If there are two things Jews are known for, it’s theatre and psychological issues. But did you know those two things closely overlap to the point of being exactly the same? You probably did!  But just in case you didn’t, here’s a list of why watching a contemporary play is exactly the same as a Jewish family going to therapy.

1. It’s mostly a bunch of  multigenerational Jews whining.

You can take years of classes about breaking playwriting down to its fundamentals: structure, beats, dialogue, arc, etc. But let me save you thousands of dollars: at their core, plays are about Jews whining. Even if the play is about WASPs or blue collar Southerners struggling with their repressed homosexuality during a sweltering Texas summer (the only other groups of people contemporary plays are about), odds are it’s written and/or directed by a Jewish person. And even if there are no Jews within a hundred mile radius, all plays are about people complaining, which is a popular Jewish pastime.

2. Everyone projects (their emotions).

No one will ever address their issues head-on. In plays, everything must be “subtextual,” which is theatre lingo for “passive-aggressive.”  No one in a play or in therapy will ever say “My father’s death unearthed a lot of conflicting feelings for me, especially since I was a young man struggling with his sexual identity who never felt truly accepted by his family. That is why I spent six years wandering the Midwest and never reaching out to my family.” They’ll just say something like “You forgot your bag” with a strange amount of tension. That’s how you know it’s not really about the bag.

If you need more examples of passive-aggressiveness or subtext, call your mother. If you still remember her number. And God forbid you visit.

3. Everyone projects (their voices).

In plays, actors must speak to the back row of a 1,000+ seat theater. Jews also speak to the back row of a 1,000+ seat theater, even if they are sitting in a small office in Westchester or at the grocery store or a funeral. There are a lot of techniques actors use to prevent vocal damage from all that loud talking, but Jewish families know the trick is to start early and do it often.

4. It can cost between $40 to  $200+.

It depends on your insurance.

5. It costs extra if Nathan Lane is there.

Nathan Lane is a huge box office draw. He’s a star of both stage and screen. Even people from Iowa know who he is. Right now, he’s starring as Roy Cohn in Angels in America for a limited engagement on Broadway, but if you want to book him for your therapy session, act fast and expect to pay a premium. This is Nathan Lane we’re talking about.

6. The chairs probably aren’t comfortable.

They’re not torture devices, but still, if you had a choice between this chair and a different chair, you’d probably choose a different one.

7. Everyone is unbearable.

I mean, really, ugh, who wants to hear about these people for hours? Could they be more self-pitying?  They grew up comfortably middle-class! Why are they complaining so much? Do they have any perspective at all about what some people go through? Their grandparents lived through the Holocaust for God’s sake! UGH, now the sister has a monologue? Is she seriously talking about her cat and her 10th birthday party? Why can’t she just let it go and move on like a normal person? Jesus Christ. How much longer is this thing?

8. The people around you are crying and you’re not.

If this piece of art or therapy session is connecting with other audience members or your own family in a way that it’s simply not connecting with you, it might make you feel like you’re emotionally dead inside.  What are you missing? Are you simply a broken person? Should you broach the issue, air your fears? No, not in front of them. They’re either strangers (if you’re at a play) or your family (if you’re in therapy), neither of whom you want to be vulnerable in front of. Rationalize why you’re not moved. No one actually feels genuine emotions. It’s certainly not a personal failing or something to be worked on in another session.

9. If no one reveals an earth-shattering secret, then there is no point.

People spend years ruminating over other people’s flaws as well as their own. This includes fictional character archetypes as well as your loved ones, whom you hate and whom ruined your life. So what’s the point of listening to other people hash out well-trodden psychological issues, which have doubtlessly been discussed to death on stage or in an office in New Jersey? For the earth-shattering secret, of course! Keep pushing until an emotionally-charged announcement shifts everyone’s perspective about everything. The son was dead all along! The son never existed in the first place! The son was the mysterious cowboy! You should feel crushed under the secret’s terrible, all-consuming weight. All the sacred truths that you took for granted should vanish, leaving you cold and empty and confused.

And if that doesn’t happen, then get your money back.

10. The likelihood of a permanent life-change is nil.

You might leave thinking “Wow, that was a revelation. It made me rethink my whole life. I am a changed person.” But you’re not, and you never will be.

Photo via Wikimedia

The post 10 Reasons Why Contemporary Plays Are The Same As Jewish Family Therapy appeared first on Jewcy.

The think piece economy is booming, and we’re all scrambling for a cut. But what pieces are left unthought? How can I differentiate my voice from the thousands of others, especially when I don’t have an original perspective or care about anything?

So I decided to go for quantity, not quality, and churn out a bunch of ideas in one place. It’s great because neither you nor I need to commit to any one concept long-term. What’s cooler than think pieces? Listicles. And what’s better than listicles? Combining think pieces and listicles into one stunning-awful monster that’s sure to be the Next Big Thing.

1. Where Are The Jews in Disney? How Should We All Feel About That?

There are no Jewish Disney princesses and there are a disproportionate amount of blondes (but that’s a think piece for another day). Then again, there are a lot of groups missing from the Disney princess demographic, so maybe the lack of Jews is OK for now? But on the other hand it doesn’t feel right. But on the third hand I don’t think it matters all that much. Or does it? There. I just wrote a think piece, and you just read one, and we are all the smarter for it.

