![]() So, he transfers schools (a lot) and adopts other identities: a white sk8er bro a “light-skinned” Black basketball player-anything that he can use as an excuse to tell people he isn’t Middle Eastern. The anxiety-prone youth is suddenly stuck in a world of pronounced dangers and open racism. Then a certain September morning turns the entire country against Middle Easterners. Reductive, maybe, but it gets the youngster some positive feedback for once. Like many budding young talents, he finds solace in his ability to entertain others namely, by doing a broad impression of his father. It mostly begins when all the white kids at his Jewish private school repeatedly insisting he’s “too dark to be Jewish.”Īri’el Stachel in ‘Out of Character.’ Photo by Kevin Berne ![]() If that weren’t enough, this Jewish son of a Ashkenazi American mother and Yemeni-Israeli father spends much of his upper-middle-class Bay Area upbringing trying to fit into cultural identities that aren’t his own. Diagnosed with OCD at age 5, he names his condition “Meredith” (after the villain in The Parent Trap) and struggles to free himself of the hold she has over him-illustrated by the distorted, disembodied voice calling out to him throughout the show. Which is a shame, because the Tony-winning actor (directed by former Rep AD Tony Taccone) makes a fine raconteur in describing both his personal and private struggles. So, yeah, watching a show about anxiety exacerbated my anxiety. One of his companions raved “We won’t need these things next season!,” as that’s when the Rep will limit masking to only two days-per-week this as the very-not-over pandemic continues to average 1,000 deaths-per-week and doom thousands more with Long COVID. I can even sort of appreciate Stachel’s joke near the end, telling us: “So, the pandemic ended… kinda? You’re all still wearing masks?” But what irked me was trying to make my way out of the theater through many unmasked patrons.Īn old white man in front of me cast his aside like heavy work equipment after a long day. ![]() After three and three-quarter years of awkwardly navigating COVID in public, I’ve gotten used to things like the handful of people who refused to mask in this opening night audience. That didn’t negate the anxiety I had while watching the show. I had the very feeling of being seen that Stachel speaks of striving for his entire life. The 80-min solo show about its author-star’s journey through racism and mental health hit me in more ways than one. As someone with his fair share of anxiety and has been in a relationship with someone with a similar condition, Ari’el Stachel’s Out of Character (world premiere through July 30 at the Berkeley Rep) seemed to speak to me directly.
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