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Also this issue: Jazz It Up Trio with Brio Get Lost Street Smart Q&A with Merián Soto Cry Havoc PROK Tied with Strings |
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January 23-29, 2003
art
 KNISH AND TELL: Wise whips up a batch of the Jewish delicacies that inspired his show. Photo By: Michael T. Regan |
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David Wise channels his grandmas into a show with everything and the kitchen sink.
There's a man in drag in my kitchen. Making loud proclamations in Yiddish. And baking knishes. One of those weird dreams you share at the office the next morning? Not at all -- David Wise is a very real 25-year-old Penn grad who just happens to harbor a Jewish mother somewhere deep inside: Mrs. Grabel, a quick-tongued, deeply loyal family woman, an immigrant living with her husband, children and brother in Brooklyn in 1938. And Wise is letting his inner momma loose in kitchens all over the Philadelphia area in a unique theatrical experience called Momma's Knishes.
Wise created Mrs. Grabel, or, simply, Momma, by spending time with his grandmothers, asking for their stories, their memories and, presumably, their recipes. From their intricate family histories, Wise crafted a Jewish soap opera, melding and embellishing to create a cast of characters that both represents every immigrant family in the late '30s and has a flavor all its own.
Speaking of flavor, a knish -- for the disadvantaged few who've missed out -- is dough stuffed with potato and onions, or, if you want to get fancy, assorted meats or veggies. It's Jewish soul food -- a fulfillment of the rule that every culture have a food product that consists of a bunch of stuff shoved into a doughy pouch -- and Momma makes a damn good one.
Up to 15 people can gather in a kitchen and spend an evening knishing and dishing with Momma. The audience is told only that they're a group of 13-year-olds invited by the evening's host (who, whether male or female, assumes the role of Momma's daughter, Mollie), and that the setting is a kitchen in Brooklyn in 1938, where Mrs. Grabel is about to appear.
Momma is anything but glam. Wise and his costume designer, Megan Wall, decided that he would not wear any makeup, and he pairs a simple dress and apron, thick stockings and sensible shoes with a wig (styled by Emily Schirner) that evokes the image of every little old Jewish lady, with a dash of Ma Bates. Wise's bare forearms reveal more hair than one might expect Momma to have. Though he did agree to trim his brows a bit to help Momma look more feminine, he wanted his own persona to "show through," both as a challenge to drag conventions (he says the hairy arms are partly an homage to ground-breaking drag performer Charles Ludlum, who caused a sensation when he revealed his chest hair during a performance), and as a statement about who Mrs. Grabel is. "Part of this is discovering myself in my family and my family in me," Wise says. "I kind of like looking in a mirror and seeing both myself and my great grandmother at the same time."
Wise carefully researched his family history and that of Jews living in Brooklyn in the '30s. At one point in the show, Mrs. Grabel reads a letter that has just arrived, the audience is told, from her mother and brother in Poland. The text of the letter, translated from Yiddish into English, is real. Wise took the letter to Penn's Center for Judaic Studies to try and find out exactly when it would have been sent. He recalls that the librarian, an older woman born in Czechoslovakia, was treating him rather gruffly, and it took several tries to get her to sit down with him to look at the letter. Wise handed the woman typewritten versions of the letter in both languages, and a copy of the handwritten Yiddish version. "She chose to read the handwritten one in Yiddish," Wise says. "She read it softly to herself, and then the emotion just overwhelmed her." The letter refers to the difficulties of leaving Eastern Europe to come to America, and was written by relatives of Wise who perished in the Holocaust.
Wise has performed the show over a dozen times since August 2002, at first as rehearsals before friends and family. "There was no real way to rehearse it by myself, because it depends so much on feedback," he says.
Performing in strangers' kitchens has taught Wise to be quick on his feet, since without the controlled environment of a theater, things are bound to go a little haywire. Wise recalls a time when a host's roommate walked in unexpectedly in the middle of the performance, having no idea what was going on. Wise quickly introduced the baffled man to the crowd as Mrs. Grabel's mischievous son, Lenny. Wise also has to deal with answering machines going off (hard to explain in 1938), family pets disrupting the action, even one time (oy) when the knishes just didn't come out right. There's no room for Momma to be a diva; she's got to roll with the punches.
In return, Wise doesn't let his audience off easily, either. Mrs. Grabel not only asks for help in rolling dough and greasing pans, she also throws out questions about mothers and time capsules to the "children" assembled in her kitchen. Some audience members take to the improv spirit with gusto; some feel unsure as to how or when they should participate, feeling unqualified to improvise a chat based on knowledge of Mrs. Grabel's historical period. At first, Wise didn't give the audience any information at all prior to the show, but he found that without setting at least a time and place and basic characters, it was a bit too difficult. But, he says, "I like that the audience really has to work to figure out how to watch [the show], that's really interesting to me from a theatrical theory kind of standpoint. One of the things I've worked with a lot is formulating the beginning so you get all the information you need right up front."
Wise has devoted himself to Momma full time, seeing it as both a personal living history and a chance to play with theatrical conventions, taking any notion of the fourth wall completely out of the picture. This theater experiment is different with every audience, and has the potential to make audiences challenge themselves, sometimes past their comfort zones. But, audience/actor dynamics aside, it really comes down to the moment when Mrs. Grabel finally lets you eat the fruit of your labors. Damn, she makes one hell of a knish.
For information on Momma's Knishes or to book a performance, call David Wise at 215-546-1852 or e-mail info@knish.org. The cost is $400 during the week (Mon.-Thu.) and $500 on weekends (Fri.-Sun.).
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