2. Spongebob Squarepants Didn’t Use Anti-Semitic Tropes And That’s Cool

With the musical now on Broadway, it’s a good time to remember that they could have easily made the stingy Mr. Krabs an anti-Semitic caricature but they didn’t! Good for them, especially since crabs are not kosher, so that would have been Problematic on two levels. Think-piece’d! Boom! Knocking them out.

3.  Reflections of a New York Jew Who Has Never Seen a Woody Allen Movie

I’m serious! I have never seen one Woody Allen movie, not even Antz. I grew up in a household with most of Woody Allen’s movies on VHS. I just never got around to watching them. Can you believe it? And now it’s, like, too late and I wouldn’t feel good watching them. Now is the part where I embellish the cultural push and moral pull I feel about this and end with a poignant conclusion about how ultimately it’s a personal choice about which lines we draw to separating creators from their work— or not. Also, I just don’t watch a lot of movies.

4.  Enough With The Sympathetic Nazi Puff Pieces

Like all Jewish families, my parents sat me down at a very young age and played White Supremacist Flashcards with me. I remember learning the difference between Halloween ghosts and Klansmen, and looking for that tell-tale red armband that all Nazis were required to wear. But times have changed and now Nazis are no longer legally required to identify themselves. They can be anyone! I know progressives trip over themselves to show how empathetic and open-minded they are, but come on. It would be one thing if the tones of the articles were like “This Nazi Broke Into Your Sick Grandma’s Cottage, Ate Her, Stole Her Clothes, And Is Using Her Reddit Account to Post Racist and Anti-Semitic Memes, So Be Careful!” but instead they’re like “This Handsome Lad Advocates Ethnic Cleansing And On Weekends He Sells Organic Apple Pipes in Williamsburg. Here’s Where You Can Buy Them.”

5. Rachel Bloom’s “Chanukah Honey”: A Funny Video Or A Dangerous Perpetuation of Anti-Semitic Tropes?

The first choice. It’s amazing. Watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U0k_vHxc2k

6. What Mara Wilson and Jason Robert Brown’s Twitter Tiff Can Teach Us About Gender Dynamics in Cultural Judaism

Mara Wilson recently shared her opinions about Jason Robert Brown on Twitter and it was AMAZING and Jason Robert Brown found out either because someone snitched or because he searches twitter for his own name! I could write a feminist take on this but I simply don’t have the time! I just wanted to share this because TMZ did not report it.

7. Why Poe Dameron Is The Hottest Jewish Pilot In The Star Wars Universe

Poe Dameron isn’t Jewish but imagine how good it would feel if he were. Imagine.

8.  No, Seriously, I Don’t Need to Tour a Neo-Nazi’s Portland Loft/Pickens Trailer/Everything In Between

We get that Nazis aren’t eight-limbed sewer creatures that can only survive on earth’s surface in the dead of night! But that doesn’t mean we need an 8,000-word profile about a dapper young Nazi who’s polite to waiters and volunteers for Church fundraisers!

9. What Twilight Taught Me About Judaism

When I turned to the first page of Twilight, eyes rolling with smug elitism, I did not expect to undergo a spiritual journey. Not many people know that Stephanie Meyer’s father was a rabbi and each book corresponds to a significant event in Jewish history, beginning with Bella Shaina Swan’s Exodus from the dry desert of Arizona to Forks, Washington. I’m sorry! I made all this up! Stephanie Meyer’s Mormon! Bella’s middle name is Marie! Think pieces are hard, actually!

10. Being a Vegan on Chanukah (and a Bonus Awesome Vegan Latke Recipe!)

I am not actually vegan, but I think traditional latkes inherently are, so just use a basic latke recipe but do not add animal products to it. I is don’t actually know what I’m talking about, but vegan pieces are hip, right? (Mr. Buzzfeed, if you’re reading this, I’m cool with the trends and up on youth lingo, even though I’m not vegan!)

11. 15 Times Bernie Sanders Was The Wokest Bae

I can’t do this.

Image by Gabriela Geselowitz, from KnowYourMeme and Public Domain Pictures

The post The Most Important Jewish Think Piece (Ideas) appeared first on Jewcy.

In the aftermath of Trump’s election, there has been no shortage of topical, ultra-relevant stage productions. To name a few, this past year brought us The Public Theater’s controversial Julius Caeser, an off-Broadway production of 1984, a concert production of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, a limited engagement transfer of Angels in America, and, of course, the upcoming Mean Girls musical.

My question is, where is Parade?

Parade is a 1998 musical about the hanging of Leo Frank, a Jewish man living in Georgia, accused in 1913 of killing a 13-year old girl. Although Leo Frank was originally sentenced to death, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment based on overwhelming evidence that he was wrongfully convicted. Before he could be cleared further, he was kidnapped from his jail cell and lynched.

Parade touches on all the pressure points of America in crisis: dark, xenophobic nationalism; boiling racial tensions and anti-semitism; the resentment between rural Southerners and urban Northerners; the dangers of fake news and mob mentality.

On top of that, it’s a masterpiece. Credit Alfred Uhry, the Atlanta-born Jewish book writer, and composer Jason Robert Brown (New York Jewish). Jewish theatre writers are common, but the hanging of Leo Frank is a significant piece of Jewish history—it inspired the founding of the Anti-Defamation League—so it’s especially important that it is rendered by Jews.

There was a special concert revival of the show in 2012, but that was a lifetime ago. Obama was president. White nationalist rallies were generally frowned upon. Conversations about Nazis didn’t end with smug centrist “Well, aren’t people who hate Nazis just as bad as real Nazis?”

