just as well be talking about his wife.
You identify with them as people."
In March, playwrights Michael H.
Robins, David Harris and Sima
Rabinowitz visited MJAC to talk about
FroM the Beginning, to discuss
gay/Jewish issues and to rehearse scenes
with potential cast members. They were
so impressed with the caliber of acting
that they added five new characters
known collectively as The Community.
By the time they went home, they had
found 13 solid actors, only two of them
not Jewish and very few of them gay.
Randy Topper, who plays the witty,
sarcastic Jacob, brother of Jenny (Kristi
Sorkin, Topper's fiancee offstage), said
From the Beginning is challenging for
several reasons. Because it has been pro-
duced only once before, the actors had

Harris' connection to Illusion. Neither
knew the third writer tapped for the
project, Sima Rabinowitz, a former
college professor and poet. It was clear
from the start they all were coming
from very different places Jewishly.
Robins grew up in a tiny communi-
ty of Jews who stayed together as a
defense against sometimes brutal anti-
semitism; a cross was actually burned
on his lawn. He always felt wrapped up
in the community, if not Judaism.
Rabinowitz, a native New Yorker,
grew up in a very literate home where
religion was a small facet of her family
life but certain traditions still held fast.
Harris, a cantorial soloist and music
director of Shir Tikvah, a Reform con-
gregation in Minneapolis, considers
himself the "most inside" of the three.

did we not want to whine; we didn't
want to preach. We've all seen those
plays and we don't like them," Harris
said. "We wanted to explore the power
that is implicit in being on the margins.
Jewish people understand that power
and we also understand the suspicion of
being on the margin of society. In a very
similar way, being gay is another pair of
glasses, another kind of insight."
Rabinowitz, the 43-year-old com-
munications director at the Illusion
Theater and a first-time playwright,
brought a keenness for language to the
play. She mined Torah for text that
could be used to illuminate contem-
porary conflicts and mores, and the
result is a scene where there is a back
and forth of biblical couplets.
"We wanted to use ancient text in a

"Being gay and being Jewish are valuable traits, but it's not
the end of it. I knew by doing this project, this would raise a
flag very high in terms of 'this is who he is and what he is.' I
happen to think all of us are composed of so many different
layers and identity markers, that to reduce ourselves to one or
two of them is not doing ourselves justice."
— David Harris

to work from scratch; they could not
rely on somebody else's characterization.
And because Robins is also serving as
director, discarding or altering lines, as
often is done, required delicacy.
"A lot of times you'll say, 'Ugh, I hate
this line,' but you can't do that when
the writer's there," Topper said. "On the
other hand, the author can explain why
he wrote a scene that way."

obins, founder and executive pro-
ducing director of Illusion
Theater and the author of eight plays,
wasn't sure he even wanted to write
the play when he was approached by
the Jewish Community Center of St.
Paul, his hometown. He had never
taken a commission before, and it
seemed forced to have to deliver a
"progressive" play on the subject of
being Jewish and gay.
"But when they called I felt obligat-
ed; call it 'tribal guilt.' After we met, it
took of To sit in a room with two
other Jews — you don't get that in
Minneapolis," he said.
Robins, 50, knew Harris from

R

Top to bottom: Michael Robins;
David Harris; Sima Rabinowitz

Harris, 45, likened the union to an
"arranged marriage," one he wasn't inter-
ested in exploring at first, mainly because
he doesn't like being pigeonholed.
"Being gay and being Jewish are
valuable traits, but it's not the end of
it. I knew by doing this project, this
would raise a flag very high in terms
of 'this is who he is and what he is.' I
happen to think all of us are com-
posed of so many different layers and
identity markers, that to reduce our-
selves to one or two of them is not
doing ourselves justice," he said.
But when the three got back
together after that first meeting with
ideas in hand for a full-length play,
they loved what the others had done,
Harris said. What emerged after an
intense four-month process of writing
and rewriting were eight distinct per-
sonalities, from 16 to 75, who grapple
with identity, belief in God, commit-
ment to family life, loss.
He felt they had succeeded in
avoiding a pious tone that could easily
have crept into the endeavor.
"It is not a pedantic play. Not only

playful way," Rabinowitz said.
But she's not sure she would have
participated in the project had she not
been studying Judaism and been think-
ing about how it fit into her life.
Rabinowitz mentioned a scene in which
Rachel (Linda Rabin Hammell) and
Judith (Patty Ceresnie) are on a date at
Friday night services and face off on the
subjects of Judaism and faith.

Timm the Beginning is told
through dialogue and original
music by Roberta Carlson, including
the anthem-like "Each of Us Has a
Name" and the haunting "Who Will
Say Kaddish For Me?" The narrative
does not always hold to a linear
form; the life of the characters is
sometimes revealed by a "chorus"
and through monologues outside of
a scene.
Aaron (Darrell Glasgow), the
youngest of the eight, is just at the
beginning of a life that will be marked
by his sexual preference.
In an eloquent monologue, this
gangly youth, all of 16 years, says that

ktIN

6/2
2000

