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An unlikely tour de force10 March 1993 An unlikely tour de forcePunch me in the stomach!D>
In Punch me in the stomach, part of the Jewish Festival of the Arts, Deb Filler takes on the daunting task of combining humour with memories of the Holocaust, and succeeds brilliantly.
In a 90-minute monologue, she describes her experience of growing up in New Zealand and her escape to New York (where she still lives and performs), and portrays around 30 members of her extended family, which stretches from New Zealand to Australia, the US and Mexico.
Interwoven with these affectionately hilarious portrayals of eccentric relatives are the memories of Filler's father Sol, who with his younger brother was among the few survivors of Auschwitz. Filler also reveals the effect that being the child of Holocaust survivors had on her own life. (She is shortly to feature in a documentary film Angst, being made in Australia with two other survivors' children who became comedians, Rachel Berger and Austen Tayshus.)
The climax is an account of Filler's tour, with her father, of the concentration camps where he was imprisoned. Filler avoids the dangers inherent in such an account, turning it into an experience that is in turn moving, funny and liberating.
Filler is a gifted actor who, without costume changes or props, skilfully guides the audience through a range of emotions and characters.
The title was inspired by an uncle who would invite people to “punch me in the stomach”, then declare, doubled over and wheezing, “didn't feel a thing”. It also acts as a metaphor for her family's ability to recover from the horrors of the past, and it's this spirit that makes Punch me in the stomach such a rewarding experience.
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From: Cultural Dissent |
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