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8`.491.9

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BAND IN BERLIN

Now serving
quick and speedy lunches!

Early Bird Menu

PASTA MEDLEY

7.95

fresh vegetables in S parmesan cream sauce over linguine pasta
with chicken ... 8.95

MUSSELS, SCALLOPS & CLAM PROVENCALE

fresh mussels, clams and scallops sauteed in oil and garlic
topped with a lite provencale sauce & tossed with linguine pasta

9.25

WHITEFISH DINNER

8.95

baked and served with redskin potatoes & vegetables

SAUSAGE & CRAWFISH ETOUFFEE

8.95

served over redbeans & rice

CHEF MIKE'S FAMOUS BAR-B-QUE RIBS

(1/2 half slab) served with seasoned wedgecut fries

ST. LOUIS CHICKEN BREAST

DIJON

8.95

8.95

served with redskin potatoes & vegetables •

BOURBON STREET CATFISH

9.95

served with dirty rice & mirlton fritters

FISH & CHIPS

8.95

served with fries & slaw

Hours: Mon.-Thurs 11-10, Fri. 11-11, Sat. 4-11, Sun. 2-9
Bring this ad in with you and get $2.00 off your dinner entree
thru 3/31/99

248-442-2531

N

We are here

1? Mile Rd

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(East of Orchard Lake Road)

Farmington Hills

MB

MI

IN

WHEKLGOOD FKIENDS
GET SERVED GOOD FOOD.

fiED
FtliE

Now Appearing
By Popular Demand!
After Theatre
Menu

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Trying new thinge-chargrifleo N.Y.
drip oteak on a ()a of caramelizeb
freoh.
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We s erve a goon roadteb Prime Rib
every Friday, Saturday night &
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Open for Lunch & Dinner

3/19

1999

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YOUR Stag Favorites
with Light-Sized
Portions & Prices
Met 9 Nightly

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Stage & Co.

Deli • Dining • Catering
Serving the Finest

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since 1962

Open

fill 10 pm

Fri/Sat until 11 pm

248.855.6622
"On the Boardwalk"

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from page 89

its present format. At first the group's
story was told in a traditional way,
with a linear narrative. But over time,
Band evolved into something more
closely resembling Beatlemania, the
show in which four young men sang
Beatle songs while films and other
images of the era flashed on screens
behind them.
In Band in Berlin, too, five singers
and a piano player faithfully duplicate
the group's sound: intricate harmonies
that fall somewhere between a barber-
shop quintet and the best of the Beach
Boys, around the Pet Sounds album.
They recreate, too, the band's act, the
way it used the piano as a sixth singer,
how the singers used their voices as
musical instruments and how they
joked and played on stage.
It is a delightful entertainment. The
on-stage performers have no dialogue.
They sing and play and make it obvi-
ous why the Comedian Harmonists
were the rage of Europe.
But the real meat of the production
goes on behind the performers, slides
and film, some new, some archival, and
with some artistic license, a re-creation
of interviews conducted by Feldman
and Cott with Roman Cycowski, the
last surviving Harmonist.
He lived in Palm Springs where he
served as a cantor at Temple Isaiah until
his death last November at age 97. The
production is dedicated to him.
Feldman remembers visiting
Cycowski in Palm Springs. "He took
me to shul with him one Saturday
morning, and sang the whole service.
You never would have thought listen-
ing to that voice that he was 91 years
old. I told him you sound fantastic.
`Well,' he said, 'it's only the morning.
I haven't warmed up yet.'
"When I met him it wasn't like
• talking to an old person. It was like
talking to a musician. He had so
much insight into pre-war Germany,
the culture and what it was like then.
He once said to me, 'Hitler spoiled
everything.' He loved the German
culture. That was very meaningful to
me.• I grew up Jewish but knew only
the Germany of the Holocaust."
According to Feldman, Cycowski
has mixed feelings about being the
survivor, about being the only one left
to tell the story.
The Harmonists' records were
remastered and re-released in
Germany during the '80s, precipitat-
ing renewed interest in the group.
More recently, their music was
released on CD. "So he was being
interviewed all the time," says
Feldman.

"I was one of the first Americans to
interview him. The Germans were
always looking for bitterness. But he
had very little bitterness, and he wasn't
bitter at all toward Germany. He
thought Hitler was the problem."
There was no anti-Semitism in the
group — at least on the surface and in
the beginning. Cycowski told
Feldman the Christians were very
respectful of the Jews, and did not
perform on the High Holy Days.
"But as time went on," Feldman says,
"things got a little dicier."
The Harmonists had the resources
to leave Germany together, but the
Christian members elected to stay,
hoping that substitutes for departing
members would enable them to con-
tinue. But they were never able to
recapture the magic.
Working on this production has
been an emotional experience for
Feldman. She grew up in the Rockaway
section of Queens, in what was a typi-
cal Jewish household of the period.
She went to Hebrew school, the family
got together for the holidays, but the
Holocaust was not discussed.
Her father, a doctor, "was a medic
during the war and actually went into
the camps when they were liberated.
He rarely ever talked about it, but it
had a profound effect on him and that
was passed on to me. As a kid I read
The Diary of Anne Frank and I
remember thinking, 'That could have
been me.' It was a presence we all felt.
"Working over at St. Ann's I did a
lot of researching of documentary film
footage [for the production], and I
would just get overwhelmed sometimes
— and here her voice breaks briefly —
and wonder how could this happen?
What were people doing? When we
were making the Nazi banners and
flags, I was thinking, 'This is what peo-
ple all over Germany were doing.'"'
The emotions were confusing for her.
"Where was this coming from?" she
wondered. "I haven't been walking
around obsessing about the Holocaust
all my life."
One of the special moments for her
came during the initial run, back in
1992 at St. Ann's. Her father came to the
premiere. They weren't sitting together,
but she knew he was in the audience.
"I just said to myself, 'This is for
him."' ❑

Band in Berlin is running at the
Helen Hayes Theatre, 240 W.
44th St., in New York City. For
tickets, call (212) 239-6200.

A

"*I•MWPA