Is the Bay Area ready for ‘Bright River’?
Performer weaves Jewish storytelling, hip-hop and urban folklore in ambitious showFriday, February 20, 2004 | by dan pine
Who is Tim Barsky? Jewish folklorist, expert in medieval Islamic literature or flute-toting hip-hop musician? Turns out he's all that and more, as East Bay theatergoers will soon find out.
Barsky, 27, returns to the local stage starring in "The Bright River," a new show that incorporates music, dance and Jewish storytelling to take audiences on "a mass-transit tour of the afterlife." It opens Thursday, Feb. 26 at the Transparent Theater in Berkeley.
"It's a hard-hitting urban folktale about life and death," says Barsky. "It's about living in America, the war in Iraq, and at the same time a complex piece about the beginning of the universe."
Covering all that in less than two hours might seem daunting to lesser mortals, but Barsky remains nonplussed. Being grounded in the Jewish storytelling tradition, he says, gives him leeway.
"History is a study of what happened," he notes. "Folklore is a study of how it felt. When it's done well, there's an uncanny effect, like telling the audience their own story, hearing something totally new yet completely old."
Though Barsky throws wildly diverse multicultural references into "The Bright River," he says he tries to stick closely to the traditions of his forebears. "Jewish storytellers combine the past and the present," notes Barsky. "We draw on real and fantastic images, and juggle them. That's the definition of a real folk tale."
Besides his own elaborate tale-telling and structured improvisations, Barsky says his show boasts some of the "best klezmer and hip-hop musicians in the Bay Area."
He will also show off another of his unique talents: flute beat box. "I can produce up to eight simultaneous rhythmic and harmonic lines on the flute." (For the hip-hop challenged, beat box is making complicated polyrhythmic sounds solely with the mouth).
Barsky collaborated on the new show with directorial consultant Jeff Raz, who also runs the clown school at the San Francisco Circus Center.
The two last worked together on Barksy's 2002 show at the Hub (under the aegis of the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco), and then they took their time polishing "The Bright River." The show had a trial run at a small East Bay Club last fall, with standing-room-only at most performances.
Barsky sees the upcoming monthlong stint at Transparent Theater as a risk, but as his track record shows, he's never been afraid of taking chances.
Reared in a culturally rich Jewish home, the Boston-bred Barsky developed a love of Yiddishkeit from his grandmother, who was wise in the ways of the Old Country. While majoring in Islamic and Judaic studies at Brown University, he took a sharp detour.
"I thought I was going to be a creative writer," he recalls, "but I couldn't stop telling people about my stories long enough to write them. That's when I got into folklore." He then apprenticed with Chassidic folklorist Fischel Bresler, and later, just to keep things weird and interesting, worked with a hip-hop theater company in Providence.
"I came into the hip-hop community as a poorly dressed Jewish musician," he says, "but I brought my own culture of Yiddishkeit to the house of hip-hop. I saw myself as a guest in someone else's house, so I tried to bring lots of presents."
Barsky remained immersed in hip-hop culture for several years before experiencing a mini-epiphany. "I said to myself, 'Wait a minute. I'm a traditional Jewish musician. I wanted to be like the itinerant Jewish street performers and storytellers of Eastern Europe. So I started trying to tell fairy tales and folklore in the traditional style."
That led to several years of street theater, touring Europe and America, and developing a theatrical style that blended all his talents. He moved to the Bay Area four years ago and has been refining his quirky music and theater style ever since. "Jewish culture is my life's work," he says. "If it's lost, we lose something irreparable.
So Barsky soldiers on, with "The Bright River" his most ambitious theatrical broadside yet. He figures the Bay Area, with its long history of open mindedness, is probably the best place to make that stand.
"I wish I could afford the rent here," he laughs. "If the show does well, I'm buying salt and pepper."
"The Bright River," a new show by Tim Barsky & Everyday Theater, runs 8 p.m. Thursday to Saturday, Feb. 26-March 20, at Transparent Theater, 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. Tickets: $14-20, sliding scale; $12 advance. Information: (510) 644-2204 or www.epicarts.org.