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| A Mythic Tale of
Love and Exorcism Soul-stirring `Dybbuk' at Jewish Theatre Steven Winn, Chronicle Staff Critic |
Wednesday, November 12, 1997
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All acting is spirit possession, the willing admission of a phantom into the body and soul of the actor. In ``Dybbuk,'' the Yiddish theater ghost story that opened as a splendid duet Monday at A Traveling Jewish Theatre, possession is the subject, theme and juicy heart of the matter. The story, dramatized by the pseudonymous ethnographer S. Ansky in 1920, is a simple one. The poor, zealous student Khanon (Corey Fischer) falls in love with a girl from his Polish village. Modest Leah (Lise Bruneau) is willing, but her rich father is not about to lose his prized possession so easily. He marries her off ``to the boy of her choice,'' as Bruce Myers' adaptation puts the father's barbed joke, ``and I looked everywhere to find him.'' Khanon dies of a broken heart. [an error occurred while processing this directive] When Leah insists on visiting the graveyard on her wedding day, Khanon's soul -- the dybbuk -- enters Leah and won't let go. A mighty exorcism releases her, not to bland domestic life but rather to a rapturous, otherworldly embrace with the soul of Khanon. In the production's fearsome and wonderfully sustained climax, Bruneau and Fischer do the kind of acting that reminds a viewer what theater is all about. With the dybbuk inside her, Bruneau, who played the Angel in the American Conservatory Theater's ``Angels in America,'' is alarmingly transformed. Her sparkling face turns flat and her neck thickens as her body convulses to emit the thick poison of the dybbuk's voice.
DEVIL INSIDE HER``Nowhere is there a place for me,'' Bruneau croaks. The meek girl and inconsolable devil are at war inside her, as panic, exhaustion and gloating triumph flare across her features like fire. Flinging herself against a column or tottering on a chair that comes alive with its own internal earthquake, she's in the grip of something beyond comprehension. Films such as ``The Exorcist'' use special effects and frame-by-frame editing to make this sort of business look real. In the theater, it is real -- visceral, immediate and a few feet from the front row. Fischer, as the hunched and hooded Rabbi of Miropolye who performs the exorcism, partners Bruneau beautifully. With his own voice turned into a sonorous, deep growl, Fischer becomes a cramped ghost under a white shroud, creeping relentlessly at her. Together they create a kind of hideous beauty. With the hooklike gesture of his one protruding hand, he seems to snare her like a fish on an invisible line. She writhes, breaks free and finally falls exhausted in a soft downstage pool of light. ``Dybbuk'' arrives at its fevered crescendo and haunting diminuendo in a production of elegantly economical means. The stage is furnished only with a table, some chairs, two candles that burn throughout the show and a fresco- like wall depicting darkly outlined figures. The actors both remain in view, changing roles and costume pieces, for the entire 80 minutes. Bruneau, smoldering quietly in the noirish shadows of Jim Quinn's excellent lighting design, is especially good as Khanon's dead father. Fischer plays Leah's compliant, creaky grandmother, in the one self-consciously stagey note.
NATURALISTIC SCENESThe show opens with a framing scene, of a couple quietly celebrating Shabbat at home, that is so naturalistic it seems not to be acted at all. Fischer has another scene, of Leah's unctuous father addressing the audience as wedding guests, that's equally modest and uninflected. Those are both canny moves by director Mark Samuels. ``Dybbuk'' is a nightmare, a spirit possession for the audience as well. It sneaks up on the viewers from their everyday world with an unforeseen force and leaves them spent and wonder- struck. The show's quiet final image is, in many ways, as powerful as the
exorcism. Backing into Khanon's waiting arms, Leah senses rather
than sees her destiny. In ``Dybbuk,'' feelings, not the rational
world, hold the truth. DYBBUK: A Traveling Jewish Theatre's production plays through November 30 at 2800 Mariposa St., San Francisco. Tickets: $18. Call (415) 399-1809. |
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