Imagine monologist Spalding Gray as a gay Jewish woman who could juggle as adeptly as she could spin a story.

That's the quickest way to explain Sara Felder's performance niche—a niche that morphed out of her early career as a political activist.

As a California college student at anti-nuke political benefits, and later, when traveling to Cuba and Nicaragua with other activists, Felder found that "a lot more people would listen to what I said if I was juggling—especially if I could be funny with it."

That explains how Felder—a fairly recent (two and a half years) transplant to Mt. Airy—was able to turn the politically divisive issue of gay marriage into a highly successful comic monologue (June Bride). The "fun" subjects of her latest, largely autobiographical solo play with juggling, Out of Sight, which receives its world premiere at Painted Bride this weekend, are blindness, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mother-daughter relationships, explored through Felder's relationship with her own partially blind mother. Felder's mom lost some of her sight by staring at a solar eclipse when she was a child and now also doesn't "see" eye-to-eye with her daughter on Palestine.

Felder says her mom will attend a performance of Out of Sight, which makes Felder braver than Eugene O'Neill and Edward Albee (who didn't write plays about their mythic moms until they were dead).

Or is Felder just toeing the maternal line?

Says Felder: "Audiences really responded to the character of the mother in June Bride, but she had a much smaller role in my next play, Shtick!" Her mom's one-sentence review of Shtick!: "So, I'm not funny enough to be in your plays anymore?"

Go to Painted Bride this weekend and "see" for yourself.

Out of Sight, Fri.-Sat., April 28-29, 8 p.m., $25, Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St., 215-925-9914, www.paintedbride.org.