36 Survivors

Deborah Filler plays 36 roles in the JCC's Encore performance.

SUZANNE CHESSLER Special to The Jewish News

Summers.
"It is a metaphor for Jewish peo-
ple who take blows all the time and
get right up. It also shows that in
the face of great adversity people
have always been able to laugh."
The idea for the solo perfor-
mance, which she sometimes terms
"bittersweet comedy" and other
times "black comedy," came after a
very emotional trip Ms. Filler took
with her father, an Auschwitz sur-
vivor. In 1990, she accompanied
him back to the area that has con-
tinued to bring him nightmares.
"He asked me, and I felt he

shouldn't go alone," said Ms. Filler. assessor and artistic director of a
"He felt seeing that area now could Sydney theater, where she was able
help take away the nightmares. I to direct many new projects.
Ms. Filler's off-Broadway debut
think he wanted to exorcise his ex-
was in the 1987 production of So-
perience.
"My mother had gone before and phie, a musical comedy based on
couldn't go again. My sister has the life of singer Sophie Tucker.
Difficulty in getting regular act-
three children to look after and
ing work motivated the entertain-
could not leave."
Ms. Filler concludes Punch Me er to put together her own shows,
in the Stomach with her recollec- and she considers improvisational
tions of the trip, working toward comedy central to her career.
Ms. Filler has performed in Eu-
what she has planned as a very
poignant and powerful ending. rope with various stage companies
These stories are told in the same and toured her one-woman show,
setting that introduces all of the Filler Up!, to regional theater fes-
characters — a fictionalized tivals throughout Canada. In 1990,
70th birthday party arranged she was chosen to tour the United
Kingdom and was featured at the
for her father, Sol.
Through the characters, she Edinburgh Festival with perform-
wants to communicate that hu- ers from New York's Gusto House.
Punch Me in the Stomach was
mor was able to help many peo-
ple survive even the horrors of commissioned by New Zealand's In-
ternational Festival of the Arts in
the Holocaust.
"Some of the characters are 1992 and won the Critics' Pick
real people, and some are uni- award.
It was presented in a shorter ver-
versal," said Ms. Filler, who
was born in New Zealand, sion the year before at La Mama in
where she launched her stage New York, returning to the city in
career before moving to New
York 14 years ago to develop it.
An elementary- and junior-
high teacher in her native coun-
try, where her family still lives,
she was a founding member of
two fringe theater groups, The
Ratz and Debbie and the Dum
Dums. She also was the lead 1992 to be produced off- Broadway
singer in several rock 'n' roll by the New York Theatre Work-
shop.
bands.
After bringing the production to
After relocating, she studied
acting with Stella Adler and the Adelaide Theatre Festival in
Uta Hagen and went on to Australia in 1992, she returned in
teach at the National Improvi- 1993 to be the centerpiece of the
sational School and for a work- Melbourne Jewish Festival of the
shop to help solo comedy Arts.
While she still does standup
performers, paying her way as
comedy
in clubs and at private par-
a singing waitress and as a
ties, her main interest is in the solo
maid.
"I had a wonderful education play, which she has performed
in New York," said Ms. Filler, throughout the United States and
who met her Punch collabora- Canada, including the Jewish Mu-
tor at a New York gym. "We seum in New York.
"It is one Jewish family," Ms.
were both on a treadmill, and
neither of us knew each other's Filler explains about the produc-
tion that she considers, in many
work."
Ms. Summers is a curator at ways, a microcosm of the entire
the New York Theatre Work- Jewish family. About a year ago,
shop, a director at the Women's she moved to Toronto to pursue
Theatre Project and a member making her theater piece into a
of the Circle Repertory Com- film. El
Punch Me in the Stomach will be
pany. She has been an Aus-
tralian Film Commission script performed at 8 p.m. Saturday,
March 11, and at 2 and 7 p.m. Sun-
day, March 12, at the Maple-Drake
Deborah Filler- .
One-woman show.
Jewish Community Center. For in-
formation, call 661-1000.

-

Her father's
experience plays
a role.

M ARCH 3, 1995

unch Me in the Stomach
is a play with 36 char-
acters, all portrayed by
Deb Filler.
The writer/actress/
comedienne is bringing
them to the Maple-
Drake Jewish Commu-
nity Center next
weekend as the last per-
former in the 1995-96
Encore Series.
"The title comes from the char-
acters, who are all survivors," ex-
plained Ms. Filler, co-writer of the
theater piece with director Alison

67