When Sylvie Braitman takes the stage, she stands all by herself. But she is not alone.
In her one-woman show, “My Father’s Journey,” the Parisian-born singer brings with her the ghosts of family members long gone. Recounting the life of her late father, Braitman blends autobiographical material with French, Yiddish and Russian songs to tell an amazing story of survival.
“My Father’s Journey” comes to San Francisco’s Thick House for a string of performances starting Saturday, Dec. 4.
A trained mezzo-soprano, Braitman says the personal nature of the material adds drama to the show.
“I play my father and myself,” says Braitman, who moved to the Bay Area from France in the mid-1980s. “I tell his history and how I reacted.”
That history includes Abramic Braitman’s wartime stint as a prisoner in a gulag after pummeling a Russian army officer who called him “a stinking kike.”
“He was given a choice of punishment,” recalls Braitman, a San Francisco resident. “Either six years in the gulag or three weeks at the front. He chose the gulag.”
That’s how her father avoided certain death during World War II. Ultimately, the Polish-born Jew survived the war, then moved to Israel to fight in the 1948 War of Independence. Eventually he immigrated to France and tried to put the past behind him.
“I always felt proud of being a Jew,” says Braitman of her childhood, “but there was no content. My father was anti-religion. I thought the only reason to be a Jew was the Holocaust. I never did a seder until I was in my 20s.”
That came as Braitman studied law and political science in college. But her heart wasn’t in it, and instead, after losing her mother to cancer, she decided to follow her dream and take up singing. The only problem: She came fairly late to the table.
“I adored singing,” she says. “I was finally where I wanted to be. But I was always the oldest and not always the best. I had a diploma but wondered, ‘What should I do now?'”
The answer came after she and her Tunisian-born Jewish husband visited the Bay Area in 1985. They fell in love with the region and relocated soon after. The couple started a family (they have two children, now ages 15 and 17), and Braitman kept her musical ambitions alive by attending the San Francisco Conservatory.
Though trained in opera and classical voice, Braitman idolized performers like Liza Minnelli. She gradually developed a live act, singing songs in half a dozen languages in a warm cabaret style.
That French pedigree comes in handy with her other new show, “Les Demoiselles de Pigalle,” a musical tribute to Paris’ notorious red-light district. Some of the songs for that show are in Yiddish, including “Die Gefallen,” which tells the story of a prostitute dying of TB. Braitman has recorded a CD of that show, available on her Web site, sylviebraitman.com.
Today, Braitman lives a far richer Jewish life than she did as a child. Her family keeps kosher, observes Shabbat and celebrates the holidays. “I feel a connection to Judaism,” she says. “It is a joy, a religion full of life.”
As for “My Father’s Journey,” Braitman considers the show a work in progress, but she hopes the upcoming San Francisco dates will strike a chord with audiences, wherever and whoever they are.
“I am American and French, too,” she says. “But that’s the beauty of being Jewish. You’re on the borders.”
“My Father’s Journey” plays 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 4, and Saturday, Dec. 6; and 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 5, at the Thick House, 1695 18th St., S.F. Tickets: $18. Information: (415) 401-8081.