The show opens with a rousing patriotic hymn sung by a young Confederate soldier. “Old Red Hills of Home” doesn’t work if there is any East Coast liberal elite judginess about what the Civil War was really about, and to his credit, Jason Robert Brown keeps it earnest. Form the soldier’s perspective, he is not fighting for slavery or hatred or love of violence. He is fighting for values, for “a way of life that’s pure/[For] the truth that must endure.” (You know, these values and purity were rooted in the belief that people could be property, but that’s for the audience to bring to the material.)

Flashforward to 1913. The soldier has lost his leg and the South has lost the war, but neither have lost their pride. Their fierce protectiveness for their way of life and their bitter hatred for the North have only intensified. Most of the city is excited to celebrate Confederate Memorial Day, except Leo Frank, a Jewish Brooklyn transplant. Four years prior, wife’s uncle offered him a great job running a pencil factory but, as Leo laments, “I should have known it pays so much because you have to move to Atlanta to do it.”

He remarks to his wife “Confederate Memorial Day is asinine. Why would anyone want to celebrate losing a war?” (Right?) His wife, Lucille, doesn’t share his attitude. She is Georgian born and raised, and proud of it. To Leo, Atlanta is “the land that time forgot.”

Leo’s song, “How Could I Call This Home?” highlights his wry Jewish humor and outsider status.  “These people make no sense, I live in fear they’ll start a conversation,” he says. Even his connection to Judaism is strained: “These Jews are not like Jews/I thought that Jews were Jews but I was wrong.” His wife would prefer that he say “howdy, not shalom.”

From there, things move quickly: An young employee of the pencil factory, Mary Phagan, is found dead in the basement, Leo Frank is the immediate suspect, and a desperate reporter, Britt Craig, leaps on the story.

The city is out for blood. They want justice, and they want it fast. Suspicion falls on Leo and keeps piling up, regardless of whether it’s based on fact. As Craig points out, Leo is an educated Jew from Brooklyn, an easy target to villainize in Georgia. Craig deals in anti-Semitic caricatures: “Give him fangs, give him horns, give him scaly, hairy palms.” It sells papers, it gets clicks—what else matters?

At the trial, from a combination of false testimony and playing on the emotions of the white, Southern jury, Frank is sentenced to death. The city celebrates with yet another parade.

As Leo awaits his death, Lucille has no choice but to spread his story outside the city. Atlanta is divided on racial lines, with members of each group looking out for each other, and Lucille and Leo belong to neither. (There is an uncomfortable caveat to Parade: Historically, Jim Conley, an African-American man, was most likely Phagan’s murderer. The show’s writers attempt to balance his presumed guilt with the fear of violence the black citizens of Georgia lived under constantly, contrasted with the far rarer historical anecdotes of violence against Jews.)

Public pressure reaches Governor John M. Slaton and he decides to re-examine Leo’s case. With Lucille’s help, they gather enough evidence to have Leo’s sentence commuted. Leo and Lucille hope he will eventually be exonerated.

But the public outcry, the new evidence, the redacted testimony, the judicial system—none of that matters to the city and surrounding neighborhoods. They are convinced that a Jewish outsider assaulted and murdered an innocent child.  In the middle of the night, a mob of angry men break into Leo’s cell, kidnap him, and lynch him.

After Leo’s murder, Lucille chooses to stay in Georgia, which she still considers her home. When Confederate Memorial Day rolls around again, Lucille watches the parade. The show is mostly devoid of reprises, but the first number, “Old Red Hills of Home” returns as the finale.  The lyrics don’t change, but  they are cast in a new harrowing light. What, exactly, do these proud citizens stand for? What is the “way of life that’s pure?” What does a parade really represent? The final image of Confederate flags flying across the stage in a militaristic parade evokes a chill today that they wouldn’t have five years ago, let alone in 1998 when the show opened on Broadway.

Parade is not a crowd-pleaser. In fact, it closed after 84 performances despite good reviews and nine Tony nominations (it won two: Best Book and Best Score). It’s a bleak musical, but it’s derived from bleak history, and we’re living through a bleak present. (And as for casting, Jewish two-time Tony nominee Brandon Uranowitz really wants to play Leo Frank.)

There’s never been a better time to bring Parade back in any capacity, and we can only hope that it is never more relevant than it is now.

Image via Musical Theatre International

The post Bring Back ‘Parade’ appeared first on Jewcy.

There might come a time when Angels in America is irrelevant. 2017 isn’t that year. I expect the next three years to be locks as well.

But that’s OK, because isn’t it a magnificent work? Written by Tony Kushner and filled with Jewish imagery (as well as Christian and even a surreal Mormon animatronic puppet show), the Pulitzer-prize winning Angels in America is a seminal notch on the bedpost of Jewish theatrical achievement.

…

Jewcy is on a summer residency! To read this piece, and our others for July and August 2017, go to our big sister site, Tablet Magazine!

The post ‘Angels in America,’ Featuring Trump’s Mentor Roy Cohn, Captures the National Mood appeared first on Jewcy.

The Divine Miss M seems to be recovering nicely from losing Jewish Celeb Madness.

Was there ever any question that Bette Midler in Hello, Dolly! would be anything other than an Experience? And since I saw it one day before opening night, wouldn’t it be silly for me, a humble Standing Room Only patron, to join the parade of rave reviews and bandy about words like “legend” and “star charisma?” For months, the words “Bette Midler. Hello, Dolly! What more do you need to know? Oh yeah: Telecharge” haunted my waking hours. That damn black screen advertisement showed up every time I watched something on YouTube. But eventually, I managed to see it (chairs are overrated).

