to be in the minority of the minority, keeping kosher in a world where few know the difference between a split and unsplit hoof. The two oldest of Apple's four chil- dren, often the subjects in Free Agents, also are writers. Both grew up watch- ing their father at work; that is, when he wasn't teaching, he'd often be at home, lying on the couch, daydream- ing, concocting tales. Sam Apple, who lives in Brooklyn, is the author \ of Schlepping Through the Alps: My Search for Austria's Jewish Past With Its Last Wandering Shepherd, and Jessica Apple is a journalist and fiction writer in Jerusalem. "How can you figure anyone would be a writ- er?" he says of his kids' career choices. About his influence, he says, "I think it all comes from storytelling at bed- time. I never read them stories; I made them up." He adds, "I should have fig- ured that Sam would be a writer. He'd give me directions about what he'd want to happen." Among American Jewish writers who are often asked about their duali- ties, Apple seems the most comfort- able. In an autobiographical essay, "The Jew as Writer/ The Writer as Jew: Reflections on Literature and Identity," Apple notes that "identity is someone else's problem," that he's always been at home being both Max and Mottele, American and Jew, educated professor and son of Yiddish-speaking immi- grants. He writes that with his formal education behind him, "Max began to write stories, which wanted to sound like the stories he had read in the anthologies. He hoped for British characters who would experience epiphanies, those obscure but luminous moments that reveal the human condition. But all of his people turned out to be Americans, and none of them even knew what an epiphany was. They were good-natured folks, clowns in every shop and office." Now, after decades of coexistence, Max and Mottele are still very much a pair and "understand how much they need one another. Without Mottele, Max knows that he would be a pale imitator, a John Updike without Protestants. And Mottele alone would be exactly that — Mottele alone. Born into Yiddish at the exact moment that murderers were extinguishing it, he would have the language without the people. He needs Americans to popu- late his shtetl." Grand Rapids Ballet DETROIT Home of Michigan Opera Theatre David DiChiera. General Director Participate in the Peter Pan Parade on stage following the matin:i: performance! FREE Dance Talk one hour prior to performance Audience members are invited onstage to greet the cast Saturday March 1, 2008 at 2:00PM Saturday March 1, 2008 at 7:30PM The Chrysler Foundation Jeep 2007-08 Dance Series FOR TICKETS CALL 313 -237- SING or visit www.michiganopera.org EA me' 11171 1359960 SHUTTLE SERVICE c itteriudi TO ALL MAJOR VENUES Since ❑ 1948 RESTAURANT OF DETROIT AND TROY famous director Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters), whose own Czech Jewish parents amazingly sur- vived the Holocaust. After the war, with the toddler Ivan in their arms, Ivan's parents evaded Czech Communist border guards and fled to Austria, eventually set- tling in Canada. Ivan moved to Los Angeles for his career, and he and his wife have long been members of a Conservative synagogue. Jason, 30, recently recalled that when he was 12, his father told him that he didn't like to attend the Oscars but would go if he were nominated. Jason asked Ivan, "Would you go if I was nominat- ed?" Ivan said that he would go if Jason was nominated, and this (very proud) father will be at this year's Oscar ceremony. Ronald Harwood, who won an Oscar for his script for The Pianist, was born in South Africa and moved to England as a young man, planning to be an actor. In a recent interview, Harwood admit- ted being almost obsessed with the moral dilemmas thrown up by the Jewish experience in the 1930s and '40s. He says, "It's a world I'm haunted by. What can you do?" Two of his recent plays con- cern, respectively, how the famous German conductor William Furtwangler and the famous German composer Richard Strauss coped with the Nazi regime and the Jews in their lives. About to premiere in London is a new Harwood play about John Amery, a British fascist who went to Nazi Germany and was hanged as a traitor after the war. Amery's father was a British cabinet min- ister who hid his own mother's Jewish origins lest it interfere with his career. ❑ Mama Mia Show, Dinner and Transportation Packages available Feb 12-26, 2008 Package Includes Two TICKETS TO SHOW TWO DINNERS TRANSPORTATION TO SHOW Main Floor WEEKDAYS $200 :- WEEKENDS $210" Balcony WEEKDAYS $150 -: WEEKENDS $160 Call Marios of Detroit for more details Detroit ''Excludes Tax and Tip Upon Availability LOBSTER TUESDAYS $11.95 LOBSTER, CORN ON THE COB AND RED SKIN POTATOES 313.832.1616 248.588.6000 Troy 4222 Second St. • Detroit 1477 John R at Maple • Troy MARIOSDETROIT.COM February 21 • 2008 C5