Soap Story

Samantha

Weinstein as

13-year-old

Erica relives
her bat

mitzvah.

Mice Burdick Schweiger
Special to the Jewish News

W

hen The Young and the
Restless revealed a couple of
seasons ago that the hunky
Brad Carlton (Don Diamont) was
secretly Jewish, it broke some ethnic
ground in the soap-opera world.
Now comes a soap about a Jewish
30-something woman who gets to
revisit her disastrous bat mitzvah and
a sinful Yom Kippur.
Being Erica, a new one-hour prime
time drama that premiered last month
on the SOAPnet channel, takes place in
Toronto and focuses on Erica Strange
(Erin Karpluk), a single, attractive,
funny, 32-year-old middle-class Jewish
girl. She is not religious, yet has a
strong Jewish identity.
Going through a life crisis, Erica
finds herself jobless, single and with
no real plans for the future.
After having a date cancel on her,
being fired from her job and suffering
an allergic reaction that lands her in
the hospital, Erica turns to Dr. Tom
(Michael Riley), a mysterious, uncon-
ventional therapist who helps her
examine her many regrets.
His method has Erica embark-
ing upon a journey to relive pivotal
moments in her life where she believes
she chose the wrong path. Some of
these relived experiences include a
high-school dance, a job interview and
the time she lost her virginity.
One of these do-over incidents
involves her bat mitzvah (airing
March 19). At the time, she stormed
out of the party that her parents had
planned for months. Going back, after
reading again from the Torah, she can
choose to stay at the party and avoid
repercussions.

In another episode (airing April 2),
Erica seeks forgiveness for a past mis-
take on Yom Kippur.
"This is about women and men in
their early 30s, who are single and try-
ing to find themselves:' says the show's
creator, Toronto native Jana Sinyor,
adding that the series has echoes of
Ally McBeal and Sex and the City.
Sinyor, who is Jewish and 32, draws
from some of her personal experi-
ences."Erica and I don't have the same
life — I am married and have two
children — but the way she acts, her
closeness with her friends and her
closeness with her family and their
issues are very familiar to me.
"Erica is an amalgamation of a lot
of different women I know — educat-
ed, bright and talented; but they aren't
married by 30, have no children and
don't have the career they had hoped
they would. They feel like there are
failing relative to their peers:'
Sinyor, who graduated from McGill
University with a degree in religious
studies, felt it was important to make
Erica Jewish. "There is a tendency to
want to make a character universal and
ethnically or culturally ambiguous, but
I wanted Erica to be as specific as pos-
sible in every way. Because I am Jewish,
its very natural for me to make her
Jewish. She is someone who grew up
with the traditions, but not necessar-
ily religious or particularly observant,
although her father is a rabbi."
"It's great to have more of a reli-
gious balance, especially on a soap:'
says Stephanie Sloane, editor of Soap
Opera Digest. "I think it's wonderful
that the character is Jewish." ❑

Being Erica airs 10 p.m. Thursdays
on the SOAPnet channel.

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David DiChlera, General Directs

featuring the Michigan Opera Theatre Children's Chorus

BRUNDIBAR

"Brundibar" is a children's opera by Jewish Czech composer Hans Krisa with
a libretto by Adolf Hofhneister, originally performed by the children of
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2 Memorable performances!

Narrated by Mary Lou Zieve

Saturday, March 21, at 12:00 Noon
Saturday, March 21, at 5:00 pm

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Adolph Hoffmeister, Librettist — Hans Krasa, Composer
An Eric Einhom Production — Presented in English

Ela Stein Weissberger who sang the
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March 12 • 2009

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