Review: Lena Moy-Borgen's A VERY JEWISH CHRISTMAS STORY A Real Gift at Don't Tell Mama

Deck the halls with a hundred holiday shows, fa la la la la, oy vey, oy vey.  It’s December, and the club calendars are awash with green and red AND blue and white!  There are holiday shows of every sort to engage and entertain, but it’s hard to imagine any holiday show being as entertaining as A VERY JEWISH CHRISTMAS STORY, the annual offering from Musical Comedy Cabaret Mistress Lena Moy-Borgen.  The great news is that Moy-Borgen does this show every year, the un-great news is that you’ve all missed it this year.  It happened at Don’t Tell Mama on December 1st.  Lena only does one performance, and it’s a real shame because not only is she amazing, but the show is Ho-Ho-Ho-Larious.  So do yourself a favor and set a Google alert for the show in 2026 and wait with delicious anticipation for the first eleven months of next year until LMB lands back on the stage at DTM.

Now, here’s something you’re going to want to know about A VERY JEWISH CHRISTMAS STORY.  It has nothing to do with Ralphie or Red Ryder BB Guns or Lifebuoy soap or Mommy’s Little Piggie.  The graphic for Lena’s show does resemble the logo for the DVD of the famed holiday film, so it might be apt to confuse fans of the movie, but there is nothing, absolutely nothing, about Moy-Borgen’s musical comedy cabaret that touches, even remotely, on the movie based on a book by Jean Shepherd.  This story is HER story.  It is the story of a little girl who chose to be Jewish (for those not in the know, in conservative and orthodox Judaism, the faith is passed to the child through the mother) by following the example of her father, rather than her Chinese Catholic mother.  As a little girl practicing Judaism, Lena grew into a woman, and then a wife and mother, observing the fact that Christmas is everywhere, and that those who do not participate in the holiday just have to live with it.  Her parents provided conflicting points of view on the holiday, which Lena dealt with, and now she has a son who has some things of his own to say about Judaism, Christmas, god, and (are you ready for it?) Fiddler on the Roof.  Listen, if this description doesn’t already have you champing at the bit to see A VERY JEWISH CHRISTMAS STORY next year, let me give you some more to think about for the next twelve months

Lena Moy-Borgen knows what she is doing.  She is a musical comedy performer, and a highly skilled one… but not like the ones we have today.  She has done theater, she has done cabaret, she has probably done sketch comedy somewhere in there (her resume is extensive), but Lena Moy-Borgen is a comedienne along the lines of Imogene Coca, Pat Carroll, Carol Burnett, or any of the ladies from Laugh-In.  She has that classic comedienne feel about her, that vaudeville-and-nightclub kind of comedy vibe, like Elaine May, when she was doing club acts with Mike Nichols.  That is what she brings to all of her shows, but there is a little (or a lot) more of that aesthetic in this show because it is so very personal, and the personal is where the good stuff starts.  LMB has constructed A VERY JEWISH CHRISTMAS around those personal stories using compositions that are being performed in their original state, like “I Hate Christmas” from Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, and the Barbra Streisand “Jingle Bells” (!), as well as songs that have been given the Lena Moy-Borgen parody lyric treatment, like “Tradition” (naturally) from “The Jewish Bible” (as she references her Fiddler script), or “Easter Parade” (it’s diabolical).  Moy-Borgen also makes appropriate use of creations from The Nightmare Before Christmas and the radio Christmas classics that keep people bouncing while in line at the Duane Reade.  Also, she makes especially good use of two songs from classic musicals by mashing up “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” with “Far From The Home I Love” (it is exactly as effective as you are imagining it to be, really inventive with moment of pathos and hilarity).   There’s even a medley of Christmas songs that were written by Jewish people, which is called for, since we all know that these songs were written by Jewish artists; it has been widely discussed over the years.  And all the while that she is singing these specialized versions of these songs, Ms. Moy-Borgen is splitting our sides with recountings of her real-life experiences and declarations of her strong opinions on Christmas, Hanukkah, and the intersection where the two meet every year for about six weeks.  And these monologues that bridge the musical portions of the evening are executed irreverently, unapologetically, and audaciously, as audience members either giggle, guffaw, or gasp, depending on the boldness of the punchline.   But it isn’t all about the punchlines, as this is a story about a little girl, a person, a woman for whom the struggle was real… and reality means humor AND poignancy, and that’s what we get at A VERY JEWISH CHRISTMAS STORY.

Although the Moy-Borgen Christmas show is superb from start to finish (superb in that television special way, and we can all dream of that happening for the lady and the show), it cannot go unremarked upon that the section of the program in which LMB tells the story of White Christmas in five minutes (including the use of the songs) is genius.  If you’ve ever seen the film White Christmas, you will get every joke, every laugh, every nuance; and if you’ve never seen the film White Christmas, you will run right home after, call it up on a streaming network, watch it, and then wait a year to see Lena do it, live, so that you will catch every joke, every laugh, every nuance.  And it will be worth the wait.  It is a stroke of magical genius in its creation, made only so much the better by the performing of it.   And there is a Hanukkah-themed encore that has its own kind of genius, the kind that has had this writer singing the number for the last five days - and that’s a fine compliment to any performer when someone is still singing their show five days later.  But Lena Moy-Borgen isn’t just any performer.  She’s one of the smart ones, one of the gifted ones, one of the brilliant ones who is keeping musical comedy cabaret alive.  Musical comedy cabaret is an important part of the art form, and, sadly, one that more and more people are abandoning for things that are slightly more earnest, maybe more serious, possibly more introspective, perhaps a tad more careful.  We need musical comedy right now, we need it desperately. So don’t be careful.   Be comedic.  Be bold.  Be authentic.  And be hilarious.  Oops.... that is to say: Be Ho-Ho-Ho-Larious.  Be like Lena Moy-Borgen.

A Very Jewish Christmas Story was sweetly musical directed by Katy Pfaffl, and masterfully engineered by Adam DeCarlo.  All of these creatives are to be congratulated for their hard work and support of Lena Moy-Borgen.

Find great shows to see on the Don't Tell Mama website HERE.

Visit the Lena Moy-Borgen website HERE.

Photos by Stephen Mosher