Jewish-ish is a performance piece by Canadian violinist Laura Nerenberg that combines storytelling with violin playing. Nerenberg describes what it’s been like for her living half a century as a secular Jew in Catholic Montreal. The crux of Jewish-ish—part of this year’s Fringe Fest, with one last performance at 7 pm on Saturday, August 31—is that Nerenberg was, not by choice, the de facto Jew growing up among people who either understood nothing about what it meant to be a Jew, or—far worse—shamed Nerenberg for clearly not being Jewish enough.
This she discovered through a pretentious, condescending, non-Jewish co-worker who went to great lengths to convert to Judaism for the sake of her new husband. Nerenberg watches as her co-worker becomes a far better Jew than she had ever been, and this causes her no small amount of existential anguish. Growing up in that traditional religious culture as a child who never really connected with the tradition, the religion, or the culture, Nerenberg must come to grips with the lofty expectations placed upon her by strangers, her family, and herself.
The format of the show is spoken word interspersed by small snippets of violin. Nerenberg is a classically trained violinist who has been passionately playing since kindergarten, and this has shaped her life and identity arguably more than her born religion. I believe part of the performance is juxtaposing the idea of externally imposed belief with those that are internally motivated.
A simple explanation of religion is the idea of acknowledging that there are forces greater than oneself that we can tap into and allow to guide and inform our lives to give us meaning and satisfaction. Over centuries this has been mystified into abstract concepts such as “God,” but who is to say that the beauty of music can’t be someone’s religion? If it defines and motivates one’s life while giving hope, inspiration, and joy, that seems to me to be a far more pure and sensible God than any I’ve heard of. Yet, in our society, traditional religion is given such heavy weight, often upon those who never asked for it.
Nerenberg’s presentation is wry and witty, and it’s heartening to see her gain fulfillment through sharing her story with others. Still, I found myself unable to shake the frustration that she spends very little of the runtime doing what she is exceptional at. When I first heard that it would be a mix of storytelling and violin, I was excited, because I love violin. Yet I quickly discovered that Nerenberg would speak for three or four minutes before performing 20 to 30 seconds of violin.
Her many decades of dedicated practice are evident, as her playing is immediately breathtaking and sublime. I could easily spend an enraptured hour just listening to her play. Unfortunately, she is a far better musician than a thespian, with her spoken-word performance resembling an overly dramatized show-and-tell presentation. This is accentuated by the first 10 to 15 minutes coming from the perspective of a small child, in corresponding tone, cadence, and vocabulary, which sounds somewhat odd coming from a 50-year old. But even the rest of the performance gave me the strange feeling that I was a toddler receiving an emphatic bedtime story.
Of course I recognize that Nerenberg is a violinist, not an actor, and for this reason I think that she would benefit from rebalancing the performance. A slimmer script with more natural acting would ensure that her playing is given more of a spotlight, as it is by far where her talents shine indisputably.
Even so, it’s clear that Nerenberg has put a great deal of consideration into the philosophy of religion, and the importance we project into a construct that, for the most part, we indoctrinate our young into under tremendous pressure, rather than allowing them to discover it organically. Maybe the world would be a better place if we gave up on the idea of competing religions and arbitrary traditions, and each found our own personal religion, like allowing the sweet sound of music to resonantly fill that empty space deep inside and overflow to those around us.
Victoria Fringe Festival
Until Sunday, September 1
Various times, dates, and venues
intrepidtheatre.com/festivals/fringe-festival