Josh Greenfeld Has ‘Fish Story’ to Tell on TP Stage

Theatre Palisades hosts the third annual evening of a benefit concert reading of a new play by Josh Greenfeld on Sunday, February 26 at 7:30 p.m. at Pierson Playhouse, 941 Temescal Canyon Rd. In 2004 the play was “The Last Two Jews of Kabul” starring Paul Mazursky and Saul Rubinek, and last year it was “predicates” featuring Mazursky and Diane Manoff. The new play, “Fish Story,” produced by Bob Sharka and Andrew Frew, is a “two-hander”‘or two-character play’in which an aging terminally ill Jewish California schoolteacher/actor returns to his native Brooklyn neighborhood. The synagogue in which he was bar mitzvahed and mourned the death of his own parents is now a Gospel Tabernacle. And he almost immediately finds himself a victim of culture shock in an attempted mugging by a young African American. Their encounter takes the form of not only a tension-producing confrontation but also a meditation on changing values, seemingly enduring verities, and the fallacies and absurdities behind both. The result is a comedic and suspenseful questioning of life and death and reality and identity, before a highly dramatic denouement. Once more Mazursky, best known as the prize-winning director whose films include “Bob & Carol & Ted Alice,” “Harry and Tonto,” “Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” and “Enemies,” but whose many acting credits through the years range from “Blackboard Jungle” through “A Star is Born” to “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” will hold down a leading role. Co-starring with him is Emilu Nelson, a film and TV actor. Originally from New Jersey, Nelson attended Syracuse University, where he played basketball. His film credits include a supporting role in “The Hard Easy,” the lead in “Thursday’s Child” and co-starring roles on the television series “JAG,” “Angel” and “City of Angels.” With the highly acclaimed production of “The Last Two Jews of Kabul” at the La Mama Theatre in New York three years ago, longtime Palisades resident Greenfeld returned to the theater as a writer after a career as a journalist, critic, novelist and screenwriter. He was nominated for an Academy Award along with Paul Mazursky for the screenplay of “Harry and Tonto,” the film for which Art Carney won the Oscar for the Best Actor; he also wrote the screenplay for “Oh God! Book Two” starring George Burns, and the teleplay “Lovey: Circle of Child Part II” starring Jane Alexander. His play “Clandestine on the Morning Line,” was produced Off-Broadway with Rosetta LeNoir and James Earl Jones in the starring roles. And “I Have a Dream,” starring Billy Dee Williams, after opening at Ford’s Theatre in Washington and touring the country, settled down for a run on Broadway. Perhaps Greenfeld is best known for his prize-winning “A Child Called Noah” trilogy about his brain-damaged son. This year’s performance honors the late Dorothy Knight, a longtime Palisadian and staunch peace activist. Proceeds from the evening ($10 suggested donation) will benefit Theatre Palisades, Friends of Film and Palisadians for Peace. For reservations, call Theatre Palisades at 454-1970.