ENTERTAINMENT

VICTORIA BELYEU DIAZ

Special to The Jewish News

IE

very evening, in small,
sometimes make-shift
theaters all over the De-
troit area, a kind of
magic occurs.
That gray-suited, rather somber
banker you've known for years
becomes a zany, red-wigged clown,
complete with greasepaint and baggy
pants. The shy and slightly mousy
librarian you see each week walks out
onto a stage and is transformed into
an enchanting and beautiful princess.
Your friendly, neighborhood grocer
turns into a melancholy Shakespear-
ean prince; your post-man becomes a
swashbuckling pirate; your son's
teacher a lady of the evening; your
back-fence neighbor a hardened
criminal.
Butchers, bakers, candlestick
makers, along with doctors, lawyers,
chief executive officers, merchants,
tailors, and what-have-you, they're all
part of the ever-growing, countrywide
mania for amateur theatrics, or com-
munity theater. In Wayne,
Washtenaw and Oakland counties
alone (though no official figures are
in), around 50 active community
theater groups exist. That equals out
to thousands of amateur thespians,
plus costumers, directors, producers,
set designers, sound and light techni-
cians, and other behind-the-scenes
participants.
Just who are these people who
choose, after a long, hard day at their
paying jobs, to spend further long,
hard hours at an activity that, finan-
cially speaking, usually brings no
reward at all?
Here is a look at one of them.
Elissa "Pepper" Marcus. By day, she
is a bookkeeper-paralegal at a
Southfield law firm. At night, she is
a singer, a dancer and an actress.
In the small, red-carpeted Aaron
DeRoy Studio Theater inside the
Maple/Drake Jewish Community
Center, about 30 people, most in jeans
and sweatshirts, have gathered to go
over several scenes in the second act
of Fiddler on the Roof, which will open
at the theater on Oct. 15. At the mo-
ment, only about a half-dozen of the
cast members are onstage. The rest,
waiting their turn, are scattered
throughout the theater, most of them
seated in straight-backed, chrome-
and-plastic chairs. Some study their
scripts. Some follow the action on
stage closely. Others are engrossed in
conversations. One reads a newspaper.
Director Mattie Wolf, herself a
55-year theater veteran and a profes-
sional actress, is seated not far from
the stage, a Thermos of coffee.and the
script at hand. The half-dozen players
onstage, Marcus among them, can't
seem to get things just right. (An
earlier outbreak of contagious

Change

of

30"

Scenery

Paralegal by day, Elissa leaves the law
books for the stage at night

cD

Elissa Marcus and Rob Friese go over their lines during a rehearsal.

laughter, started when somebody
stepped on somebody else's lines, has
slowed things down a bit). The scene
is difficult to block, and Marcus ends
up speaking some of her lines with
her back to the audience, something
about which she doesn't feel comfor-
table. She is reassured by the direc-
tor that it's not important for the mo-
ment, as long as the audience can
hear what she says.
Marcus, who will play the middle
daughter, Chava, in Fiddler, (and who
played the same role two years ago at
another community theater) tries
again.
It is 10 p.m. Rehearsals begin at
7:30. On this particular night, the
cast leaves the theater around 11. It's
a ritual that will be repeated at least
four nights a week until the play
opens.
"This is the first time I've work-
ed with Mattie, and I'm really enjoy-
ing it," says Marcus, 29. It is a week-
end afternoon, shortly before the
opening of Fiddler on the Roof and

the vivacious Marcus, at her
Southfield apartment filled with her
favorite Chinese prints and objets
d'art, clearly enjoys the subject at
hand — community theater. "Every
director has a different style, you
know, and Mattie's style is very
detailed. She knows exactly what she
wants — a specific look or action or
gesture on a certain line — and she'll
work with every (cast member) until
she gets that.
"She's interpreting my character
differently in this production to how
I did Chava with the Ridgedale
Players. I'm really happy about that,
because I didn't want to just re-create
what I'd already done. I depend on my
own interpretation of a character, but
I also depend on my director to tell me
what he or she wants, because that is
the duty of an actor or actress. If you
interpret it one way, but the director
wants it another way, you'd better do
it the way the director wants it."
Marcus' first role was a very small
one in Lerner and Loewe's Brigadoon,

ILBERRY THEATER
Wayne St. University,. Detroit,
Georgia Peach, about forther
Detroit-Tiger star. Ty Cobb;
preview , today;-opens Saturday,
continues through. Dec. 9,
admission. 577-2972.
GREENFIELD VILLAGE
Museum Theater, Dearborn,
Laura, now through Nov. 12,
admission. 271-1620.
MEADOW BROOK THEATER
Oakland University, Rochester,

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