide. Theater Review "Goodbye and Good Luck' WRITER Grace Paley DIRECTOR Wendy Radford CAST Patricia Silver, Corey Fischer, Sheila Balter, Adrian Elfenbaum "The Jewbird' WRITER Bernard Malamud DIRECTOR David Dower CAST Fischer, Albert Greenberg, Jeri Lynn Cohen, Balter THEATER A Traveling Jewish Theatre with Word for Word, through June 4 (415-399-1809)
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 Sparkling ATJT show brings two short
stories to life Two celebrated Jewish authors; two very different short stories. And yet, they take place in the same apartment. That's just one of the beauties of a new collaboration between A Traveling Jewish Theatre and Word for Word, which brings short stories by authors Grace Paley and Bernard Malamud to life in a sparkling new production. In Paley's bittersweet story, "Goodbye and Good Luck," a young girl called Rose Lieber (Patricia Silver) sells tickets at a Yiddish theater. When she's pursued by actor Volodya Vlashkin, "the Valentino of Second Avenue," she flaunts convention by moving out of her mother's house and into her own apartment. The set, which evokes a tenement apartment on the Lower East Side, provides a nicely dingy backdrop for Rose's bohemian life. Designer Melpomene Katakolos has furnished the kitchen with a 1930s icebox, sepia photographs and scuffed linoleum flooring. In Word for Word's tradition, every word in the short story is spoken. Though this device sometimes breaks the audience's suspension of disbelief, director Wendy Radford exploits various comic payoffs. Certainly, it's a move that puts the actors through their paces. For the most part, they sail through. Veteran ATJT member Corey Fischer excels as the peacock-proud Vlashkin. It's the kind of swaggering role that suits his physical acting style, and he does some fine comic work with wigs, capes and canes. Also excellent are Sheila Balter and Adrian Elfenbaum in numerous supporting roles. Balter is particularly funny as a cafe owner, a proud wife, a frosty diva and a simpering young actress. Only Silver seems a little static at times. During the course of the story, the willful Rose ages from her teens to her 50s. Silver doesn't quite capture Rose's youthful energy, though she does well as an older woman contemplating her lifelong love for a vain man. During the intermission, Rose moves out of the apartment and the Cohens move in -- literally. With the house lights up and the audience milling around, we see the Cohen family takes over the place. Stagehands dressed as moving men wheel out the icebox and bring in a shiny new refrigerator. Homemaker Edie Cohen (Jeri Lynn Cohen) unpacks a shiny toaster, a blender and colorful placemats. This playful move helps connect the two stories, but it also shows the changing nature of the neighborhood. By the 1950s, many Jews were assimilating and itching to move out of the Lower East Side. The Cohens' chrome ice bucket and Formica table (again, Katakolos gets the details perfect) illustrate this point. For sure, the Ozzie and Harriet background looks good to the visitor who flies through the Cohen's window at the beginning of the second act. Big, black and full of tsuris, the creature instructs the Cohens to call it Schwartz the Jewbird (Corey Fischer). While Edie and son Morrie (Sheila Balter) are charmed by the bird, Edie's frozen food salesman husband Harry (Albert Greenberg) calls Schwartz "a pest and a freeloader." Again, Fischer excels in a difficult part. (Is there anything he can't do?) Dressed in black with a flapping velvet scarf, he's like Big Bird crossed with a cranky alter kocker. Given a diet of herring, he makes a few other requests: "I'd be glad to have a Jewish Morning Journal and, once in a while, a schnapps." The versatile Balter makes a convincing young boy, and Cohen is a fine Edie. As Harry, Greenberg is funny in his own right, as well as being the perfect foil for Fischer. "One false move, and he's out on his drumsticks," the father shouts with relish at one point. As the tension between the father and Schwartz builds, David Dower's production brings out both the comedy and menace in Malamud's allegorical story. "I'm flying, but I'm also running," Schwartz says. Within the "safety" of the Jewish family, little does Schwartz expect to find himself in the midst of the anti-Semites he's fleeing. With fewer characters and more action than the Paley story, "The Jewbird" emerges as the evening's gem. But taken together, the two pieces chart a vibrant period of Jewish history, in a production that brings literature artfully to life. "Goodbye and Good Luck" and "The Jewbird" run through Sunday, June 4 at A Traveling Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida St., S.F. Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursdays to Saturdays and at 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays. An additional 2 p.m. performance is set for Saturday, May 13. Tickets: $20, with "pay-what-you-can" Thursdays. Information: (415) 399-1809. |
