Playwright: Peter Gethers and Daniel Ockrent. At: Royal George Theatre. Tickets: 312-988-9000; www.TicketMaster.com; $49-$69. Runs through: Feb. 16, 2014
So, you want to know the difference between a schlemiel, a schlimazel and a nudnik? A few years ago, there was a successful Broadway ( and touring ) revue of Jewish comedians from the old Borscht Belt Circuit in the Catskills Mountains, and their jokes had a lot of Yiddish references andveyizmir!they were so funny you could plotz.
But this isn't that show. Old Jews Telling Jokes is a performance piece with actors playing old Jews, not a revue with real Jewish comics doing stand-up routines. This show will have you groaning at some jokes, smiling or chuckling at others, and laughing out loud at least six times, but the jokes are not necessarily Jewish jokes. Your enjoyment doesn't require knowledge of Yiddish beyond "oy vey" and schmuck nor any deep understanding of American Jewish culture. Chopped liver and Israel aren't mentioned even once.
What the five performers do talk about are retirement, sex, aches and pains, sex, marriage, sex, business, sex, old age and sex-and-old-age, all with plenty of four-letter words. There are jokes new, old and ancient. One storyabout a fartderives from Tales of the Arabian Nights ( what kind of Jewish joke is that? ), and I first heard another from my father more than 50 years ago, even though they tell it wrong in the show. There's an innocuous opening song, another in the middle and Nathan ( Tim Kazurinsky ) recites the lyrics of "Old Man River" with a Yiddish dialect ( the archetypal song of Black endurance was penned by two Jews ). Each character is fleshed out in a brief monolog with a tiny bit of exposition, but there isn't a story or more than minimal relationships between the characters. Clearly, though, there is great camaraderie between the performers themselves, which has been encouraged by director Marc Bruni. At 80 fast minutes, the running time is just right.
In addition to Kazurinsky, the charming performers are Gene Weygandt ( Morty ), Renee Matthews ( Bunny ), Dara Cameron ( Debbi ) and Alex Goodrich ( Reuben ). Most are not Jews, but you don't have to be Jewish to like Rosen's Rye Bread nor need you be a Jew to play Shylock, Anne Frank or Fagin. It would be great fun to see Eddie Murphy in this show using his excellent Yiddish dialect. Three of the actors areuhmiddle-aged while two of them are young. There's no explanation why these two are not closer in age to the characters they are playing, which I found mildly disconcerting.
Most assuredly, however, Old Jews Telling Jokes is a warm and amusing night out. It has neither great depth nor the authenticity of Borscht Belt comics, but as my Aunt Anne would say, "So what's not to like?"