Opening next month at the Traveling Jewish Theater is a play called “The Cherry Docs,” and while that title may have a pleasing Chekhovian ring to it, the meaning is far more sinister.
Cherry Docs are reddish-colored Doc Martin boots, the footwear of choice for neo-Nazi skinheads when prowling the streets in search of Jews and blacks to stomp.
David Gow’s 2000 play tells the story of a skinhead on trial for a hate crime and the Jewish lawyer representing him. The new production stars TJT artistic director Aaron Davidman as Daniel the attorney, and TJT associate artist Eric Rhys Miller as Michael the neo-Nazi punk.
Serving as director is TJT co-founder, associate artist and Bay Area theater legend Naomi Newman. As accustomed as she is to confronting the dark side of humanity on stage, Newman initially found the play and its protagonist more than she could stomach.
“At first I wasn’t that taken with it,” she says, “possibly because I thought it was too male. As I have continued working on it, the more I respect and admire it. Now I am intrigued.”
A two-character play, “Cherry Docs” is divided into scenes — dubbed “days” — during which the lawyer and defendant warily circle each other in search of understanding.
“It’s a dialectic between two world views,” says Newman. “The views come through two human beings, and both are complex. By the third ‘day’ you feel Mike’s neediness and loss and of his indoctrination.”
The lawyer character is in most respects a polar opposite. “I read him as being guided by primary Jewish values,” says Newman. “Some of them out of Torah and from early education, some from a more mystical inclination. It’s a question of how much his Jewishness informs him, because in many ways he is a secular humanist.”
As the lawyer moves forward with the case, he is forced to question his worldview. “Can he walk the walk?” asks Newman. “In the beginning, he’s pretty smug, but by the end what’s gone down has made him face a lot about himself and what he believes.”
One of her tasks has been to get inside the mind of a hater like the character Michael. It wasn’t easy for the gentle Newman, but she did find one reference point: the time she witnessed a brutal police riot in Los Angeles during a Vietnam War protest.
“I was so angry,” remembers Newman, “for the first time in my life I knew what it was to want to kill. That’s what these kids feel. They’re in a trance of anger. They feel they haven’t got anywhere to go and have been offered a simple solution: somebody to blame and hate. Isn’t that what are all wars are based on?”
Loyal TJT audiences know Newman as both actor and director, though it’s been a while since she last helmed a production. For Newman, she’s on familiar though daunting terrain.
“Directing a new play,” she says, “is almost like creating a world, and you don’t know ahead of time what that world is. The challenge is trying to be in the playwright’s mind and realize his vision, and find though my imagination how to do that. Every time I direct, I worry if I can do it right. This play is quite different from any other play I’ve directed for TJT.”
Her task has been made easier by working with her longtime TJT colleagues Davidman and Rhys Miller. All three know each other’s talents and abilities well.
“The big advantage,” she says, “is not only that their instruments are familiar to me, but the two of them have worked together on ‘God’s Donkey’ [a TJT production from the 2000-2001 season]. They have a real sense of each other’s energy and they make it a wonderful time.”
Unlike many prior TJT productions, which tend to incorporate a measure of fantasy and mysticism, “Cherry Docs” is a grittier, more realistic play. Just a simple set, and two men talking.
“The challenge,” notes Newman, “is not in the staging but in the truth of the characters.”
“The Cherry Docs” by David Gow plays 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, and 7 p.m. Sundays, May 5 through May 29, with 2 p.m. matinees on Sundays, at Traveling Jewish Theater, 470 Florida St, S.F. Also plays June 2 through June 19, at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave., Berkeley. Tickets: $12-$35. Information: (415) 285-8080, or atjt.com.