Yesterday I had the opportunity through Playtime! to see Old Jews Telling Jokes.* Playtime! is a fantastic program that allows parents (of children ages 4-12) to go to the theater while their children are engaged in an artistic projects led by artist sitters!
When I first heard the title of the show, I knew exactly who to take with me to see it, my dad.
For those of you that know Jeff Fader, you're aware that he is always telling a corny joke, and he's Jewish. I just knew that this was the show for him!
I was positive that my dad would like Old Jews, because that's his style of humor. But I wasn't sure how I would feel about it.
After seeing it, I can report that "Old Jews Telling Jokes" was hilarious. There are all kinds of jokes in the show, religious jokes, birth jokes, sex jokes and old age jokes.
You might be wondering how actors telling jokes could hold your attention for an hour and a half. The jokes are told in various ways, some are told like stories and some jokes are acted out in little vignettes complete with scenery and props. This I can promise you, you won't be bored. The show is fast paced, and your attention is always held.
Here's what the joke connoisseur, Jeff Fader (and a surprise guest) had to say about the show:
Jewish, gentile, whatever you are, if you love to laugh this is the show for you!
For more information on Old Jews Telling Jokes click here.
*Full disclosure, tickets to the show were provided to me courtesy of the amazing ladies over at MamaDrama.
For more information on my experience with playtime, click here.
any comments on this? i am writing OPED on this for NYTImES oped page and need a reaction quote fronm you Pro or Con or anything. DISH! your POV? I didn't like all the jokes in OJTJ and here's why:
ReplyDeletedan bloom
author the
THE SILVERmAN MANIFESTO
and Jewish polemicist, Tufts 1971 grad
THE SILVERMAN MANIFESTO
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!