14
Friday, March 14, 1986
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Ann Arbor playwright
Rachel Urist is bringing
"provocative theater" to
Detroit's United Hebrew
Schools.
TALES
WITH A
TWIST
BY AMY MINDELL
Special to The Jewish News
Actress Tanya Krohn is warmly hugged by playwright Rachel Urist.
The stage slowly brightens to re-
veal Abraham and Sarah, "well stric-
ken in age," seated in their desert
home, awaiting the return of their son
Isaac. We know of the sacrifice in the
familiar tale, and prepare for the sol-
emn ritual to begin. Abraham is or-
dered by God to slay his only son. But
when the youth runs on stage wearing
muddy jeans and a baseball cap and
demands a hamburger with pickles,
we know this is not a typical portrayal
of our patriarchs. This is Blueprints by
Rachel Urist.
Urist will bring Blueprints and
her Shtetl Tales to the United Hebrew
Schools this month from Ann Arbor as
the UHS artist in residence. Her work
is billed as "provocative theater," forc-
ing discussion as people see familiar
stories in a new way. Urist's plays
have a "modern stamp" on them, said
Sylvia Iwrey, chairman of he UHS cul-
tural commission.
Though her work is modern, Urist
also retains a sense of history. She ex-
plains that Abraham, Isaac and Sarah
are "like any family in the 20th Cen-
tury," but their concerns are Biblical.
It is obvious that Urist is not a tradi-
tionalist, and her representation dif-
fers from our own images in more than
just costume.
Urist interprets the stories ac-
cording to what she feels and knows.
"It's not like the commentaries, like
the commentator Rashi says .. that
Isaac understood why he was going to
be sacrificed, and he cooperated. Well,
I don't buy that!" she says, her voice
rising. "I write this as if it had been
me. If that had been me I'd have been
kicking and screaming the whole way!
I don't want to be sacrificed!" This is
the dilemma in the first of the three
tales in Blueprints. The others also
deal with Biblical characters — Jacob,
Rachel, Joseph, Hannah — but in an
atypical way. They too are moder-
nized, yet oddly ancient.
The playwright herself also seems
modernized, yet retains a sense of the
old world. Her long dark hair doesn't
fit in this era of punky permanents.
The antique rings on her fingers clash
with her blue jeans. Urist speaks of her
undergraduate days at the University
of Michigan and knowing pop star
Madonna as a "fabulous dancer" and
"skinny kid" who scooped ice cream as
eerily as Urist ponders the meaning
behind Rashi's commentaries on the
Torah.
Her father is a rabbi and Urist and
her three sisters attended a yeshivah
in Queens, N.Y., where they grew up.
Today she maintains A kosher home
with her husband and two sons who
(