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TagsDozens of Borscht Belt classics are served afresh by expert entertainers
BY MICHAEL SOMMERS
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
OFF BROADWAY REVIEW
Comfortable laughter constantly erupts for 90 mirthful minutes at the Westside Theater, where “Old Jews Telling Jokes” opened on Sunday.
A show that more or less hilariously lives up to its title, this sometimes smutty parade of vintage jokes – sex jokes, doctor jokes, ethnic jokes, lawyer jokes, marriage jokes, assimilation jokes, retirement jokes, desert island jokes; you name it, they joke about it – is not meant for kids, but everybody else is sure to get a kick out of hearing these Borscht Belt classics again.
“Oh, that’s so old,” repeatedly groaned a woman behind me, but she seemed delighted to hear the gags again anyway. (Don’t expect any free samples here: I am a gentile who can’t tell jokes, even in print.)
A major reason for such agreeably old-fashioned entertainment is that the veteran performers who expertly serve up the material are terrific.
Genial Lenny Wolpe, poker-faced Todd Susman and ever-raucous Marilyn Sokol dish out the vintage humor with sharp timing and characterizations. They are joined by the younger and personable likes of Audrey Lynn Weston and Bill Army, who brightly make with the yocks as well. Donald Corren nicely presides at an upright piano for a few musical interludes.
The performers relate the jokes singly or in tandem with others; sometimes teaming to tell the more involved anecdotes and at other times they go toe-to-toe with joke-offs. Susman’s shrugging version of “Ole Man River,” Sokol’s libidinous sheep in a castaway story and Wolpe’s bogus Locust Valley lockjaw accents are only a few among the entertainers’ memorable bits.
Oh, and Sokol tells a filthy joke about a parrot that now is forever burned in my brain …
Whatever they do and however they do it, all of the performers are mighty funny about it under director Marc Bruni’s snappy guidance. A couple of plastic-covered sofa pieces and some lower-tech video swiftly set the scenes for the slew of comedy bits neatly assembled by Peter Gethers and Daniel Ockrent, who have plucked some nifty specimens out of the old tickle barrel of American comedy.
“Old Jews Telling Jokes” continues an open-end run at the Westside Theater, 407 W. 43rd St., New York. Call (212) 239-6200 or visit www.ojtjonstage.com.
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However, we should never ever forget who we are and where we came from. We should always remember our heritage and our ancestors and the pain they went thru to allow us to be where we are today. It is the pain of antisemitism that we have endured for thousands of years that binds us together.
, almost every Jew has that Bubbie or Aunt or Cousin that they think of when an old joke is told.We should always remember and celebrate people like Milton Berle, Myron Cohen, Alan King, Sid Caesar, Mel Brooks, all of whom at one time or another allowed us to laugh at ourselves and made us think of Aunt Ceil or Uncle Moishe.
If we think like you, should we distance ourself from the music that came out of the synagogues almost a century ago and inspired people like Gershwin and Berlin to compose songs that are now part of the American heritage?
No, never forget who you are and where you came from.
Never forget!
By Silverman Everyman
Enough of this self loathing and self hating! Enough of Jews
themselves denigrating themselves in public shows
of comedy or books! Enough of dysfunctional families
and ghetto Jews from the past! We are now living in 2012
and we are no longer dysfunctional people nor do we live
in dysfunctional families anymore and Jewish mother jokes
and Jewish Princess jokes and distasteful Joan Rivers' Anne
Frank jokes should be thrown out the window. The Bronx and Brooklyn
ghettoes are things of the past. Wake up, fellow Jews and cast
off your self loathing and self hatred with these terrible jokes
about dysfunctional mothers and weak fathers and antisemitic tropes
that are sometimes even worse than Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice
schtick! Wake up, people!
We are a normal people now, successful, middle-class, no longer in the
New York City ghettoes where much of the old sick humor came from.
Sure, in the 1930s, those jokes had a purpose. Sure, in the 1950s,
after the war, maybe some of those jokes still had a purpose. But now,
in 2012, they have no purpose! Those jokes should be retired and you
know exactly what jokes I am talking about!
We don't live in dysfunctional families anymore and we have success
stories all around, in an entirely new and loving way. It's time for Jews
in America to wake up and smell the new air of happiness and life.
It's time to stop the self loathing and self hating Catskills and Borscht
Belt jokes of the 1950s and celebrate the joyful reality of 2012.
