A Jew Lingers in Manhattan
By: Mark Bowers May. 02, 2006
After years of entertaining audiences on
television("Meet the Mets"), Broadway ("They're
Playing Our Song") and cruise ships across the
friendly seas, Jake Ehrenreich opens off-Broadway at
the American Theatre of Actors, where his
entertainment career just got a bit bumpier than any
of those ocean waves may ever have been.
The desire to do a show like "A Jew Grows in Brooklyn"
seems honest and genuine, but with Ehrenreich's
dialogue and delivery, the title should read "Nothing
New Grows in Brooklyn."
The American public probably does not know Ehrenreich
at all, although he makes a far too lenghthy attempt
to give a brief glimpse. The touching adventure
Ehrenreich hopes to take the audience on never seems
to get off the ground. It is nice to know he is from
a family of Holocaust survivors and that he wanted to
run, kicking and screaming away from his heritage,
only to wind up embracing it. Unfortunately, all of
this feels entirely self indulgent and green.
Ehrenreich milks the intimacy of the particularly
Jewish moments of his life, as well as the tragic
happenings and the spirited choices he has made
regarding his entertainment career. (Yes, we hear all
about those glory days on the cruise ship.)
Unfortunately, it all adds up to nothing more than
small talk that non-Jewish audience members do not
even begin to understand. His gut-wrenching and at
times painful tale of woe intermixed with pop
standards and Christmas carols (yes, the audience
learns why it is okay for a Jewish man to sing
Christmas carols) never quite comes together. While
his singing is A-Okay, the segment that includes fart
and stool jokes intermixed with a perky
trumpet/trombone/drum performance is particularly
jarring and proves that he should leave the instrument
playing to his talented four member band who sit atop
the rather sparse set by Joseph Egan.
half as delicious and more universally appealing as
the engaging life he supposedly led, the possibility
of broken hearts and wounded egos would not be in
question.
Ehrenreich is indeed a class act. His acting ability
is not the problem; as it is obvious he (much in the
same regards to the Suzanne Somers travesty "The
Blonde in the Thunderbird") can "come and knock on our
door." The problem is that the New York Theatre going
folks will not still be waiting for him.
With so much other new and exciting work out there, it
is painfully obvious that this off-Broadway offering
leaves much to be desired.
The direction of Jon Huberth, a writer at "Sesame
Street", does not help matters. He stages the show if
it were another episode of that children's program.
Huberth tries to recreate Billy Crystal's "700
Sundays" and fails miserably. The warmth and
exuberance in "A Jew Grows in Brooklyn" never seems to
exist. Someone should have sent both Huberth and
Ehrenreich a memo that screens anywhere on a New York
stage are NEVER a good idea. While the screens show
pictures from Ehrenreich's years on planet earth, the
story behind them never supports any reason the
photos need be brought to life at all.
but it is a true shame that he must proclaim his party
line to an audience in the form of a one person show.
He has many endearing qualities that one day could
thrive in a character driven piece. This however is
a dream that was better left unrealized.
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