Just For Us takes us through hilarious anecdotes from Edelman’s life — his Olympian brother AJ, an unconventional holiday season, and a gorilla that can do sign language — but at its center is an astonishing and frighteningly relevant story. After a string of anti-Semitic abuse is directed at Edelman online, he decides to covertly attend a gathering of White Nationalists in New York City and comes face to face with the alt-right abusers. The result is a hair-raising encounter that gives ‘Just for Us’ its title and final, jaw-dropping twist.
Did you hear the one about the Orthodox Jewish standup comedian who crashes a meeting of white supremacists and turns the incident into the nucleus of his one-man show that’s now on Broadway? That’s the two-second backstory of Alex Edelman’s tangy, topical, and, best of all, laugh-out-loud solo work, Just for Us. It’s that rare theatrical production that doesn’t just live up to the hype — it exceeds it.
And even though he’s telling a story about white supremacy, you are. That’s the glory and also the slight hitch of “Just for Us,” which opened on Monday after runs in London, Edinburgh, Washington and Off Broadway. No, it’s not Ibsen, a dramatist rarely noted for zingy one-liners. But it’s not silliness either. Despite its rabbi-on-Ritalin aesthetic, and its desperation to be liked at all costs, the show is so thoughtful and high-minded it comes with a mission statement. Edelman wants to open a conversation about the place of Jews on the “spectrum of whiteness,” he recently told my colleague Jason Zinoman, “without having a conversation about victimhood.”
Digital Rush
Price: $33
Where: On the Today Tix app.
When: Released on a first-come, first-served basis every performance day at 9 AM.
Limit: Two per customer
Information: Subject to availability.
2022 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway Return Production Off-Broadway |
2023 | West End |
West End |
2023 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2024 | Drama League Awards | Disinguished Performance | Alex Edelman |
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