Watching dramas about the Holocaust has been low on my priority list for a long time.

That’s because I spent 23 years editing a Jewish newspaper in San Francisco and, as a byproduct, had almost daily contact with survivors, children of survivors and grandchildren with survivors.

Some of their stories were indelibly courageous.

Almost all were incredibly sad.

And tough to hear.

So I went to opening night of Berkeley Rep’s “The Pianist of Willesden Lane” with more than a little resistance, going mainly because my wife, a professional keyboard player herself, really craved to see it.

I’m glad she convinced me.Although it’s imperfect, the one-woman play is a truly important piece of theater, something I’d recommend to Jews and non-Jews, be they fans of classical music or not.

And I not-so-secretly wish every college and high school student could see it.

What happens onstage is direct enough.

Mona Golabek, a 54-year-old piano virtuoso, relates the true story of her prodigy mother’s escape to England via the Kindertransport, an often forgotten mission that rescued 10,000 unaccompanied European children from Nazi violence and oppression.

It’s a tale of Lisa Jura’s escape to a London hostel.

And her survival despite the Blitz.

And her optimism.

Behind the Steinway that Golabek plays with grace and power are four massive gilt frames into which are projected impressionistic stills and all-too-real newsreel films.

Included are black-and-white scenes of Holocaust victims (thankfully we’re spared shots of emaciated bodies being tossed into mass graves) and the dancing flames of Krystallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass in November 1938 when Nazis smashed Jewish-owned stores, buildings and synagogues in Germany and parts of Austria.They’re disquieting, to say the least.

Golabek, in dark red hair (she’s usually blonde) and nondescript black sweater and skirt, reconfigures her mother as a promising teenage pianist who escapes after her father wins a sole Kindertransport ticket in a card game.

It’s a painful scene reflective of the film “Sophie’s Choice” because her parents can save only one of three sisters.

She accompanies her verbal journey with pianistic snippets of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” Debusssy’s “Clair de Lune,” Chopin’s “Nocturne in B-Flat Major, opus 9,” a few passages from Bach and Rachmaninoff, and even a ditty by Gershwin.But her best work comes on Grieg’s only concerto. At different times, she dips into each of the three movements, ending the show triumphantly with the third.

When Golabek talks early-on about the great composers, she does so in her mom’s youthful voice: “I can hear their music in the stones of these streets and the marble of these buildings.”

The play’s dialogue is sometimes poetic, often melodramatic, now and then banal — as when describing someone with “the softest soul in the world.”

But Hershey Felder, who masterfully performed “George Gershwin Alone” at the Rep this summer, directed the play after adapting it from “The Children of Willesden Lane,” a book by Golabek and Lee Cohen, and, in the process, seamlessly blended story and music.

He, along with Trevor Hay, also was responsible for the sparse but powerful scenic design for the 90-minute, intermission-less show. Andrew Wilder and Greg Sowizdrzal were behind the effective projections. And Erik Carstensen was spot-on regarding the sound design, which ranges from chirping birds to bombing raids.

Golabek, unfortunately, is not a polished actor.

Her impersonations of minor characters don’t ring with authenticity, and her body movements are typically a bit severe. One sequence in which she tries to emulate some folks she’s encountered is particularly awkward.

Still, the poignant, emotional and haunting storyline overcomes any defects.

There have been tons of stories about musicians and the Nazis, including “The Pianist,” an extraordinary film. But this one tends to be better than most.

It made me cry.And bemoan the fact that Holocaust deniers still exist.

It also convinced me Golabek has skillfully underscored a meaningful Jewish mantra, “Never forget!”

In an even broader sense, though, the play is a love story — Mona Golabek’s heartfelt tribute to her mother, to hope, and to music.

Clearly, it’s stirring. And inspirational.“The Pianist of Willesden Lane” plays at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre‘s Thrust Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley, through Jan. 5. Night performances, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays and Sundays, 7 p.m. Matinees, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $14.50 to $89, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.

 

To say Sierra Salin is unconventional is to state the obvious.

According to a character-reference by former Fairfax Mayor Pam Hartwell-Herrero, it “might be easy to look at him as some sort of wacky, offbeat, troublemaker.”