Bette Midler was really good, guys.

Bette aside for a moment, Hello, Dolly! is a 1960’s Broadway musical so of course its creative team (Michael Stewart and Jerry Herman) is Jewish. One would assume that Dolly, the meddler of Yonkers, widow of one Ephraim Levi, brought to screen by Barbra Streisand, is patently Jewish, too.

But she’s not (necessarily)! As Jesse Green points out, there’s a long list of Dolly actresses who were not Jewish themselves and did not portray her as Jewish. In that same article, Tovah Feldshuh and Carol Channing discuss their differing portrayals of Dolly Levi. Whereas the non-Jewish Carol Channing plays Dolly as Jewish, Tovah Feldshuh plays Dolly as a 12-sibling, Irish potato famine emigré who “learned some things about Judaism, but she’s as Christian as she was 20 years ago.” After all, Feldshuh points out, Dolly’s maiden name is Gallagher.

Channing disagrees: “See, from my own personal experience, I’ve found that you turn Jewish when you’re married to a Jew.”

Feldshuh also makes repeated references to how she could “not afford” to play Dolly as Jewish. Channing doesn’t understand what she means; after all, Of course, saying that Gallagher is an Irish surname would have been a sufficient explanation.

But I could wager a guess: Feldshuh might be suggesting that playing Dolly as Jewish and being Jewish herself would be too much of a risk, something about which Channing does not have to worry. She may be worried she would be “too Jewish?”— That she would alienate an audience by injecting too much Judaism in a not-explicitly-Jewish play.

However, whatever it may mean, Midler can sure afford to both play Dolly as Jewish and be Jewish herself. With the sheer force of her charisma, Midler could take a hatchet to the set and a blowtorch to the Shubert and still get thunderous applause.

As for the rest of the show: it was delightful, old-timey musical fun, with much the same spirit as last season’s She Loves Me, but even grander. Speaking of She Loves Me, Gavin Creel passed on his weird mustache from that production to David Hyde Pierce, who is hilarious in Dolly as the stern Mr. Vandergelder. Creel plays the 33-year old virgin Cornelius, and he and Taylor Trensch as Barnaby make a delightful pair. (Side note: wouldn’t Nicholas Barasch be a great Barnaby? Wouldn’t he?)

Kate Baldwin is a feisty Irene Molloy, and Beanie Feldstein is adorable as  Minnie Faye. I just found out that she’s Jonah Hill’s sister but I won’t let that affect my judgment. The sets are beautiful, and the stunning reveal of Harmonia Gardens elicited gasps. There is also a moving train car and a dancing horse. What more do you need to know?

The bare black-screen commercials are right, but at this point, good luck getting tickets through Telecharge. For what it’s worth, standing behind the back row of the orchestra is not a bad view.

Photo by Julieta Cervantes, via Playbill.

The post Shalom, Dolly! appeared first on Jewcy.

I don’t usually read romance novels, since I don’t believe in love, the indulgence of fantasy, or any activity from which people derive pleasure. Kidding! In all seriousness, though, I don’t usually read romance novels, but when a bargain e-book newsletter promoted Learning to Love: An Enemies to Lovers Contemporary Gay Romance by Felice Stevens, I thought feh, why not. It’s 99 cents.

It was the summary, not the title, that convinced me: “Bad boy Gideon Marks is counting on his new catering job at a synagogue to prove he’s not the failure everyone predicted. But when his high school crush — now Rabbi Jonah Fine — ignites long-buried feelings, Gideon will have to face his past and rethink his future in this spellbinding read. “

Interesting! How much gay Jewish representation is in romance novels, especially erotica? Well, some, but it’s easier to come by, say, Amish representation (and there are way more of us in the United States). Even in fan fiction, you’d be hard-pressed to find a rabbinic AU. In fanfic, everyone is either a barista, librarian, professor, or high-fantasy prince. Never a rabbi.

Gideon the caterer is the moody narrator who returns to his hometown to prove he overcame his rough upbringing. He especially wants to stick it to condescending know-it-all Jonah, the Rabbi’s son. But he also wants to stick it to Jonah, if you know what I mean.

Turns out,  the feeling is mutual. There isn’t much of the enemies-to-lover subtitle. Gideon has lingering feelings of resentment for a page or two, but by page ten they’re consummating their relationship.

But problems abound! Gideon storms off about something every other page. Sometimes he’s upset about his dyslexia, or how his father left him when he was young, or how he doesn’t feel he’s good enough for Jonah. If I sound cold and unsympathetic, it’s because these issues aren’t treated as anything more than reasons for Gideon to storm off.

Luckily, Rabbi Jonah is endlessly patient, forgiving, and willing to put up with endless tantrums. His father, also a rabbi, is totally cool with him being gay, which is a nice change from garment-rending homophobia that typically plagues religious gay narratives. In fact, Jonah’s problem is way more traditional— he’s taking over as Rabbi, and he’s worried that his congregants will never love him as much as they love his father.

There isn’t a lot of in-depth exploration of Judaism or what it means to be Jewish. But there are a lot of casual mentions of Judaism: nosy, matchmaking synagogue grandmothers; Jewish cuisine; bar mitzvahs and important Hanukkah dinners; Rabbi angst. There’s some talk about what it means to be a Rabbi, such as:

“Spoken like a true rabbi looking for a higher meaning in simple words.”

He grinned and grabbed my ass, giving it a hard squeeze. “The only worshipping this rabbi will be doing tonight is of your body.”

