Jewish performance artist riffs on the Book of Revelations

DAN PINE

Bulletin Staff

Passers-by must have thought they'd seen a holy ghost. Last month, performance artist Eliot Fintushel traipsed about the Sonoma State University campus, wildly blowing a shofar and sporting a sandwich-board sign that read, "Apocalypse!"

No, he wasn't announcing the Second Coming. He was just promoting his new play "Apocalypse: The Book of Revelations," set to open next week at The Marsh theater in San Francisco. Still, it was enough to draw the attention of an unamused security guard (not to mention a few curious Christians).

Fintushel, a Jewish performance artist based in Santa Rosa, didn't mind the commotion. After all, to make a living, most self-employed artists have to catch the public eye.

In Fintushel's case, his new work is a complete word-for-word reading of the entire Book of Revelations, the apocalyptic vision from the Christian Bible that gave fire and brimstone a bad name.

The biblical text becomes theatrical spectacle in the hands of Fintushel, thanks to his elaborate use of mime, papier-mache masks and an odd assortment of musical instruments -- from the African thumb violin to tin whistles to the shruti, an Indian drone box.

But why would a nice Jewish boy tinker with one of the most controversial and least understood texts in the Christian canon?

"I was captivated by the imagery," says Fintushel. "It really is bloody and horrendous in parts, poetic and sonorous in others. Moreover, I was astounded that people could accept both the Sermon on the Mount and the Book of Apocalypse."

To properly assemble his play, Fintushel had to do research into the Christian Bible and the "vicious vituperations" (as he calls them) of its fiery final book.

The book's purported author, John, was a Jewish convert to early Christianity, but that didn't spare him the treatment Jews of the ancient Middle East suffered under the Romans.

"Many of the Christians tormented under Rome were also Jews," notes Fintushel. "During the first century, a rebellion resulted in a million Jews killed. Images in Revelations come from the experiences of Jews in that colonial war of suppression. It was bloody awful."

So, reasons the artist, what do you do when you're a member of an oppressed people with no hope of getting even? You envision an apocalypse where the enemy is smashed down. "That's the psychological underpinning" of Revelations, he says. "The desire for revenge, arrived at through hallucinations."

That doesn't make Fintushel a Christian apologist. "I was interested in a contrarian way," he says. "I felt moral outrage, a self-righteous moral superiority even. I'm ashamed to admit it, but it's profoundly human, the spirit of revenge. It's our shadow."

That's deep thinking coming from someone accustomed to the process. A native of New York, Fintushel grew up in an Orthodox home where Yiddish was spoken along with English.

But he was not meant to be a yeshiva boy. "I have an artistic temperament which is something that makes me unsuitable for a 9-to-5 job. I got a degree in philosophy, and therefore was a dishwasher for a number of years."

Discovering a mime theater in Rochester, N.Y.,

Fintushel felt he'd finally found an artistic home. For the next 25 years, he excelled in children's theater, performance art, puppeteering, mask-making and mainstream acting (he's played both Tevye and Scrooge).

Ten years ago he moved to Sonoma County to further pursue his career. Fintushel has been awarded the National Endowment for the Arts' Solo Performer Fellowship twice and was New York's representative at the Wolftrap International Festival. He has also performed solo at The National Theater in Washington D.C., and currently teaches at Santa Rosa Junior College.

Though he no longer considers himself religious, Fintushel holds great affection for his heritage. "It continues to mean a lot to me," he says. "I loved the world I grew up in, surrounded by Yiddishkeit and the warmth of the Jewish community. Spiritually, I still value the sense of inquiry which is so deeply a part of the Jewish view."

Which in part led to "Apocalypse: The Book of Revelations," a culmination of his artistic talents and philosophical musings.

"I think I understood John because he was Jewish like me," says Fintushel, adding with a healthy measure of chutzpah, "I feel my version is more honest than that of many preachers and members of Christian sects because it's not tainted by thousands of years of interpretation."

Beyond the elemental thrill of live theater, Fintushel also hopes his work will make audiences think. Says the artist: "This summarizes my take on the Book of Revelations and its insane division of good and evil. When you paint the world black and white like that, there's nothing left but violence."

"Apocalypse: The Book of Revelations" plays at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, June 5-28, at The Marsh, 1062 Valencia St., S.F. Tickets: Thursdays pay-what-you-can, Fridays and Saturdays $12-17.

Eliot Fintushel will conduct a mask workshop at 11 a.m. Saturday, June 14. Fee: $25 includes ticket to "Apocalypse." Information and show ticket reservations: (415) 826-5750.