[an error occurred while processing this directive]		ATJT's latest asks: Blackbird, blackbird have you any shul? SARAH COLEMAN Bulletin Correspondent If a blackbird flew into your house, you might not think anything unusual had happened. But if the bird opened its mouth and told you its name was Schwartz, you might sit up and take more notice -- especially if the bird then added that you didn't seem to be paying enough attention to your Jewish heritage. That's the situation faced by the Cohen family in "The Jewbird," one of Bernard Malamud's most wry and engaging short stories. "When the bird comes along, tensions and catastrophe are unavoidable," says David Dower, who directs the Malamud story. "The bird comes from Eastern Europe, and it brings with it the whole cultural history of the immigrant to an assimilationist Jewish household where the husband is a frozen food salesman and the wife is an aspiring Betty Crocker." An allegory on Jewish immigration and assimilation, the story's comedy and poignancy made it a suitable choice when two San Francisco theater groups were seeking material for a collaboration. A Traveling Jewish Theatre is working with Word for Word actors on the production, which runs from Monday through June 4. The staging of "The Jewbird," as well as of Grace Paley's short story "Goodbye and Good Luck," will follow Word for Word's format of performing short stories and novellas in their entirety. Wendy Radford will direct the Paley story. Though it might seem odd at first to hear phrases like "he said" and "she said" spoken on stage, Dower says audiences respond favorably to Word for Word's literal theatrical renderings. "It creates a kind of electricity between the word and the audience that's fairly remarkable," he says. "We're looking for the heart of the story from the author's point of view. Rather than just bouncing off the author's ideas, we go right in." Though they've never worked together before, Word for Word and ATJT seem well-suited to work together. Like ATJT, Word for Word is known for its risky and imaginative stagings. And when someone is staging a play in which one character is a talking bird, it certainly helps to have oodles of imagination. "At first, we thought we'd have a human body with bird attributes -- the actor would stand on one leg or flap his arms," Dower says. "But after awhile, we realized that was too subtle." To bring the character of Schwartz the blackbird to life, the company experimented with various props. Schwartz is played by veteran ATJT member Corey Fischer, who at first brought in a big black umbrella and flapped it around. "The sound was right but the look was wrong," Dower recalls. "So we started thinking, what would this character from Eastern Europe be bringing with him? Would he have a scarf, a shmata?" Eventually, the cast settled on a towel. "It made a perfect flapping sound -- and draped around shoulders, it turns into wings," Dower says. This abstract interpretation also helped preserve the story's allegorical power. "Sometimes Corey's whole body is the bird," Dower adds, "at other times the cloth becomes the bird, flying around the stage." A veteran of the Bay Area theater scene, Dower is currently artistic director of the Z Space Studio, a development space for new theater works. A non-Jew who describes himself as "root stock of the Mayflower," he admits he wasn't always on top of Malamud's references. "There were times when the cast had to take time out to explain something to me, like what a tallis is," he says, laughing. But having worked previously with ATJT and on numerous Jewish-themed plays, Dower regards himself as "an honorary Jew." When it came to directing "The Jewbird," Dower thought a lot about "cultural baggage, and dangers of ignoring your history," he says. "There's a kind of violence when you pull yourself away from your cultural heritage, whether that heritage is Jewish, Latino, or in my case, Pilgrim." In the story, he says, the cost of assimilation is measured by what happens to the Jewbird. "But I'm hoping people will also recognize what the cost is to the family." "Goodbye and Good Luck" and "The Jewbird" will run from Monday through June 4 at A Traveling Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida St., S.F. Previews are tonight through Sunday. Tickets: $25 for Monday's opening night, $20 for all other performances, excluding "pay-what-you-can" Thursdays. Performances at 8 p.m. Thursdays to Saturdays and at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sundays. An additional 2 p.m. performance is set for Saturday May 13. Information: (415) 399-1809. Other Entertainment Stories Roasts are his favorite, says comedian coming to S.F. Hustler's Flynt, 'Kosher Sex' rabbi get down and dirty

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