Left – Danny Braverman. Photo – Jamie WilliamsGefilte fish is a dish that has never sounded particularly appealing to me, but having tasted it at the beginning of Danny Braverman’s warm hearted, engrossing production, Wot? No Fish!! it is absolutely delicious. Served with a sauce called chrein, which is made from a mixture of sweet beetroot and bitter horseradish, it is also delicious. Braverman passes the fish balls throughout the audience, making sure that everybody has some. Gefilte fish, we learn, has been an essential part of his family’s menu for generations and, when it is not on offer, it is a serious omission that demands comment. Through this act of sharing Braverman welcomes us into his world and instantly sets up an easy rapport with his audience. Straight away, we feel part of his big, warm, generous, funny Jewish family. In those first few moments of the production, Braverman demonstrates the importance of food, its rituals and its ability to bring people together. He also establishes one of the overriding themes of his show: that life, like chrein, is bittersweet.
Wot? No Fish!! is a personal story about Braverman’s great Aunt Celie and Uncle Ab Solomons in the East End of London. It is based upon a set of exquisite pen and ink drawings drawn on the back of the pay packets that Ab gave to Celie each week containing the house keeping money. The drawings document their lives together and reflect the history of life in the East End of London, beginning with their marriage in 1926, until Celie’s death in 1982. (Fortunately, Ab had lovingly stored the envelopes in old shoe boxes and they were bequeathed to Braverman on his passing).
Braverman takes out an envelope, one by one and projects the image onto the screen as he talks about it – describing the picture, sometimes filling in the back story, based on his broader knowledge of family history. Ab drew their lives meticulously: from their giddy romance as newly-weds, through the tiredness that came from having children, the strain of financial pressures and the difficulty of interfering relatives – specifically, Celie’s sister, Bravermans’ own grandmother.
There are lovely images of Celie at the markets, buying fish and chicken for Friday night dinner, soaked and miserable on their holiday week in Sussex or trying to get some sleep during the Blitz. Sometimes the meaning in the drawings is clear, but at others, Braverman speculates on what might be the intent behind them. As relatively recent refugees fleeing European pogroms, Braverman ponders the anxiety Ab and Celie must have felt not knowing if Hitler would be defeated in WW2 and yet the hardship of the war was handled with the same comical resilience that marked all of Ab’s artwork.
Though Ab gets progressively older, fatter and balder in his drawings, his depiction of Celie remains the same throughout – beautiful, elegant and birdlike. An East End “Audrey Hepburn”. Above all, Ab’s devotion to Celie is absolutely clear and the drawings are like a weekly love letter to her and this production depicts their beautiful love story.
Braverman is a charming and unassuming story teller and he imbues it all with such humour and such genuine love that his performance is captivating. Much like William Yang’s magnificent photographic story-telling performances, Braverman presents Ab and Celie’s lives in a way that is both deeply personal but that also resonates with the social and political issues of the day.
With their informal style, Director/collaborator Nick Phillipou and Braverman make it all look so easy, establishing an intimacy with the audience which belies the sensitivity and the enormous attention to detail of the work.
bread&circuses
Wot? No Fish!!
by Danny Braverman
Directed by Nick Philippou
Venue: Reginald Theatre | Seymour Centre, Corner City Road and Cleveland Street, Chippendale
Dates: 13 – 18 January 2015
Tickets: $35
Bookings: www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2015/wot-no-fish
Part of the 2015 Sydney Festival