Stand up and create
a new kind of warm, life enhancing and positive humor that goes beyond
the old stereotypes of yore. Rise up and rejoice, O Jews of America,
you have nothing to lose but your long-suffering neuroses. We are no longer a
neurotic people. Stop the Jewish mother jokes, stop the JAP jokes, stop
the sick Anne Frank jokes (and books!), stop the dysfunctional family jokes,
stop the victimization. We are no longer victims. We have made it. Wake up
and celebrate success, joy, happiness, normalness.
Enough already. We are normal. We have arrived. Leave the past alone. Where
it belongs. Stop the Jews are cheap jokes; some of the most philanthropic
people on Earth are American Jews: they build hospitals, museums, fund
scientific research, professorships,
educational initiatives. Focus on the good and the positive; leave the
past where it belongs: in the past!
Wake up and smell the sunshine. We don't all live in the Bronx or
Brooklyn anymore, or Queens
or Beverly Hills. American Jews must evolve. Be nice, all ye who are
comedians and humor
writers. Respect yourselves. Respect what we have become now in 2012.
Stop the old, out-dated
stereotypes. We can write a new chapter in American Jewish history in
the creative arts
of comedy and film and literature and it does not have to be Portnoy's
Complaint anymore.
Nor does it have to be Old Jews Telling Jokes off-Broadway anymore.
Mirror the present,
stop mirroring the dysfunctional ghetto past. Get past the past!
Embrace the now!
By Silverman Everyman
Email: bubbie.zadie@gmail.com
Enough of this self loathing and self hating! Enough of Jews
themselves denigrating themselves in public shows
of comedy or books! Enough of dysfunctional families
and ghetto Jews from the past! We are now living in 2012
and we are no longer dysfunctional people nor do we live
in dysfunctional families anymore and Jewish mother jokes
and Jewish Princess jokes and distasteful Joan Rivers' Anne
Frank jokes should be thrown out the window. The Bronx and Brooklyn
ghettoes are things of the past. Wake up, fellow Jews and cast
off your self loathing and self hatred with these terrible jokes
about dysfunctional mothers and weak fathers and antisemitic tropes
that are sometimes even worse than Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice
schtick! Wake up, people!
We are a normal people now, successful, middle-class, no longer in the
New York City ghettoes where much of the old sick humor came from.
Sure, in the 1930s, those jokes had a purpose. Sure, in the 1950s,
after the war, maybe some of those jokes still had a purpose. But now,
in 2012, they have no purpose! Those jokes should be retired and you
know exactly what jokes I am talking about!
We don't live in dysfunctional families anymore and we have success
stories all around, in an entirely new and loving way. It's time for Jews
in America to wake up and smell the new air of happiness and life.
It's time to stop the self loathing and self hating Catskills and Borscht
Belt jokes of the 1950s and celebrate the joyful reality of 2012.
Stand up and create
a new kind of warm, life enhancing and positive humor that goes beyond
the old stereotypes of yore. Rise up and rejoice, O Jews of America,
you have nothing to lose but your long-suffering neuroses. We are no longer a
neurotic people. Stop the Jewish mother jokes, stop the JAP jokes, stop
the sick Anne Frank jokes (and books!), stop the dysfunctional family jokes,
stop the victimization. We are no longer victims. We have made it. Wake up
and celebrate success, joy, happiness, normalness.
Enough already. We are normal. We have arrived. Leave the past alone. Where
it belongs. Stop the Jews are cheap jokes; some of the most philanthropic
people on Earth are American Jews: they build hospitals, museums, fund
scientific research, professorships,
educational initiatives. Focus on the good and the positive; leave the
past where it belongs: in the past!
Wake up and smell the sunshine. We don't all live in the Bronx or
Brooklyn anymore, or Queens
or Beverly Hills. American Jews must evolve. Be nice, all ye who are
comedians and humor
writers. Respect yourselves. Respect what we have become now in 2012.
Stop the old, out-dated
stereotypes. We can write a new chapter in American Jewish history in
the creative arts
of comedy and film and literature and it does not have to be Portnoy's
Complaint anymore.
Nor does it have to be Old Jews Telling Jokes off-Broadway anymore.
Mirror the present,
stop mirroring the dysfunctional ghetto past. Get past the past!
Embrace the now!