It must be a Reform synagogue.

At the very end, Jonah announces plans for an interfaith social justice committee. Almost immediately, someone sets fire to the temple. Here we get some after-school-special dialogue, which while trite is sadly more relevant now than when it was published half a year ago:

“Who would do such a thing to us? We’ve never had problems before…Occasionally we’ve had hate mail from people; the usual ‘go away, Jew’ but I’ve always dismissed i as ignorance.”

“It isn’t you. It’s them. It’s a combination of fear that the world is changing around them and they can’t accept that not everyone thinks or looks like them, and ignorance because they are listening to the old hatred and prejudices they grew up with instead of opening their eyes and their minds.”

But then the novel quickly wraps up with a happy ending and epilogue. I don’t expect romance novels to be paragons of great writing, and Learning to Love met my expectations. It’s fine. I’ve read better fanfic. I’ve also read worse.

I would only recommend Learning to Love if you’re interested in the novelty factor of the relatively uncornered niche market of gay Jewish pulp erotica. And, if you want a different salad of romance tropes with Jewish dressing, other Felice Stevens novels feature such characters as Micah Steinberg, Josh Rosen, and Daniel Friedman, although I can’t personally attest to the other novels’ Jewishness beyond the names.

Plus, I’m sure they’re all better love stories than Twilight.

Image via Jessie G Books

The post The Gay Jewish Romance Novel You Never Knew Existed appeared first on Jewcy.

The Jewishness of Falsettos isn’t apparent in its summary: a man named Marvin leaves his wife, Trina, and son, Jason, to be with his male lover, Whizzer, even though he still wants everyone to have dinner together. It’s awkward. To help with the awkwardness, Marvin sees a psychiatrist, who then becomes Trina’s and Jason’s therapist, and later marries Trina. That’s also awkward, but not as awkward as you would think.

The current Broadway production is a revival of William Finn and James Lapine’s 1992 musical, and it still pulls no punches. The unabashed Jewishness first strikes with its opening number, “Four Jews in a Room Bitching” (actually five, counting Trina), a playfully self-deprecating celebration of Jewish neuroses. The men sport Biblical robes and beards before ripping off their costumes to reveal late 70’s-era attire. Lyrics include “Now we’re at the Red Sea/Pharaoh is behind us/Wanting us extinct-ed/And then the Red Sea/Split before us/No more tsouris!” and “I’m neurotic, he’s neurotic/They’re neurotic, we’re neurotic/Bitch bitch bitch bitch/Funny funny funny funny.”

Based on its opening number, you’d expect a cast of over-the-top, insufferable Jerry Seinfeld- and Woody Allen-types, but with the exception of Brandon Uranowitz, none of the cast members are Jewish. As the therapist Mendel Weisenbachfeld, Uranowitz both channels Chip Zien, the role’s originator, and adds his own distinct charm with his wry Jewish delivery of the book’s wry Jewish humor.

As for the others? Christian Borle isn’t Jewish—or gay, although he sure has a habit of getting cast as such. Whizzer is played by Andrew Rannells, a Midwestern Catholic schoolboy whose breakthrough role was a Mormon. (To be fair, Whizzer self-identifies as only “half-Jewish.”) Stephanie J. Block (Trina), was also raised Catholic and, despite his last name, Anthony Rosenthal is only a quarter Jewish.

Despite the opening number, the first act of Falsettos could be an ethnically generic family drama. It’s in the second act that Jewish references hit full-force—hard to avoid when a major plotline is planning a bar mitzvah.

For the first half of the second act, Judaism is treated with classic self-deprecating humor. One song is about “watching Jewish boys who cannot play baseball.”

“It’s weird how he swings the bat,” Marvin moans, “and why does he have to throw like that?”

Mendel implores Jason to “Remember Sandy Koufax…take heart from Hank Greenberg/It’s not genetic.” With a little intervention from the half-Jewish Whizzer, Jason hits the ball and scores a strike, or some good baseball thing that I don’t understand.

But more important than baseball is Jason’s bar mitzvah, which Marvin and Trina contentiously plan. “It’s the last loving thing we’ll ever do together,” Trina says, but they argue over everything, from catering to the guest list.

Jason would rather cancel the bar mitzvah than hear his parents fight over it. It’s supposed to be a “celebration where [he gets] richer,” and his parents are ruining it. They treat him to the familiar guilt trip of “You are gonna kill your mother/Don’t feel guilty, kill your mother/Rather than humiliate her/Killing your mother is the merciful thing to do.”

It could just be confirmation bias, but Borle and Block don’t quite capture the Jewishness of the guilt trip, but Uranowitz more than makes up for it. It’s the distinctly Jewish Mendel who comforts Jason with “Everybody hates his parents—that’s in the Torah!” and who argues that Marvin and Trina should just “throw a simple party/Religion’s just a trap that ensnares the weak and the dumb/Stop with the prayers.”

“How can you stop with prayers at a bar mitzvah?” Trina counters, yet Trina and Marvin also seem to be more cultural and secular than religious. (Isn’t that always the case with Bar Mitzvah stories? 13 the musical is similarly areligious, despite the Bar Mitzvah plotline.)

Halfway through, the show takes a dark turn: Whizzer comes down with a mysterious illness. The disease is clearly HIV, but at the time the second act takes place, 1981, it’s a nameless killer.

