FILLER UP!
Review by Lenny Ann Low
Sydney Morning Herald
November 28, 2005

ENSEMBLE THEATRE, SYDNEY AUSTRALIA

Deb Filler's funny and affecting semi-autobiographical show is the perfect counter to what regularly, and wearily, passes for reality entertainment.

Here is a tale, full of life and inspired by one woman's struggle to find and accept herself, that truly draws the audience in like guests at a family slideshow.

On a simply set stage, featuring a fridge, an oven, a table and a stool, Filler tells and sings her story while baking a loaf of challah bread to her late father's recipe. As she recalls her childhood, the dough is wrapped and cradled like a baby.

Later, it is punched, pushed and pinched as a metaphor for Filler's embattled emotions and self-worth in the past.

Born, literally, in her Jewish family's bakery in New Zealand, Filler recalls how her hankerings for fresh bread from the oven and incessant serves of fattening food at home inspired her battle with weight, self-consciousness and worth.

We meet, through Filler's skillful characterisations, her loving, ever-dieting mother, her voluble and neurotic sister, her straight-talking Long Island-based Aunt Vippy and her diet-spa liberator-lover Cherie.

Her beloved father, who survived the concentration camps only to bake bread with his former German captors to ward off starvation, may be the most significant of Filler's characterisations. His chiding of Filler and her mother for being overweight, paired with his dislike of food wastage, unintentionally sparks Filler's long-term struggle with self-love and life fulfilment.

Apart from her warm and confident connection with the audience, Filler's great skill is her characterisations of, and conversations with, these significant people. She is a brilliant observer and her personifications, which include a drunk, a patronising boyfriend and an endearing portrait of her naive, love-struck teenage self, are powerfully nuanced.

This is warm, life-affirming theatre and the baking process, which ultimately lets the audience savour pieces of hot bread, is a perfect metaphor for Filler's life journey and method of storytelling. At fleeting moments Filler still seemed to be finding her stride in the Ensemble's environs, but at all times her extraordinary tale made this absorbing theatre.