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 Wednesday, May 3, 2000 Malamud's `Bird' Soars In Jewish Theater Show Paley's `Goodbye and Good Luck' on double bill Steven Winn, Chronicle Theater Critic GOODBYE AND GOOD LUCK/THE JEWBIRD: Dramatized short stories by Grace Paley and Bernard Malamud. Co-produced by A Traveling Jewish Theatre and Word for Word. Directed by Wendy Radford/David Dower. (Through June 4. At A Traveling Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida St., San Francisco. Tickets: $20. Call (415) 399-1809). Characters, action and theme get the classroom attention in fiction. But it's often the writer's conjured physical world that lures and holds us. In this potent realm of the imagination, the world's ordinary objects are charged with strange, sacramental powers. In ``The Jewbird,'' a beautifully realized dramatization of Bernard Malamud's short story at A Traveling Jewish Theatre, it happens with a black prayer shawl. Playing a talking bird who enters a New York apartment and refuses to leave, Corey Fischer uses the shawl as his wings, flapping and fluttering around the Cohens' 1950s kitchen. The shawl is also a shawl, a symbol of Judaism in flight from the forces of anti-Semitism and a mundane world drained of reverence. Stuffed into a wooden birdhouse, writhing to life in a battle with the Cohen patriarch and finally balled up inertly in Fischer's hands, the shawl takes on a doomed life of its own. Paired with Grace Paley's ``Goodbye and Good Luck'' on this Traveling Jewish Theatre/Word for Word double bill, Malamud's raucous and morose tale is the prime attraction. David Dower directs with precision and verve, and a cast of four flies along. Like all Word for Word productions, this one renders every line of the text. Dower makes the most of it, turning the frozen food salesman Cohen (Albert Greenberg), his pneumatic '50s wife Edie (Jeri Lynn Cohen) and their dim adenoidal son Maurie (Sheila Balter) into a yammering chorus at the top of the narrative. Fischer's delicate, ``dissipated crow'' cuts through with his strangled squawks, gawky slow flights around the room and patient gaze framed by wire- rim spectacles. Edie takes pity and feeds him herring and rye bread. Maurie takes him on as a tutor and sees his grades and even his screechy violin-playing improve. Even the skeptical Cohen softens a little. The bird reveals his name: Schwartz. Peace is short-lived. A cat (the twitchy, self-possessed Balter) arrives. Cohen picks a fight. Schwartz, with his vibrant prayer shawl, exacts some blood. But the Jewbird is expelled. The story ends with an eerie final image, of Fischer holding his own crumpled life in his hands. Some people smell because they don't bathe or because of what they eat, we remem ber Schwartz saying. Others smell because of what they think. ``Goodbye and Good Luck,'' which comes first on the 80-minute program, is a lesser effort. A miscast Patricia Silver plays Rose, a woman in her 50s recounting a long and ultimately rewarding affair with a vain Yiddish theater actor (Fischer). The piece, staged by Wendy Radford, has some deft touches. Adrian Elfenbaum plays an envious employee at the theater. Balter strikes a few poses as self-dramatizing and foolishly successful actresses. A flirtation is signaled by the simple gesture of nudging two kitchen chairs closer together. But the story, told in a breezy flashback, sends the supporting players whistling by. Silver and Fischer, meanwhile, skim through an up-and-down romance that needs more comic flamboyance and urgency. The story is full of farewells, none of them so powerfully human as the Jewbird's departure. |
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| BACKSTAGE WEST GOODBYE AND GOOD LUCK and THE JEWBIRD -- S.F. (Through June 4) Reviewed by John Angell Grant San Francisco's unusual and innovative Word for Word
theatre company takes classic and contemporary works of
fiction-not drama-and performs them onstage as theatre
pieces. The group's very effective approach is to stay
exactly with the precise text of a piece of fiction in
performance, but to find new power in a story from the
immediacy of its characters onstage, and from the
speaking of non-dialogue narration by characters in the
story.
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