BWW Reviews: A JEW GROWS IN BROOKLYN - Ethnic Theater In the Desert Diaspora

When I moved to Las Vegas in 2005 it was widely touted as the city with the fastest growing Jewish population in the country. But, for a Jew from metropolitan New York, it was still quite a culture shock. In New York, everyone seemed to know the basic Yiddish phrases - and Italian phrases, too - and traditional food for holidays was easily available. Still today in Las Vegas, people one might imagine should know better - some in positions or great influence - may still use phrases like "you people" when asking a question of a Jewish person.

Of course, much of the Jewish population in Las Vegas migrated here from New York. Of those, a very large number are from Brooklyn.

So, it was with wide open arms that the Jewish Repertory Theatre of Nevada's presentation of Jake Ehrenreich's A Jew Grows In Brooklyn (http://www.jakeehrenreich.com/home.html) was greeted with wild enthusiasm at three performances this weekend at the Suncoast Casino showroom.

The work is Ehrenreich's own story. Born in Brooklyn in 1956 to Holocaust survivors, the  piece recounts his struggle to become a "real" American. We meet Jake when he comes onstage in a Tilden High School shirt bouncing a well-used, no-longer-pink Spaldeen. He talks of growing up with his parents and his two sisters, one aunt and some close friends who also survived but who settled in Boston and Chicago. There was no one else. There was no extended family and, seemingly, few photos. After a brief intro and accompanied by two musicians/background vocalists, Ehrenreich takes the audience on an immensely joyous journey through his life.

The play, performed with no intermission visits Brooklyn, Ehrenreich's bar mitzvah, the Borscht Belt, a Catskill bungalow colony, and we go with him to his wedding. In the most moving portion of the evening, we watch his father on video speak of his life. Ehrenreich tells us that his father had never before done so, but decided to speak for Steven Spielberg's Shoah project.

To much of the audience,it seemed as if this was a visit to the old neighborhood, a trip back to the block. There's mention of punchball, stickball and stoopball. Audience members are invited to call out the names of the high schools they attended in Brooklyn - Erasmus Hall, Midwood, Lincoln, Wingate, etc. -and, later, the Catskill Hotels they visited - the Nevele, Grossinger's, the Concord, Brown's, the Raleigh. Ehrenrich does schtick a tummler (comic emcee) may have done to entertain the Catskills audience (the only part of the show that got a bit tedious) and, even, treats the audience to a selection of Christmas songs written by those great Christmas song writers, Johnny Marks, Mel Tormé and Irving Berlin (all of whom were Jewish).

In so many ways, Ehrenreich's story is the story of an entire people. But, really, as the Levy's Rye Bread commercial in New York used to say, "You don't have to be Jewish." This is the story of any people who arrived in the US after enduring unspeakable hardship and who, though eager to begin in a new country, still cling to much of what they brought from the old. Thus, it is a story for all sorts of people.

At the end of the evening, I wanted to thank Ehrenreich for bringing me a bit of New York here in the desert diaspora. Even though it only vaguely resembled my life, it was loads of fun to visit Ehrenreich's life.

And, finally, this production marked the Nevada Jewish Repertory Theatre's first anniversary. It'll be fun, too, to see what else they have in story.

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