Jewish story evening a theater success

By Eva Trieger

SOLANA BEACH, California – You think it’s just children who yearn for a good bedtime story? Who doesn’t love a good yarn read with shtick? Nu, a good accent, some great facial expressions and characters so familiar you’ll swear you are related by blood.

North Coast Rep Theater hosted a very special evening of short stories, entertaining and poignant, related by gifted storytellers who conjured characters, sketched scenery and exposed eccentricities. This winning collection was brought to life by an immensely talented handful of thespian enthusiasts. Pat Launer, Walter Ritter, Sandy Campbell, Veronica Murphy, Rhona Gold and Eric Poppick enchanted the appreciative house in Bubbeleh, Listen to This. This clever assembly is brought to the stage through Write Out Loud, a local group, birthed in 2007, with the express purpose of reading to a live audience.

It is fitting that Wednesday (June 18) night’s performance, a collection of stories by Jewish authors about Jewish people, was staged at North Coast Rep Theater. Write Out Loud took to the very same stage with their first production entitled Something New. At that time, group members really had no idea how they’d be received. Would people relish being read to? Judging from last night’s engaged audience, it’s not surprising the number of attendees has grown from the original 22!

Pat Launer narrated a wonderful story entitled “Uncle Julius and the BMT.”   The story was written by Ethel Rosenberg, not that Ethel Rosenberg, Launer chided us.  Through a fabulous delivery we could see Uncle Julius in full regalia, boarding the BMT, removing his shoes and coat, having a shluf and then awakening at his stop and hastily exiting the train, as his fellow passengers threw his forgotten clothing to him on the platform. Unfortunately his glasses never seemed to make it off the train and so, to the BMT office he would go. His wife’s admonishment did little to keep him from losing three pair of glasses to the train, and she was therefore reticent to let him take an umbrella on a rainy day. But he was unperturbed, stating of the BMT Lost and Found, “Have dey got a collection from all kinds tings…”

“Dubinsky on the Loose” was delivered in rich, mellifluous tones by Walter Ritter, who reminded this reporter vaguely of Garrison Keillor. This story was written by Joseph Epstein recounting the experience of Dubinsky and his life after the unexpected death of his wife, Grace. At 78 years of age, Dubinsky is stumbling through his unbidden bachelorhood, until the day he left his wallet at the library. He arranged to meet the librarian for lunch so that she could return it. Through authentic dialogue and character development we are entreated into a window in Dubinsky’s life and invited to imagine that perhaps his future isn’t so bleak and lonely after all.

A bittersweet story was unfurled by Sandy Campbell and written by San Diego’s Rabbi Laurie Coskey. Rabbi Coskey is the Executive Director of the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice. The Photograph is a nostalgic perspective of a picture of four women, drinking tea in Athens in 1940. The reader returns to this refrain often, each time giving us more information about the relationships of the photograph’s subjects, their mood, their conversation and their connection. It is not until the very close of the short story that we learn that these four women, drinking tea in Athens in 1940 went to the gas chamber after the picture was taken. The ending had a haunting and melancholy effect.

The second act contained a wonderful piece read with great elan and sarcasm. Rhona Gold delivered “Elvis, Axl and Me” written by Janice Eidus. This delightfully witty and jocular piece evoked memories of every Elvis sighting ever reported, but enhanced it tenfold. Elvis may have left the building, but according to Eidus, he has relocated to a most unlikely place! Our reader told of spotting Elvis twirling his fake peyes on Pelham Parkway, in a deli. She knew he was Elvis because his teeth were perfectly capped, “not the teeth of a Hassidic Jew”. Though she reviled his Yiddishe accent, she invited him home and kvelled when he ate three servings of her kreplach! Each time our reader mimicked Elvis calling her “Little Girl” she verily blushed as though he were there, in his abundant flesh, flirting with her. He may not have matched her obsession with bad boy, Axl Rose, but he is Elvis, the King of Rock and Roll, after all.

Bubbeleh, Listen to This was a delightful way to spend an evening at North Coast Rep. Our talented readers, teamed up with some very excellent Jewish authors and produced some wonderful imagery and thought provoking plot lines. I left, wanting to ask for a drink of water and just one more story…

Eva Trieger is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. She may be contacted via eva.trieger@sdjewishworld.com