By Jonah Raskin

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated waves of anxiety and depression, but it has also been a boom to creativity. The latter is the case with a San Francisco actor and playwright named Jeremy Julian Greco.

Greco thought he might lose it and go crazy at the height of the pandemic. When he looked around at Other Avenues, the co-op grocery where he works and co-owns, he saw customers “snapping.”

They snapped at him and at the other workers who tried to enforce the City’s rules and regulations about health, safety and sanitation that came down from Mayor London Breed’s office. Shoppers wanted their produce, and they wanted it fast.

“One day, I almost snapped,” Greco said. 

His near meltdown led him to create “The Big Snap,” a book published by HuskyBoyPress. “The Big Snap” is also the name of Greco’s one-man show that maps the pandemic in San Francisco. It also traces human responses to it, especially at Ocean Beach. 

Sealevel, a gallery on Irving Street in the Outer Sunset, hosts Greco’s one-man show in September.

He was not only stressed at work. Greco said he was also stressed at his home in the Outer Sunset, where he lives with his wife, two daughters and mother-in-law who suffers from dementia.

At no time during the pandemic did Greco actually snap. Instead, he did what gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, the author of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” urged his friends and followers to do: “When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.” That means keep a level head.

During the pandemic, Greco aimed to heal his own soul and to help heal his community that was hard hit by social distancing and isolation. He reached for a camera, tape recorder, notepads and pencils and went into the unknown, uncharted territory near and far.

He even interviewed his own daughters.

“It was kinda boring because you had to stay inside for a long time,” his daughter Iris told him. 

Juliana Greco, his other daughter, said: “I’m just a kid and I can’t make decisions by myself, because parents decide everything.”

Greco took 365 photos – one a day for a year – and interviewed 14 people in depth. He transcribed the interviews and selected the best parts, which he brings to his one-man show and to his newly published book. “The Big Snap” is a coffee table book. It boasts color photos of Ocean Beach, the Pacific, spectacular sunsets, big fluffy clouds, sand dunes, walkers, runners, fishermen and the Golden Gate Bridge.

The book also includes photos of the author himself – wearing a mask. 

At the front of the book, Greco writes, “I’m not your stereotypical Burning-Man-loving, tofu-eating individual. I don’t like crowds and drum circles (especially in a desert). I choose to eat meat and I drive a fossil fuel usage car.”

Greco’s theater piece is directed by Mark Kenward. Like the book, it is called “The Big Snap.” Greco will perform it in September at Sealevel. Jeana Loraine, the owner and operator of Sealevel, has turned her gallery into a community center. On weekends, it is used by painters, poets, musicians and playwrights, including Greco. He is a veteran of the stage who has performed solo shows – inspired in part by the work of Anna Deavere Smith – in San Francisco, Marin County, Dallas and elsewhere.

Loraine was born in Sacramento but spent much of her adult life in Switzerland. She and her Swiss husband settled in the Sunset District in San Francisco a decade ago. 

“One of the main ideas about Sealevel is to bring people together and strengthen the ties in the community,” she said. “Greco is a perfect fit.”

Like Smith, Greco embraces what is known as “documentary theater.” He crafts characters based on the interviews he conducts with real people. He uses body language, facial expressions and the rhythms of speech to bring them to life. 

As Greco discovered, the pandemic is in some ways ready-made for the stage. It offers dramatic moments, gut-wrenching scenes and colorful individuals, including San Francisco’s Republican Party mainstay, John Dennis, and Tony Cyprien, a storyteller par excellence and an advocate for social justice.

Dennis, Cyprien, plus six other real individuals, via the alchemy of Greco’s imagination, appear on stage as characters in “The Big Snap.” To watch Greco before a live audience is to witness the enduring magic of theater that not even a global pandemic has been able to stop. The show, as they say, must go on.

Performances are on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 22 and 23. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the show starts at 7 p.m. Sealevel is located at 4331 Irving St. For more information, call 415-848-9026 or email ahoy@sealevelsf.com.