Review: STORIES FROM THE BRINK! at Theater J

It was a harrowing winter storm that blocked streets, closed schools and generally paralyzed the city for days. But it wasn’t quite bad enough to qualify as one of the "festive near-death adventures" that comprise Iris Bahr’s “Stories from the Brink!” though it certainly affected its run. The storm caused her scheduled pair of late January performances at Theater J to be bumped a week. 

Theater J is certainly familiar with Bahr’s work, having staged her one-woman show “Dai (Enough)” in 2009 and presenting the world premiere of her solo “See You Tomorrow” in 2024. 

Chiefly, she’s a storyteller who could craft her autobiographical anecdotes as a syndicated radio raconteur, podcast host or author (and she’s done all three). Her one-woman shows have sometimes involved her playing multiple characters, but in her current “Stories from the Brink!,” subtitled “My Festive Near-Death Adventures” that could almost be presented as a straight up stand-up comedy set. It certainly has those rhythms and narrative shape. 

Her skill is to weave laughs into stories that would seem to be devoid of them. And she frames the new one around the events of Oct. 7, 2023. The matinee audience gasped at the infamous date of the attack in Israel, an event so recent that the remains of the last hostage had only been returned to family days earlier. 

On that fateful date, Bahr was in Tel Aviv heading to a shelter after checking the app on her phone that tracks incoming missiles. She didn’t wast to go into the shelter, though, because she’d lose phone service and she was frantically trying to call her son who were at the beach near the attack occurred with her ex-husband. 

Leave it to Bahr to find humor in her flailing on that frighteningl day, just as her earlier play “Dai” concerned a Tel Aviv café moments before a suicide bombing. 

“Stories from the Brink!” has its scenes broken up into chapters, with blackouts in between and pre-recorded titles, as if chapters in one of her books. Another lengthy piece has to do with an admittedly harrowing trip to Peru, where a white water rafting trip turns deadly. 

Not every episode she mentions took her on the brink. One had to do with fitting in at school. But another had her reacting to her mother’s apparent heart attack during a Zoom call with her six thousand miles away. 

Among her more memorable parts in movies or TV came when she played an Orthodox Jew on a broken ski lift with Larry David on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Because of rules prohibiting single men and women together after dark, she insisted that one of them jump before the sun set.

She pokes at orthodoxy in her current work, as well especially as things aren’t open or nobody can drive on Shabbat. It’s a kind of a brave thing to explore before an audience at a Jewish Community Center, but people knowingly chuckled along.

Bahr’s approach is direct and brash and is as free to use the occasional four-letter word as if she were a contemporary comic. The stories come fast and entertainingly. And what separated this from a standup routine other than the between-scene blackouts? Only the obvious, sometimes intrusive lighting by designer Ben Harvey, the only hint of theatricality. 

Bahr has a personable way of relating her stories, and they are well received. But a little more rigor into shaping them for the stage may pay off for future audiences. 

Running time: About 70 minutes.

“Stories from the Brink! My Festive Near-Death Adventures” was performed Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, 2026 at Theater J at the Ediavitch D.C. Jewish Community Center, 1529 16th St NW. Future performances are scheduled at Joe’s Pub in New York Feb. 19 and 21, the Soho Playhouse in New York March 18-29 and Minneapolis April 16-18. Information on the Theater J is available online.