Everyone knows
families where siblings no longer speak after an inheritance slights one child
in favor of another. Joshua Harmon’s BAD JEWS coalesces around a certain
necklace that two grandchildren covet—but
the play really exists to explore what being Jewish means to a generation twice
removed from the Holocaust.
Director Rebecca
Bradshaw’s production for SpeakEasy Stage Company (through Nov. 29th)
is lively and explosive, with over the top performances from Allison McCartan
and Victor Shopov as warring cousins and lovely, less showy turns for Alex Marz
and Gillian Mariner Gordon as the innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire.
I wouldn’t call it a comedy although it’s billed as one.
Harmon’s hot
button issue of what comprises religious practice (Is someone really Jewish who
doesn’t observe the Torah?) isn’t so much discussed as it is hurled about like
a loose grenade. Mc Cartin’s Daphna insists she should inherit her
grandfather’s “chai” because she cares about Judaism more than her cousin,
Liam, who sports a Santa hat on Facebook and didn’t make it to the funeral. (As
it turns out, he, too, has reason to want it.) The problem is that Harmon has
placed both arguments in the mouths of such disagreeable characters.
Liam accuses
Daphna of being a fanatic and we’re off to the races with sardonic insults,
past transgressions and endless recriminations. The more interesting characters
are Liam’s younger brother who tries to avoid taking sides and Liam’s blond,
blue eyed, non-Jewish girlfriend. When the vitriol gets out of hand, it’s she
who is the peacemaker. What left me puzzled is the playwright’s left field ending,
which has the girlfriend acting completely out of character, the character
Harmon himself went to such pains to create. The only way this abrupt change
would work is if the girl had been feigning sweetness all along, and in this
production at least, she hasn’t.
