August 2, 2002 The significance of writer-performer Stacie Chaiken's last name being derived from the Russian word for bird occurred to her after she heard the legend of an ancient, wandering Hebrew tribe being followed by a bird that never lands. It has wings, a rabbi of yore explained, but no feet to settle with. This legend struck a chord with the svelte redhead, who, in her young life, has lived in 42 houses in 17 cities in five countries.   Chaiken's aching hunger for home drives her performance, based on her quest to "find" her great-grandfather, Louie—an enigmatic figure about whom nobody in her family would speak... The mystery unfolds over decades via Chaiken's recollections of her fastidious research, tenacious badgering of her relatives (taped telephone calls and videotaped interviews, broadcast on the stage), and documents from, and visits to, New York's lower East Side, where Louie once roamed. The saga traverses four generations, touches on Jewish immigration to America from Russia at the turn of the last century, and homes in on the theme of tschuva (the Hebrew word for something between reconciliation and forgiveness).    Chaiken's beautiful writing strategically proffers up pieces of bone and tooth in a scintillating anthropological dig...          —Steven Leigh Morris