With Whizzer dying, Trina and Marvin offer Jason the choice of canceling the bar mitzvah. Jason is naive enough to believe Whizzer will get better and he wants to wait until then. It’s the pragmatic Mendel who tells Jason: “We can’t be sure he’ll ever get better, when or if he’ll ever get better…so what we’ll do is your decision.” But Jason doesn’t want to decide and, distressed, he runs off.

Mendel asks Trina: “Why don’t we tell him that we don’t have the answers…Tell him things happen for no damn good reason/That his lack of control kills what’s best in his soul and that this is the start to his becoming a man.”

The bar mitzvah is no longer a sitcommy plotline, but a device to show Jason’s growth. For the first time in his life, Jason prays to God: “Hello, God, I don’t think we’ve ever really spoken.” He promises to have a bar mitzvah if God saves Whizzer.

Suffice it to say, that doesn’t happen, and Jason finally makes his decision: he will have his bar mitzvah in Whizzer’s hospital room. From a guest list of 200, the party is whittled down to seven. Jason is called to the Torah as “son of Marvin, son of Whizzer, son of Trina, and son of Mendel.” It’s an unconventional arrangement, especially for the time period, to say nothing of the fighting and heartache that led up to that moment. But their differences are put aside for a joyous celebration of life and family, devoid of the superficialities that so seemed important at first. Whizzer dies shortly after.

Heavy-handed? Yeah. Borderline emotionally manipulative? A bit. Did I sob anyway? You bet. Using a bar mitzvah to show a boy’s emotional maturation in the face of family tragedy might be too on the nose, but Falsettos—the book, the cast, and in particular Anthony Rosenthal’s performance—earns enough emotional currency to get away with it. And, to be fair, I doubt Falsettos was “heavy-handed” when it first premiered, an early show to deal with the AIDS crisis. If there are some moments that chafe on my cynicism, it’s more a mark on me than on a wholly beautiful, still-resonant show.

Plus, how often do you see a meaningful Bar Mitzvah in entertainment, really, beyond a symbolic shrug that a boy is reaching maturity, or a one-off joke? It doesn’t even have its own TV Tropes page.

Image by Joan Marcus

The post ‘Falsettos’ And The Very Important Bar Mitzvah appeared first on Jewcy.

Who doesn’t love an anti-hero? Sure, they’re not paragons of virtue. They may lack basic morals. They hurt a lot of people, including their loved ones, and you wouldn’t want to know them in real life… but they make for great TV.

Now, in UnReal and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, women get their chance, not just as those boring housewives who care about the welfare of their family (ugh), but as harm-causing protagonists in and of themselves.

They happen to be Jewish, too.

“Happens to be Jewish” describes the main character of UnReal. Her name is Rachel Goldberg, she’s played by Shiri Appleby…That’s about it, to be honest. In an interview with Tribe Magazine, Appleby says, “Judaism isn’t a focus of the show… but Rachel is definitely a Jewish girl. You see the relationship with my mother… and in the second episode, I say, ‘Sheket b’vakasha [Quiet please].’”

Not exactly in-your-face representation. Perhaps that’s better since Rachel does reprehensible things. Her job is to create drama—essentially, to destroy people— for Everlasting, a reality TV show that is legally not The Bachelor. Her greatest asset is emotional acuity. She moves like Othello’s Iago, earning people’s trust, finding their insecurities, and orchestrating their breakdowns. She compels her victims to ruin their own lives on nationally broadcast television, and they don’t realize until it’s too late.

According to co-workers, Rachel’s skills come from her own instability (self-destructive tendencies, ambiguous personality disorder, requisite toxic relationships). It’s heavily implied that Rachel’s mental and emotional problems are caused by her mother, a psychiatrist who used “treatment” to control and abuse Rachel. Unfortunately, that’s the relationship with her mother that Appleby was referring to when she talked about the show’s Judaism.

UnReal is astoundingly on Lifetime, not HBO. The ensemble consists of beautiful women, not tough Jersey mafiosos.  Instead of a drug empire, Rachel has a mushy romance show, complete with horse-drawn carriages and ball gowns, but the UnReal writers openly aspire to the heights and depths of  The Sopranos, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad—and the critical consensus is, UnReal reaches them.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a musical comedy, so its tone is considerably lighter tone than UnReal’s. Rebecca comes off as cringe-inducing, not dangerous. Her vulnerability and often-addressed mental health issues make her relatable. However, away from the quirky charm, it’s easy to see how toxic Rebecca is. In any other show, Rebecca would be the, well, crazy ex-girlfriend. Here, she’s our protagonist—and it works, thanks to show creator/lead actress Rachel Bloom’s performance and the show’s willingness to address certain issues openly and with nuance. The narrative neither completely absolves nor condemns Rebecca Bunch’s actions, and the same is true of Breaking Bad and Walter White.

Like UnReal‘s Rachel, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Rebecca Bunch is an excellent manipulator and a consummate liar. (She’s a lawyer after all, ha ha.) When she runs into a long-ago summer camp fling, he mentions he’s moving to California, so she abandons her New York job and follows him, playing it off as a coincidence. Then, she insinuates herself into his life and wins over his friends with her helpfulness and and supposed altruism. Feigned compassion might be an occasional trick for male anti-heroes, but it’s Rachel’s and Rebecca’s M.O.

Unlike in UnReal, there’s no coyness about Rebecca’s heritage. The  career-driven, Ivy League-educated New York-based lawyer isn’t just coded as Jewish; it’s explicit. Not surprising, considering Rachel Bloom’s YouTube videos include “Chanukah Honey” (a parody of “Santa Baby”), and “You Can Touch My Boobies,” about a boy fantasizing about his Hebrew school teacher.

