BWW Reviews: BAD JEWS Throw Haymakers

Joshua Harmon's Bad Jews has a bit of a trick in its title. There's only one confessed "bad Jew" in this play, Liam, a hypertense doctoral student at University of Chicago who is dating a shiksa, never goes to synagogue, and doesn't fast the day before Passover. How do we know all this? From his endlessly gabby cousin, Daphna, who has no problem vociferously embracing either her fierce devotion to Judaism and Jewish culture or the activist feminist stereotype of a Vassar undergraduate. She and Liam's brother Jonah are occupying a studio apartment that was given to Liam and Jonah by their rich parents, recovering from the funeral of their grandfather that day.

As the show opens, Jonah is innocently trying to play video games to distract himself from the days events while Daphna harangues him into attentiveness to her complaints about Liam and the world, generally. Liam, who was not at the funeral (much to the aggravation of Daphna), is soon to arrive at the apartment. He is bringing, unbeknownst to Jonah and Daphna, his very blonde and very goyische girlfriend, Melody. When they arrive, civility between Liam and Daphna is clearly moot, and Jonah and Melody are forced to play peacekeepers. From there, the situation devolves into one of the most vitriolic confrontation I've ever seen between two characters onstage.

This confrontation is the reason to see Bad Jews at Studio Theatre. You're not going to be coming for the design: a simple lighting palette, relatively comfy single costumes and an apartment set that practically personifies the genre of "New York people yelling at each other in a New York apartment." The plot of the play doesn't contain many swings, centering on the disposal of a family heirloom kept safe by the now-deceased grandfather through the Holocaust. That conflict tries to take principal importance, but ends up simply being the main surface that the true interpersonal conflict plays off of.

The characters of the play drive the action forward; Liam and Daphna pile insults on each other and the other characters until their conflict reaches fever pitch. While watching this scrapping can be interesting (how low will the next blow be?), the problem with it is that it creates a one-note tone that can wear on the audience, aggravated by the conflict's expression mostly via monologue rather than true dialogue. In the single brief moment when a temporary truce occurs and the family remembers a funny family story about a trip to Benihana, the change in tone makes for one of the best moments of the play. Moments later, the war restarts and we're back to landing emotional haymakers.

Those monologic haymakers are where the leads really shine. Irene Sofia Lucio's Daphna practically explodes with fervor, and she has mastered the difficult trick of winding her character's anger even tighter even as she explodes. Her line reads seem as if she has known a Daphna or two in her life. Captivating as a performer, she really makes Bad Jews into Daphna's play. Alex Mandell (as Liam) managed to find some exceptional variation in a character that could read as primally cynical. He has the tempo of his text down pat, and his most outlandish monologue (you'll know it when you see it) drew automatic applause from an audience who might not have liked what he had to say, but had to admire the way in which he said it.

The real reason this succeeds through the viciousness of the leads' mutual bludgeoning are Maggie Erwin's Melody and Joe Paulik's Jonah. Paulik comes into the play with shields up but never gives in to woodenness. Instead he acts an audience surrogate whose natural reaction to Daphna and Liam's war is to play Switzerland. His constant and unsuccessful attempts at neutrality shore up the comedy of the play and emphasizes the empathy in a play that sorely needs it. Most importantly, his redemption from indifference shames the leads perfectly and provides emotional and spiritual salvation for this play. Maggie Erwin plays the peacemaker, too, but through innocence rather than experience. Her earnestness leaves the other characters angry, bemused, pitying and softened by turns, but leaves the audience snorting with laughter the whole way. Erwin does great justice to the complexity of a character who could be played simply (or simple-mindedly) and that shows great craft. Maggie Erwin is an actress to watch out for.

On the whole, director Serge Seiden has put together an excellent canvas that expresses interpersonal vitriol sharply and vividly. Furthermore, he has taken a play that could be a monotonous hatchet to the face and given it some texture and variance in tone. However, the biggest problem of the play is not in the whats or the hows, but the why. It sure is fun to watch an anger-fueled slugfest, but I'm not exactly sure why needs to be done now beyond that.

The best reason comes from the title itself. With a name like Bad Jews, the play certainly calls out to members of the Jewish community to come and experience Joshua Harmon's work. But Liam is the only self-confessed "bad Jew" in the play, so why is the title plural? Joshua Harmon's message to the Jewish community seems to be that Liam's cynicism over Passover and relationships with shiksas are only one way to be a "bad Jew." Daphna is a bad Jew for her intense parsimony and her endless arrogance-driven criticism. Even Jonah is a bad Jew in his own way through his marked withdrawal from the infighting of his family. Bad Jews not only raises the questions of what it means to be a bad Jew, but also what it means to be a good one. If this is a debate you want to get involved in, and you want a side of intense conflict, Bad Jews is the play for you.

Bad Jews is playing at Studio Theatre (1501 14th Street NW) in DC. The show runs about 100 minutes without an intermission. Tickets may be found here.

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