It’s been nearly forty years since Philip Roth caused a stir with ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’, Portnoy’s life as told through a monologue directed to his psychiatrist. Jeremie Bracka’s ‘Enough About Me … Let’s Talk About Jew’, currently on at the Bondi Pavilion, might be described as the stand up version. Bracka’s complaint however isn’t so much his sexuality per se but the plight of a good Jewish boy who wishes to hell he was anything but.
This production by director, Rachel Forgasz, is polished, well paced and very energetic. It’s also very funny. The
routine pays tribute to the famed Lenny Bruce who has always been
identified with the Roth style if not the character. The reason for the
link is the ‘stream of consciousness’ delivery as well as its
directness. ‘Enough About Me’ signals very early its deference to Bruce by opening with the musical tableau of ‘He’ll always have his mama to phone’ performed by Tomi Kalinski, a very ‘talented Buba’ indeed, who accompanies herself to the strains of Peter Allen’s signature tune. It’s rather a nice acknowledgement to an acknowledged master of stand up.
Arthur
Miller described Bruce as ‘"intellectually underprivileged," whose
talent derived from "a sort of daft, alienated infantilism," a puckish
innocence’ (Edward Azlant). You could never make the same call about Bracka and
he wouldn’t want you to. Even in the notes, he makes sure his audience
is mindful of his academic prowess. It may be just a sop to Mrs
Bracka’s wish, while suckling her ‘blessing’ at the breast, that even
his ‘father doesn’t get to see’, that God should give her at least a
lawyer after all she’s been through. It obviously echos David Bader’s classic ‘Is
one Nobel Prize so much to ask from a child after all I've done?’ but
all humour does in one way or another. It’s in the delivery and the
context that this production excels. What it does say about Bracka’s
performance however is that it isn’t Lenny Bruce, it’s his own.
While
the voice is as much the instrument as it was for Bruce, in the obvious
talent of a natural mimic the ‘evocative fidelity’ of Bruce’s impersonations are replaced with the caricatured rhythms of eastern European Jewry. The
language and accents themselves are the basis for much of the Jewish
New York humour popularised through the sixties, ‘klutz’, ‘nebbish’,
‘kibitz’, ‘schlock’, ‘schmuck’. It testifies to the aphorism that while
you don’t have to be Jewish it helps. Indeed Bracka covers
most of the bases in the Jewish repertoire from mother, ancestry, anti
semitism, Nazis, Palestinians, religion, their own and others, money,
food and family. They all receive attention through Bracka’s
ascerbic retelling of his upbringing in the molly coddled environment
of a Jewish home with a mother that only wants the best for her boy and
is prepared to pay for it. ‘When you have money you deserve it.’ The
boy’s only wish was to be more like Brian, Mrs O’Sullivan’s nephew who
got to play football, eat bacon and receive treats at Christmas.
Bracka’s
monologue is populated with a rich tapestry of caricatures as he slips
effortlessly between Mamma, Pola, and Pappa, Marc, remonstrating on the
inequity of the outcome of the Eurovision Song Contest, interspersed
with ‘on line’ televised interviews of the German vote counting. Marc, having emigrated from France’s most southern province, Egypt, constantly threatens that world peace hangs on Bracka’s being a
good Jewish boy. Pola all but threatens self immolation if he doesn’t
wear his lamb’s wool jacket out in the Melbourne weather of a 27 degree
day. And like the all seeing eye of the Almighty there is the family.
The knowledge that if he does disobey, someone is there to see and
tell. Christianity on the other side of the road is such a temptation.
‘Had Moses received the ten commandments here instead of Sinai the
first one would have been ‘Don’t worry’’ and the second like unto it,
‘Don’t worry, mate.’
But
the aunts, Tola and Yola, those with the asymmetrically penciled
eyebrows and on Marc’s side, Vivianne and the interloper from Budapest,
Szuzie, carry much of the self deprecating humour that has come to
typify the Jewish stand up. They are all superbly etched as Bracka
folds himself from Tola, strutting like a farm yard cock, into Yola,
chortling her barbed rejoinders and the double handed, chain smoking
Hungarian mentor punctuating her diatribe with ‘fuck’. It would have
been enough to get Lenny arrested all those years ago. But this isn’t Lenny Bruce. This does not ‘reach
a point of clairvoyance where he was no longer a performer but rather a
medium transmitting … from recall, fantasy, prophecy. … saying things
he didn't plan to say, things that surprised, delighted him, cracked
him up - as if he were a spectator at his own performance’
(Albert Goldman).
Bracka’s is a well rehearsed vehicle and while it
shows all the signs of the counter point structures it has yet to find
its way to full blown satire. Nevertheless it is very entertaining, very funny and in the end quite moving. You recall Bruce’s description of humour as " tragedy plus time". All humour has the same ancestry reflecting an intense and very private pain. There was something of this in Kalinski’s interlude after Bracka
had run out on his Bar Mitzvah. Try as she would to play the music of
Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin she just couldn’t keep Waltzing Matilda
out of it. Then again maybe she wasn’t supposed to. Ah, Vienna! Oh,
Bondi! With
the ever volatile political landscape to contend with it’s doubtful
Pola will ever get her picture back. Don’t worry, Mama, they’ll always
have New York and yes, your boy is keeping warm and will call, later.
Global Shtetl Productions presents Enough About Me, Let’s Talk about Jew!
Venue: Bondi Pavilion Theatre, Queen Elizabeth Drive Bondi Beach Dates: 24 - 28 July 2007 Times: Tues-Sat 8pm Tickets: $30 incl GST and soda Bookings: 1300 552 130 or online at www.quicktix.com.au
The Hypocrite | Melbourne Theatre Company
Outstanding among the actors is Garry McDonald, who blasts on to the stage with a tempestuous energy, sweeping the play along in a torrent of words.
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It’s been nearly forty years since Philip Roth caused a stir with ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’, Portnoy’s life as told through a monologue directed to his psychiatrist. Jeremie Bracka’s ‘Enough About Me … Let’s Talk About Jew’, currently on at the Bondi Pavilion, might be described as the stand up version. Bracka’s complaint however isn’t so much his sexuality per se but the plight of a good Jewish boy who wishes to hell he was anything but.