In one episode, Rebecca squares off against her lifelong rival. Their “JAP Rap Battle” is as densely packed as Hamilton’s “Cabinet Battle,” so listing all the Jewish references would be too much. Some noteworthy ones include:

• “Shebrews from Scarsdale”
• “Translating for the goys” what “shondeh” means
• “Sheket bavaka-shut the hell up.”
• “Should we shake hands/And erase the hate/Created by our mothers pitting us against each other/ for accolades and grades/ We were egged on like Seder plates.”

Apparently there’s no escaping the Jewish mother stereotype. Rebecca’s mother, Naomi (played by Tovah Feldshuh) made an earlier appearance in the Christmas episode (natch). Upon arrival, Naomi repeatedly demands to use the bathroom while criticizing Rebecca’s weight, apartment, job, home decor, appearance, and life choices. When Rebecca tries to respond, Naomi chastises her for interrupting.

At the end of the episode, Rebecca confronts her mother and says,  “If I ever have a kid, I will only care if they’re happy.” Naomi responds, “‘Happy?’ What’s ‘happy?’ …Our people are not about happy. We’re about survival. That is why I’m glad that you stood up to me. Because that means, when the Cossacks come, you can fight back.”

It’s far from a moment of redemption, it doesn’t quell the problematic Jewish mother stereotype—it may even exacerbate it— but these shows are not about feel-good moments or palatable role models. They’re about women who are as troubled as iconic male anti-heroes.

Rachel Goldberg first appears sprawled on a limo floor in a rumpled “THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE” T-shirt. It’s a tone-establishing, tongue-in-cheek visual: can feminism look like a dirty Jewish woman who does profoundly un-heroic things?

In a world full of Heisenberg t-shirts, yes.

A final note: I would be journalistically remiss to not mention Girls, so here I am, mentioning Girls.

Image credit: Rachel Bloom on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, via YouTube

The post Jewish Anti-Heroine Double Feature: ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ and ‘UnReal’ appeared first on Jewcy.

The Book of Mormon (the musical, not the scripture), opens with young Mormon missionary Elder Kevin Price trying to interest people in the holy Book of Mormon.  If a door-to-door missionary looked like Kevin Price—perfect hair, gleaming smile, all-American good looks—I would let him prattle about Jesus forever. As one of his peers gushes, Price is  the “smartest, best, most deserving Elder the world has ever seen.”

Other charming, put-together missionaries join in. They ring doorbells and sing in perfect harmony, smiling, complimenting houses, and praising their amazing holy book.

Then, the unkempt Elder Cunningham breaks the synchronicity, barging in and shouting: “HELLO WOULD YOU LIKE TO CHANGE RELIGIONS I HAVE A FREE BOOK WRITTEN BY JESUS!!!”

Price and Cunningham are a Mormon Odd Couple, a devoted Golden Boy partnered with a schlubby, loud, and shrill Star Wars nerd. Eventually, Cunningham reveals that he hasn’t even read the Book of Mormon, to Price’s horror. Together, they must go to Uganda to convert as many people to Mormonism as they can.

Andrew Rannells, whom Ben Brantley called a “human Ken doll,” originated the role of Elder Price on Broadway. Josh Gad—the voice of Olaf from Frozen, lest we forget—originated Elder Cunningham. Rannells went to an all-boys Catholic school in Omaha. Gad is Jewish, as was his understudy and eventual replacement Jared Gertner, as was Gertner’s understudy, Jon Bass (I could go on).

In the Chicago tour, the pair was played by Nic Rouleau, another Catholic school alumnus, and Ben Platt, another Jew. Although Platt deviates from the physical formula of previous Cunninghams (“You’re skinny, I’ll say it,” Rouleau says in an interview), he still looks more New York corned beef than Utah cornfield—in other words, visibly Jewish.

Gertner is the only actor to talk at length about how (at that time) every Elder Cunningham had been played by a Jewish person. In an interview with Jewish Journal, he explains, “Maybe if you’re looking for people who are very different from an all-American, uptight, very white, very blond person, then physically you’re going to look for a difference; maybe you’re going to find a Jewish person… And if there’s any Jewish humor in the show, it’s just humor that comes from us, because we actually all are Jewish.”

Sure, Jews are funny, but there are other types of people who look different than, say, Rannells and Rouleau. So why are Jews consistently cast as a Mormon? Is it anti-Semitism? Should we be offended?

Maybe—if the show’s character arcs didn’t end in brilliant subversion.

It turns out Price’s greatest asset in Utah is a liability in Uganda. He’s too full of his faith—and himself—to convince anyone to listen, let alone convert. His preaching of the “blonde-haired, blue-eyed voice of God” is profoundly tone-deaf (meaning “not receptive to his African audience.” Everyone who has played Elder Price sings beautifully). He bravely marches up to a warlord, confident that his faith will protect him. He is wrong.

On the other hand, Elder Cunningham breaks through to the Ugandans, not through strict adherence to the Scripture, but through creativity and adaptation. Unlike Price, he is willing to alter Mormon text to include problems like dysentery and AIDS, which are conspicuously absent from the original teachings. Cunningham starts as the comic relief and sidekick, but his weakness  in Utah—making things up—becomes his strength.

If  the embodiment of Mormonism starts out as a rigid literalist from the American Midwest heck-bent on converting as many people as possible, then clearly his physical—and ideological—opposite would be Jewish, or at least Jewish-coded.