But that, she said, is because “he challenges the status quo, makes us think about our role in community, and always brings a smile and fresh insight to the dialogue.”

He tells me he’s primarily a carpenter and artist.

But he’s also a photographer, jewelry-maker, environmentalist, documentary filmmaker and playful inventor of words.

Sierra, added Hartwell-Herrero, “is a wonderful family man…ever present at town gatherings and important meetings. He is a…good person who cares deeply for the planet and all the creatures living on it. He volunteers his time on campaigns that benefit the town.”

I find it tough to encapsulate him.

The physical part is easy: He sports shoulder-length, curly dark hair and a bushy gray beard. A gold tooth shines from the rear of his mouth when he smiles.

But when he declares, “I never grew up,” he’s not referring to his six-foot stature.

It’s his man-child passions I can’t boil down.

He usually writes on medical forms, “I am allergic to bureaucracy.”

He frequently scratches that itch.

A recent protest by the midlifer targeted a tower that would facilitate more cell phones. “Why are we filling the air with electrosmog?” he asked.

His street theater in Fairfax Festival parades have included a Styrofoam drone augmented by 20-foot high “homeland insecurity” surveillance cameras; a mock nuclear reactor spewing dry-ice radiation fumes; and a “plastic drag,” a “visual and visceral” statement about waste and environmental destruction.

When I asked about his first protest, he friskily replied, “When somebody didn’t give me milk.”

As we sit now on a log in Bolinas Park, conversationally flitting like fireflies escaping a real blaze, he tells me he recently moved, a stone’s throw from his old place (if you have a strong arm).

But when I first chatted with him, in his old Fairfax backyard a year ago, I ascertained he superimposes original thinking on familiar subjects. He’d created, for instance, a “peace is patriotic” pinball machine for the 2011 Marin County Fair.

His environmental focus seems ingrained, I decided — then and now.

He drives his car “as little as possible,” for example, opting to ride his bicycle.

And he fulminates: “We’ve got fracking here, Fukushima there, we’ve got Gulf Oil spills, we’ve got genetically modified organisms everywhere. I’m really, really distressed about the future.”

When he needs to escape, he puts on headphones and stares at stars. “I like solitude and my own space,” he tells me.

Outside his former home, he cherished his gardens and beehives. Inside, he surrounded himself with what others might call clutter.

I was particularly taken with his wife’s weaving-looms and their huge Buddha (“just your basic garage-sale find”). But Sierra is nothing if not eclectic, unattached to a single dogma. Miniature kitchen flags represented major religions plus Sufi, Gaia, Om, Native Americans.

Fascinating, too, were frames filled with photos of his mother and her shadow.

His art, forever scattered, falls into a pigeonhole of “whatever strikes me in the moment.”

While comforting, neither artwork nor protests are relaxing. So he unwinds by singing tenor in a barbershop quartet, and by playing dulcimer and guitar.

He’s a Drake High grad who attended two colleges and earned certification as an EMT, which he practiced for years. He’s proud he’s “been physically and vocally involved in the schools — Manor and White Hill — and my community for years.”

Sierra was born Lothar Norber George Salin in Marin General but toyed with his moniker ever since. He switched to Sierra, although he sometimes sports Shinybright now, because he adores the land “between Truckee and Whitney.”

Occasionally he uses Tunafish as a middle name. “People remember it,” he says.

His name-switches occasionally bring trouble — and First Amendment tilting at judicial windmills. Such as a skirmish with El Dorado County traffic officials who cited him for using a pseudonym, “Love Heals.”

Ultimately, he was sentenced to 32 hours of community service.

He once signed checks “Bush Sucks!” — “out of frustration with the state of America and the world.” He acknowledges that was “a little confrontational.”

He once stood in front of Good Earth with a dried-out Christmas tree and sixty $2 bills he distributed while suggesting passersby “do something for someone else.”  Many folks, suspicious, ignored him.

He once walked into a police station and said he wanted “to turn myself in because society is a menace to me.” “Scram,” they said.

When I asked, “How do we change the world?” he responded: “Love each other.”

It’s still obvious that the more he talks, the more I agree. Maybe I’m just a bit wacky, eclectic and playful, too.