Proof That The
Personal is Always Political
By J. Scott Burgeson
BAY GUARDIAN THEATRE CRITIC
Albert Greenberg's solo work "The Fatherless Sky" is proof that the personal is always political. Born in '82 during the Lebanon invasion, revived during the Gulf War, Sky survived as a work in progress, finally reaching a kind of completion with a single televised handshake. Drama is conflict. "Sky" works dramatically, transcending the usual limitations of one-person performance, because it is itself underwritten with conflict. As a secular Jew growing up on Chicago's South Side, Greenberg finds that America offers dubious comfort for those living under a godless sky.
He renounces his Jewish identity at age 12 in favor of a succession of others, from Italian American to heartland redneck. Using song, dance, mime, and savage humor, "Sky" charts Greenberg's many unsuccessful attempts to find himself by running away from himself. Greenberg's inventive language, ripe with excellent one-liners, restlessly ranges form poetic to nihilistically political. And although his frequent adoption of the language of identity politics grows a bit grating, this founding member of A Traveling Jewish Theatre is a powerful stage presence, capable of seducing even a goy like me.