Strangely, show-writers Trey Parker and Robert Lopez are not Jewish. The third writer, Matt Stone, is the exception, having a Jewish mother, though he identifies as Jewish only ethnically, and religiously as secular/agnostic.  Still, the show taps into Judaism’s inherent curiosity and questioning as a contrast to Price’s strict adherence to stories that, by his own admission, sometimes don’t make sense.

Yes, there is the immediate physical contrast of the Mormons’ perfect (usually light) hair and impeccable posture with the slouching Cunningham’s dark, wild Jewfro. There’s also the strong connection of Judaism and humor, as Gertner points out. But more important than the comedy of the mismatched duo is the musical’s message about faith.

At the end, a humbled Elder Price proclaims, “We are all Latter Day Saints, even if we change some things, or break the rules, or have complete doubt that God exists.” His new faith focuses on helping others, not his own personal glory. The conclusion wouldn’t be possible without the culture clash between not just the Americans and the Ugandans, but also between Price and Cunningham. When unquestioning faith fails, Price embraces what Cunningham represents: a fluid, realistic, but still hopeful religion—what Judaism happens to be known for.

That’s not to say that The Book of Mormon is like an inverted Jews for Jesus, trying to stealthily convince Mormons to become Jewish. The Book of Mormon ends with a message that is oddly both agnostic and faith-affirming. As irreverent as The Book of Mormon can be, at its heart is deep respect for whatever belief systems help create kinder, better people.

Image credits: Wikimedia and André-Pierre du Plessis via Flickr.

The post “Sefer Mormon”: What Jewish Casting Choices Mean appeared first on Jewcy.

Jews might not have invented neurosis, but we certainly perfected it. Dear Evan Hansen, the off-Broadway hit scheduled for a Broadway transfer, is the latest addition to what I like to call the Great Jewish-American Songbook of Sadness. In musical theater tradition, Dear Evan Hansen is about loneliness, isolation, desire, and the crushing weight of being alive. Also in musical theater tradition, it is steeped in subtle but unmistakable Jewish influences.

It would be easier to count how many important Broadway writers and composers aren’t Jewish. The balance is upheld by Dear Evan Hansen’s creative team, consisting of one Christian—Justin Paul (music and lyrics)—and two Jews: Benj Pasek (music and lyrics) and Steven Levenson (book). None of their previous works scream “Jewish,” although Pasek joined the ranks of Jews who wrote Christmas songs when he adapted A Christmas Story into a musical. Aside from a couple of quick references to bar mitzvah parties and getting to second base with an Israeli soldier, the characters in Dear Evan Hansen don’t have to be Jewish.  It’s not Fiddler.

But Ben Platt, the driving force on stage, is Jewish. Ben Platt has a history of playing lovable, lonely nerds who have a hard time fitting in. Most know him as Benji from both Pitch Perfect movies. At age 11, he starred in the national tour of Caroline, or Change as Noah Gellman, a Jewish boy in the 1960’s who has a close and complicated relationship with his black housekeeper. More recently, he played the (decidedly not Jewish) Elder Cunningham in Book of Mormon.

Platt is captivating when he becomes Evan Hansen. His tics, twitches, and nervous rambling that are all too familiar for the socially anxious. It is impossible to praise Platt enough, although critics have tried, for a performance that is so painfully and heart-wrenchingly raw that you can’t help but wonder how he can do that (once the show is over and you remember that he was acting).

In an interview with Metro Weekly, Platt credits his Jewish background as inspiration, explaining, “I had to base his social awkwardness more on people I’ve encountered in my life…I come from a big Jewish family and we all have our neuroses and our anxieties.”  And where does that voice come from? He adds, “We’re a very Jewish family, so we would sing a lot in synagogue, and at any bar mitzvah or wedding we always do a song together. “

Though anxiety is not unique to any culture or religion, Evan’s behavior is distinctly Jewish, particularly his use of humor as a coping mechanism. He goes off on rambling, rapid monologues that he injects with sly self-deprecation. Evan suffers, but he uses humor to cope and, like many Jews, he knows the best target is himself. Early on, he explains that he broke his arm trying “to climb this 40-foot tall oak tree but—it’s a funny story—there was a solid ten minutes after I fell where I was laying around, waiting for someone to come get me. I kept saying, any second now.”

“And nobody came?”

“No,” he finishes, “that’s what’s funny.”

There, he turns sadness into a laugh line: credit to Levenson for the joke and Platt for the delivery.

The moments where tragedy embraces humor, where Evan’s suffering gets a laugh—and he welcomes it, laughs along—are familiar in a culture known jointly for humor, suffering, and quirk. Jared, Evan’s family friend, also provides comic relief. His comedy takes a harder, meaner edge that is more like Lenny Bruce than Woody Allen, but his flippant wisecracks and occasional lewdness are greatly appreciated—and at times merciful—in a show that can be emotionally overwhelming. I don’t know if actor Will Roland is Jewish, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he were.

For all its tragedy, Dear Evan Hansen is not just filled with humor, it is also filled with hope.  Like the characters, the story is as universal as it is Jewish: struggling through rough times, coming out of them, growing. Take the Jewish “Easter eggs” away and you’re still left with Ben Platt’s tour de force, wonderful songs and characters, a resonant story, and a lot of used tissues.

Arielle Davinger likes TV, theater, and dogs. She is currently trying.

Image credit: Wikimedia

The post ‘Dear Evan Hansen’: The Latest Jewish Non-Jewish Musical appeared first on Jewcy.