Arts & Entertainment

On The Bookshelf

,
In her novel "Flamboyant,
Obie Award-winning playwright Elizabeth
Swados crafts a story around cultural difference, friendship and faith.

easy to imagine Ghana's perfectly
manicured future mother-in-law as
Special to The Jewish News
"the Martha Stewart of Brooklyn."
Flamboyant may remind readers of
Nana Landau, a traditional
Swados' hit 1980 musical-
Runaways,
woman and day school
nominated for 4 Tony awards — in
teacher from an Orthodox
which cast members were kids who
Jewish enclave in Brooklyn,
had run away from home. Her latest
finds a job teaching at Harvey Milk
play, The Hating Pot, about racism
High School in Manhattan. She's not
and anti-Semitism, which was per-
sure her religion allows her to be in
formed off-Broadway, in New York
the same room with the students she
City schools and broadcast on PBS,
encounters — gay teenagers, wild
also involved a cast of
street urchins, child prostitutes and
city kids.
largely unloved kids
In fact, for more than
who've been down
25 years, Swados has
and out for most of
been collaborating with
their young lives.
"kids on the borders,
The alternative
those at risk."
school is as close to
Her first experience
Sodom" as the 28-
was in Africa, when
year-old thought she'd
she was 20 and tour-
ever be. But, as she
ing with a theater
recounts, "there's no
group. Her job was to
telling where or how
go into the villages
you'll find paradise."
with her 12-string
Flamboyant (Picador;
Author Elizabeth Swados: "Characters with
guitar before the
$22)), the recent novel
urgent things to say.
actors arrived and
by author, composer
engage the children;
and director Elizabeth
They both are intensely loving people.
she'd exchange noises
Swados, is told through
This gets them into all types of trouble."
with them and teach them
the alternating journals
Exploring themes of gender and
songs. Once the children were inter-
of Ghana and one student, 15-year-
identity,
religious views of homosexuali-
ested, their parents would come out-
old Flamboyant, who, before meeting
ty
and
unlikely
love, the novel teases out
side, and they'd have an audience for
Ghana "didn't know from Orthodox
questions
about
"otherness" in our soci-
their performance.
Jews, honey pie. Payess was Latino for
ety
and
the
humanity
of religion.
Now, every few years, Swados
country. A yarmulke could only be an
Throughout,
Swados
offers Yiddish
makes time to do a show with a group
exotic Tibetan mountain goat."
proverbs.
While
Chana's
journal
of urban New York kids she recruits
Their unlikely friendship evolves and
entries often begin with biblical lines,
anew.
"It's
a
central
part
of
my
life.
I
deepens through a series of encounters
excerpted from the text she is study-
love their energy. I love being on the
and events and twists that won't be
ing, Flamboyant's begin with very dif-
edge with them."
revealed here, to allow readers the full
ferent markers of time.
The 47-year old, who was born in
experience of Swados' big-hearted novel.
The prolific Swados, who has been
Buffalo, N.Y., adds that she identifies
Among the pleasures of reading
honored
by the National Foundation
with these kids. "I had a lot of strug-
Flamboyant are Swados' straightfor-
for
Jewish
Culture, is the author of
see
gle when I was young. I love to
ward style, her perfectly pitched ren-
two novels, a memoir about her family
people
who
don't
have
a
chance
work
dering of the two voices, her humor
and 4 children's books, the newest,
their way out — to see that they can
and the urban realism of her prose.
Dreamtective.
do something."
When the crew of colorfully, some-
Her creativity runs in several direc-
she called
Flamboyant,
In
writing
times cross-dressed, multi-pierced stu-
tions:
Her theater work includes Mis-
on her memories of kids she's been
dents break out into a spontaneous
an opera about four Ameri-
cionaries,
involved with, all of whom she is still
congo line around the classroom, the
can
church
women killed in El Sal-
in touch with.
reader feels the pulsating beat. And,
Alice
in Concert, a musical ver-
vador;
says,
Writing the novel was a joy, she
back in Ghana's neighborhood, it's
sion of "Alice in Wonderland"; and
"particularly because the two main char-
Rap Master Ronnie, a rap musical
acters
are
wildly
confused
and
open
for
is
a
freelance
writer
Sandee Brawarsky
satire of the Reagan years.
unexpected changes at any moment.

SANDEE BRAWARSKY

C

based in New York.

1/15

1999

90 Detroit Jewish News

She also has staged her interpreta-
tions of The Story of Job, a biblical
musical depicted by clowns;
Jerusalem, a multi-language musi-
cal; and The Haggadah, combining
mime, ritual dance, puppetry, Jew-
ish music, jazz, rock and choral
singing.
In addition, she has scored many
musicals, written screenplays as
well as the music for several ballets
and continues to perform in many
of her works, including the musi-
cal Bible Women.
Runaways is the "most Jewish piece
I've ever done," she offers. "My ver-
sion of being an observant Jew is to
try to bring good to other people
and to work hard and to argue over
justice ... to go for a better world."
She says she's very connected to
prayer, language and music. "I
believe that's deep in my soul,"
she says.
Then she laughs, recalling that
when she was doing several shows
at New York's Public Theater, the
late Joseph Papp and his wife
would tell her that there was a
"Jewish song" in every one of her pro-
ductions, even her rock opera about
Vietnam.
Swados, who lives in downtown
Manhattan, is now writing a new
novel. She's also working on a musical
about the Wright Brothers, doing the
music for a production of The Mer-
chant of Venice, hoping to do Bible
Women II and planning a new theater
project with city kids dealing with vio-
lence: kids harming kids.
She explains that she has always
worked on several projects at once.
"My communication's not complete
unless it's in several areas," she says.
In this age when synergy —
between novels, movies, plays and
other media — is the buzzword, Swa-
dos sticks to one medium for each
work. For each project, she chooses
the format that "the subject requires."
She doesn't see Flamboyant as a play,
or her telling of the Wright Brothers'
story as a book. "Things present them-
selves as what they're supposed ro be.
There's never a cross-over," she says. I I