Arts I Entertainment r 1 1 5% OFF All Take-Outs over $25 Monday - Thursday only. One coupon per customer. After 3:00 p.m. Not good with any other offer. Expires 10/31/42. a ;Buy One . Dinner Get The Second Dinner 1/2 Off! 1 I of equal or lesser value I I Monday - Thursday Dine In Only. One Coupon Per Table. Not Good With Any Other Offer. Expires 10/31/02. I. `Tommy J And Sally' JET'S season opener is an honest, bias-driven tug-of-war. 1 1 1 SUSAN ZWEIG _ Special to the Jewish News 1 LUNCH SPECIALS $ 495 IV Don't Forget...The Sheik caters all occasions The West Bloomfield 4189 ORCHARD LAKE AT PONTIAC TRAIL IN WEST BLOOMFIELD (248) 865-0000 Open 7 Days a Week for Lunch & Dinner • 607110 Ai? - • 1095 Sunday Early Bird Menu Chicken Fettuccine Jambalaya Pasta Primavera with Alfredo Sauce Salmon in Dill Sauce Whitefish with Remoulade Sirloin Steak all pasta served with bread all served with bread, vegetable & starch Regular Menu Available Available Sundays 3pm-9pm 20106 Franklin Road at Northwestern (248) 356-8881 available at Southfield location only MORE THAN OMELETTES r%. 46 KOMANO'S 74e6agewated,t4eEedri Pizza • Catering • Carry-Out • Delivery Romano's + Football Touch Down! GEST OMELETTES Four Star Rating/Detroit News & Free Press *** Full Breakfast & Lunch Menu 1/2 OFF 248-626-4888 Open 7 days a week after 4:00pm • Catering Anytime! Customer Appreciation Coupon Pizza • Chicken e Ribs Pastas • Lasagna • Subs • Salads Hot Wings • Chicken Strips Purchase one entree and receive 50% off second entree of equal or greater value COUPON Not valid on Sunday and Holidays 15% OFF 39560 Fourteen Mile Road 10/11 PICKUP ONLY • MAXIMUM DISCOUNT $10 2002 Expires 10/31/02 (248) 926-0717 Your Next Order 92 674740 • Children's Menu • Non Smoking 5 hen white and black collide under dramatic circumstances, we tend to expect a sanitized study in gray where underlying com- monalties are uncovered and several acts' worth of nagging differences are resolved. - The Jewish Ensemble Theatre Company's performance of Mark Medoff's Tommy J and Sally comes from a place much more honest, and, as a result, much more explosive and disturbing. Squirming in one's seat seems about as natural a the- ater activity here as flipping through a program. The tension begins almost immediately when Tommy J (Craig Wallace) breaks into the New York loft of record- ing star Sally (Stephanie Stephan). What unfolds as a typical slow-mo horror of generalized crime turns out to be neither typical nor general: Tommy J insists he knew Sally as a teen — lived with her family even — when she was still unknown Madeline Rosenberg. According to Tommy J, she and her family wronged him in an act more unforgivable than any petty break-in. Sally's blankness and denials of the shared history are equaled only by Tommy J's certainty. Is TJ legitimate or a fanatic? Is Sally telling the truth or angling to save her life? While kitchen cutlery and Sally's gun are used as tools of intimidation, racial slurs are the real weapons of choice. Both Sally and Tommy J land verbal punches that bruise and sting. Medoff's writing crackles with arrest- ing freshness and fire, peppered with poetic rat-a-tat and the stabbing-come- backs we mortals think of only after the altercation is over. In a shuffling of namesakes, we soon learn Tommy J . is Thomas Jefferson, an African-American with a wrong to right, both personally and on behalf of his forefathers.-And lily-white pop star Sally is Sally Hemings, slave mostly to career, fame, and several other equally addictive substances. Their character names are not really sidebars to the story: History has recorded President Thomas Jefferson fathered children with his slave, Sally Hemings; that relationship, by its very nature, would have been a gross abuse of station. In Tommy J and Sally, the ambiguities of station and truth are no more resolved. Wallace and Stephan are terrific as Tommy J and Sally. They dodge and stumble and weave like boxers in a ring, seizing the upperhand and relinquishing it over many rounds, keeping the audience guessing as to how this match will end. Edith Leavis Bookstein's costumes stand as a kind of window into the characters that wear them; Monika Essen's set is appropriately airy and Spartan. Director Bob Devin Jones has crafted a production that does not pander, relent or apologize. In the audience post- mortem on Oct. 5, Jones admitted to tweaking the ending of this Midwest pre- miere based on Stephanie Stephan's characterization of Sally. This ending stands more conclu- sive on whether Sally is who she says she is (or not). While murky seems a more appropriate close to Medoff's play, as subtle as this alteration is staged and acted, you'll leave with the ending you personally desire. After all, the way you interpret Tommy J and Sally resides with the bias you carry into the theater. Not surpris- ingly, that's what you'll be wrestling • with long after you get home. ❑ JET presents Tommy J and Sally Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays through Nov. 3 at the Jewish Community Center in West Bloomfield. Tickets range $23-$30, depend- ing on performance. Senior dis- counts. Call for show times, (248) 788-2900.