Play unites actor son with his author mom
Kathy Kacer and Jake Epstein collaborate on production about concentration camp survivors
Call it “Mother and Child Reunion.”
For 16 years, Kathy Kacer has been writing sensitive, powerful fiction about the Holocaust, most notably The Secret of Gabi’s Dresser.
And for just as long, her son, Jake Epstein, has been a successful actor, starring in Degrassi: The Next Generation on TV and shows like American Idiot, SpiderMan: Turn Off the Dark and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical onstage.
But they’d never worked together before. Now they’ve co-authored a play called Therefore Choose Life, which starts performances Saturday night for Harold Green Jewish Theatre at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. Epstein is starring in the show as well. “It started six years ago when Jake was between shows,” begins Kacer.
“I moved back in with my parents like any good 23-year-old does when he’s between things,” grins Epstein.
Kacer explains the origins of Therefore Choose Life.
“I had been contacted by someone with the germ of a true story. A man who had survived in the concentration camps, thinking he had lost his wife, moved to North America and remarried. Then, after many years, his first wife resurfaced.”
Epstein felt there was a stage play in this narrative they could collaborate on.
“We each realized we could bring something valuable to the table. My mom was a novelist; I was an actor. We each had our own strengths. There were also two generations of characters in the show. I would write the younger ones, my mom would write the older ones . . .”
“Or so you thought,” interrupts Kacer. “We actually both wound up writing everything together, bouncing ideas off each other while we sat with our respective laptops.”
Epstein’s experiences playing Gerry Goffin in Beautiful, including its long tryout period, gave him insight into fixing the script of a show.
“It let me see the constant tweaking that had to go on with any new script. I learned how changing one line of dialogue can change everything. The devil’s in the details.”
They each feel they’ll walk away from this process with new knowledge.
“The biggest lesson for me is giving it all up to the theatrical process,” says Kacer. “When I’m writing a book, I’m the one in charge. But in the theatre, I have one vision I bring into the room, then the director adds her vision and the actors add theirs. Together we all create something that has its own life and breath that’s a little bit different from what we started with.”
And for Epstein, “one of the biggest things I’ve learned is letting go of your expectations in a scene and just letting what happens, happen. The whole cast have been so helpful and so intelligent with their comments that I walk around in a continuous state of gratitude.”
But then comes the $64,000 question. Would they collaborate in the future?
Epstein bounds in first. “I had a wonderful experience working with my mom and I’d do it again.”
Kacer deadpans, “He wasn’t too bad. I’d give him another chance.” Therefore Choose Life runs from April 18 to May 10 at the Greenwin Theatre at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, 5040 Yonge St. For tickets, call 416-932-9995, ext. 224.