Interweaving four tales with underlying themes of unacknowledged desires and feelings of desperation, “Windows and Mirrors” does a provocative job of portraying dark and often unexpressed human emotions. Throughout the performance, the audience is given a glimpse of the strong, tragic and humorous ways humans deal with inner struggles, complicated family relationships and unspoken secrets.
“Windows and Mirrors” opens Traveling Jewish Theatre’s (TJT) 25th anniversary season and is its latest collaboration with Word for Word, an institution that performs literary works in their original context, with actors reciting both dialogue and narrative.
The performance stars TJT founders Naomi Newman and Corey Fischer, who re-enact tales of Jewish family life in New York with fellow actors Karine Koret and Michael Smith. The stories are depictions of lessons learned or failed between generations of American Jews, and are told in chronological order of three historic time periods: pre-World War II, the Vietnam War and post-modern New York.
The show begins with Grace Paley’s “Wants.” An elderly woman, played by Newman, runs into her ex-husband while returning two library books, due 10 years earlier. Confronted by her former husband’s perspective on their marriage, she laments her lack of dreams and unfulfilled life.
Bernard Malamud’s “Spring Rain” follows, with Fisher’s portrayal of the desperate feelings of a lonely old man who lacks the strength to convey his true feelings and desires to the world. Sharing a drink at a local tavern with his daughter’s naïve boyfriend (Smith), the old man is reminded of himself as a young man and yearns to live life over and fulfill his lost dreams.
The next piece is Paley’s “A Conversation with My Father.” An ailing father asks his daughter to entertain him with a story. Newman’s character wrestles with her oration of a true and tragic tale of loss. She unravels the story slowly, accompanied by the story’s characters, who act out her various renditions. Repeatedly, she glazes over the sad details — a reflection of her unwillingness to face hardship and loss in her own life. Koret does a fabulous job conveying an unconditionally loving mother who becomes a junkie and is rejected by her son (Smith). He, overcoming his own junkie lifestyle, leaves home disgusted by his mother’s continued addiction, and never returns.
These three tender stories constitute the play’s first act and are directed by JoAnne Winter, co-artistic director of Word for Word. The characters are honest, the re-creations are moving and well-illustrated, inviting the audience to laugh along, perhaps recognizing a part of themselves among the vulnerable, very human characters.
The second half and final story, “Finkelstein’s Fingers,” is by modern German Jewish writer Maxim Biller, who delves into the intricate web of German-Jewish relations. David Dower, founding artistic director for The Z Space Studio, directed the piece.
Biller’s seductive and controversial tale revolves around a professor of Holocaust literature and a non-Jewish German student who struggles with her family’s past affection for Adolf Hitler. The love affair layer of the story gives an otherwise difficult tale of struggle a seductive, intriguing performance with powerful tension between Smith and Newman, who bring the characters’ desperate lust to life.
The quartet of Newman, Fischer, Koret and Smith give a masterful performance of the emotional, multilayered stories in “Windows and Mirrors,” re-creating these literary works in a smooth and fluid fashion. The minimal scenery provides audience members an opportunity to use their imaginations and draw their own conclusions through this unique style of oral storytelling.
“Windows and Mirrors” runs through Nov. 2 at Traveling Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida St., S.F. and Nov. 6-9 at Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College Ave., Berkeley. Performances Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 and 7 p.m. Tickets: $20-$28; Thursday night pay-as-you-can tickets at the door. Information: (415) 285-8080 or www.atjt.com.