Bad Jews

[jbm2]

Posted: 10/5/12 at 1:06am

Opens tomorrow night, anyone going? Would love to hear thoughts....

[jbm2]

Posted: 10/6/12 at 12:39am

anyone see this tonight?

[aaronb]

Posted: 10/8/12 at 8:18pm

Bump.

[stevenycguy]

Posted: 10/8/12 at 8:29pm

I'm surprised Roundabout still lists the running time as "TBA" on their web site. Does anyone know the running time ?


Updated On: 10/8/12 at 08:29 PM

[jbm2]

Posted: 10/8/12 at 11:22pm

has anyone seen this end? How is it? Run time?

[RippedMan]

Posted: 10/9/12 at 12:19am

Is this part of the underground?

[wexy]

Posted: 10/9/12 at 12:38am

^ Yes it is.

[jbm2]

Posted: 10/11/12 at 9:06am

Bump

[After Eight]

Posted: 10/20/12 at 9:28am

Agony. Anguish. Dentist's drill pain. Take your choice. That's what it is to sit through this.

A motor-mouth shrew harangues her lump-of-clay cousin, his grad-school pill of a brother, and the latter's vapid girlfriend, for what seemed an eternity.

The "highlight" of the show was when the shrew and the grad student argue (all they ever do is argue) while stuffing their faces with pound cake. The shrew's cheeks bulge like a squirrel's filled with acorns, while she still talks up a storm.

Previously, we were delighted with the spectacle of her talking with corn muffin in her mouth, again bulging in her cheek. Swallow your food, lady, before you recommence your harangues. Better yet, shut up altogether!

And to any directors who might be reading this: Don't have your actors speak with their mouths full of food. It's gross.

[aaronb]

Posted: 10/20/12 at 7:42pm

Guess I'm glad I waited on this one.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 10/21/12 at 9:57pm

It's funny what "nasty" characters we're able to enjoy for a couple of hours and which characters are instantly insufferable. George and Martha, Ivanov and company- these neurotic, damaged and sometimes pathetic characters are a delight to spend an evening with. Then you have such hateful characters, as the ones presented in Bad Jews, and you don't even care enough to want to kill them. You simply want to walk out.

The lead character is SO hateful she makes Barkin look sympathetic on The New Normal. Another character describes her as a "fvcking cvnt and a fvcking bitch," and she herself has the line, "She'll (Molly Ranson) will put Poppy's necklace around her Christian cvnt throat over my dead Jew body." Any intended humor is completely suffocated by the nastiness of the characters.

The characters also spoke and reacted to insults in completely unrealistic ways.

It doesn't matter what these actors would try to do. The dialogue makes them too unlikable for any actor to infuse any humanity into the proceedings. (The exception would be Molly Ranson's character who plays a somewhat stupidly optimistic character to balance out the others, but even her character got on my nerves.)

[ClydeBarrow]

Posted: 9/28/13 at 10:29pm

Wanted to bump this now that it's back on the boards.

I saw it today and can't say that I enjoyed much about it. The characters are not just bad Jews, they're horrible people. I don't really get the point of the show because it's basically just people yelling at one another in an apartment for 100 mins and some slight plot about a damn necklace. Don't even get me started on the ending which is sooooo dumb. I rarely agree with After Eight but this is something you could definitely miss.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 9/28/13 at 10:44pm

well the lifted dialogue by Whizzer tells me everything I need to know. The expletives are the joke, which is really really basic humor. How stuff like this gets produced is just a shock to me.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 9/29/13 at 1:33am

The best part of the show was when it mercifully ended. Watching this is against the Geneva convention

A friend recommended it. He needs to have his head examined. The shrew needs to be repeatedly hit on the head with a ball peen hammer. The ticket was comped and I still overpaid. Watch David Cote give this pain in the *** a rave.

Updated On: 9/29/13 at 01:33 AM

[aaronb]

Posted: 9/29/13 at 2:04am

Yikes. I'm seeing this on Friday. Guess I forgot about the responses here from last time.

[TalkinLoud]

Posted: 9/29/13 at 8:52am

I love this play. Read it a few months back and it was one of the only plays I've ever read that I actually laughed out loud while reading, so I was excited to finally see it last night. Yep, most of the characters are all super nasty, awful people to be sure. But there's some really fantastic, bitchy dialogue. The humor is NOT just in expletives, not always at least.

I actually find it quite strange how people hate Daphna so much more than Liam. He's equally as hateful, just in a different way.

[TalkinLoud]

Posted: 9/29/13 at 8:55am

Also, if you think this play is just about who gets a "damn necklace," you are really, really missing the point.

[Jungle Red]

Posted: 9/29/13 at 10:07am

"The ticket was comped and I still overpaid."

That's the worst feeling in the world.

[stevenycguy]

Posted: 9/29/13 at 11:58am

It took me a bit to get into this show, but I really enjoyed it. It's a refreshing new work. The characters are purposely annoying and impossible to get along with. It's a character study that evolves in real-time in just over 90 minutes. The tension builds & builds, until an explosive conclusion. It really sticks with you : Is it worth it to have a family fight over something? What are the consequences? The audience I was with (all ages, etc) were laughing along quite a bit, and I overheard many positive comments leaving the theater. This show got great reviews and is receiving a well-deserved extension. A minor quibble: perhaps a glossary of certain words & their meanings could be included, since I missed a few minor words since I don't speak Yiddish.

[Kad]

Posted: 9/29/13 at 12:41pm

I've only read the script, but yeah- I found it rather insubstantial and grating. And not particularly funny on the page.

I don't mind unlikable characters, generally- but I don't think Daphna and Liam's conflict and emotional needs are compelling enough to compensate.

It boils down to two unlikable, selfish, nasty hypocrites fighting for 80 pages- and the milquetoast shiksa girl and still-waters-run-deep brother are there, too.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 9/29/13 at 1:17pm

I would rather have multiple root canals without anestheia while having my eyes ripped out than seeing this again. The shrew has to be one of the most obnoxious female characters ever written. Will Rogers would take back his famous quote after meeting her.

[ClydeBarrow]

Posted: 9/29/13 at 1:31pm

TalkinLoud, I get all the significance around the necklace but my point was that the ownership of that was the main conflict in the play and I didn't want either to have it because I hated them both equally as much.

The theatre is selling buttons with Team Daphna and Team Liam on them. I don't see how anyone could side with either...especially enough to buy a button proclaiming it.

[Kad]

Posted: 9/29/13 at 1:51pm

And who the hell is going to even know what "Team Daphna" means if they didn't happen to see a limited run of this unremarkable off-Broadway play?

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 9/29/13 at 4:45pm

I hated it. Tracee Chimo is a fascinating, energetic, and sensational talent. But the play is awful. It's a 10-minute one act that goes on for 80 minutes too long.

However, as much as I hated her, I wanted Daphna to have the necklace. (Until the final moments.)

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 9/29/13 at 4:53pm

It supposedly was 1:40 but it felt like an eternity. I wanted her to get the necklace around her throat very tightly for about an hour to silence her for good

Updated On: 9/29/13 at 04:53 PM