The expletive filled insults fly thick and extremely fast in Joshua Harmon’s comedy Bad Jews, which returns to the Alex Theatre in St. Kilda for an encore season following a sold out run last year.
The original cast reunites for this latest mounting and the show will embark on a national tour after playing Melbourne. There is clearly an appetite around the country for this play and it’s easy to see why.
Bad Jews unfolds in real time as three family members gather in a cramped New York apartment following the funeral of their grandfather. The drama hinges on who will receive a family heirloom, a treasured piece of jewelry called a chai that their grandfather carried through the holocaust and gave to his wife when they married. The tyrannical and opinionated Daphna (Maria Angelico) stubbornly claims it as her own, her cousin Liam (Simon Corfield) wants it so he can propose to his new girlfriend Melody (Anna Burgess) and his brother Jonah (Matt Whitty) just wants to stay out of the whole mess.
As the night rolls on personalities clash, long held frustrations explode and Daphna and Liam tear each other to shreds whilst Jonah and Melody look on helplessly. Bad Jews is bold, hilarious, loud, brash, shocking and brilliant.
Harmon’s script is breathtakingly wordy; it must hold some sort of record for words-per-minute, it’s clever, full of stinging venom and dexterous banter. The cast, under the direction of Gary Abrahams, handles the material excellently. Their previous experience with the show has clearly paid off; they work like a well-oiled machine, bouncing off one another perfectly and making the intermission-less ninety minutes fly by. Abrahams makes the smart choice to let the material speak for itself. He sets the narrative up clearly, establishes the relationships and then allows his talented cast to go to town on the piece.
Angelico is a force of nature as Daphna. Her explosive energy and expert handling of the exhaustive amount of dialogue is truly astonishing. Her character has many extensive monologues and rants throughout the show and thanks to Angelico’s performance each moment is captivating and highly entertaining. Her Daphna is not only a highly-strung know-it-all; she is revealed to be a rather lonely and pathetic young woman by the end of the play.
Liam gives as good as he gets and Corfield if more than up to the task. He captures his character’s frustration, intelligence and privilege with skill. His performance comes off as a sort of bad tempered Woody Allen.
Burgess and Whitty are given less to do dramatically as Melody and Jonah respectively, but both performers have a few moments to shine. Burgess’ tone-deaf rendition of ‘Summertime’ had the audience in stitches and her awkward body language during the tense arguments between Daphna and Liam successfully captured that familiar feeling of being caught in the middle of a verbal storm. Similarly, Whitty’s constant uncomfortable expressions and pleas to be ‘left out of it’ make the audience sympathize with his predicament.
Jacob Battista’s detailed studio apartment set is fully realized and creates a wonderful sense of verisimilitude in keeping with the naturalistic and contemporary style of the play. The performance space is a tad cramped, with two large mattresses taking up most of the floor space, and whilst this does add to the claustrophobic atmosphere integral to the drama it limits the blocking of the actors at some points. The subtle sound design by Dave Ellis is perfectly unobtrusive with its constant background soundscape of traffic, trains and general New York hubbub.
This production of Bad Jews is a raucous and fast-paced night at the theatre. The characters on stage may be annoying, abrasive and downright horrible at times, but at the end of the day that’s what families can be. As they say, you can’t choose them.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Bad Jews
Presented by Aleksandar Vass & Vass Theatre Group
Written by Joshua Harmon
Directed by Gary Abrahams
With Maria Angelico, Anna Burgess, Simon Corfield and Matt Whitty
Alex Theatre
27 April – 14 May 2016
