'Joke' explores ethnicity

Michael Todd Behrens says his role in the comedy "Polish Joke" is "a real 'Everyman' kind of thing."

The local actor plays Jasiu (ya-shoo) Sadlowski in the Salt Lake Acting Company regional premiere, which was written by David Ives and was inspired by his Uncle Roman.

The play begins when Jasiu is 9 years old, living in a working-class Polish neighborhood in Chicago and about to embark on a pilgrimage to seek his identity. The boy is told by his Uncle Roman that "Polish jokes" are, essentially, true, and that being Polish is a fate the lad has the misfortune to be stuck with.

"There's a real 'blank canvas' aspect to Jasiu," Behrens said during a break in rehearsals. "He's always looking for something else. He tries being Irish, he gets mistaken for being Jewish and then he even tries being Polish."

Director Kirstie Gulick Rosenfield, who has previously directed such SLAC productions as "The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?" and "The Beard of Avon," said the play "is very funny, but it does ask serious questions of its audience."

Despite claims in the production's advertising, Rosenfield said, "I don't think it is really 'politically incorrect.' " There are several Polish jokes told in the play, "but that's just part of the discussion of what it is like to have a national identity in America, and how does that contain who you are? Are you so 'contained' that you have no movement?

"Ethnicity can be a double-edged sword. It can be completely stifling, or your heritage can bring tremendous joy and tradition. We all need to find that balance."

Playwright Ives, whose "All in the Timing" and "Mere Mortals" were built around rapid-fire, comic vignettes (staged in 1995 and 1998 by SLAC), uses the same basic structure for "Polish Joke."

According to Behrens, Ives' writing employs "this really quick staccato approach, with a lot of quick little scenes that move Jasiu's story along, spanning 30 years in just under two hours. "And Keven Myhre's sparse scenery lends a real dreamlike quality to this. Instead of representational sets, there are just props and lighting and sound, through a series of off-kilter scenes."

The actor noted that Ives' script has a lot to say, "especially in times like these when race can be so polarizing and, at the same time, our traditions are falling by the wayside. There's a yearning for identity and a denial at the same time, especially for those from a definite racial background.