Getting All His Orthodox in a Row

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The New York Sun

For a goofball, buoyant comedy about the divides within the Jewish community, “Modern Orthodox” goes a fair way toward creating some of its own. Opening at the still new-smelling Dodger Stages, Daniel Goldfarb’s play seems to be capering about in a grand tradition of Jewish humor. But the questions it raises are piercing, and the very shtick he uses to beat us splits the audience down the middle.


There were gales of laughter, to be sure, but also some good, healthy, self examining discomfort. It’s the mark of a true comedy when some people leave offended – and Mr. Goldfarb writes with a pretty sharp pen.


Ben (Craig Bierko) has, after six years of living with her, finally gotten around to proposing to his girlfriend Hannah (Molly Ringwald). So secular they teeter on the WASP-y, they don’t spend a lot of time investigating their Jewishness. So neither is prepared for tall-is-wearing, Yiddish-spouting Hershel (Jason Biggs), who appears out of a blue yonder to scramble their lives.


The pesky Hershel, adhering to the couple after selling Ben a diamond and suffering a minor humiliation at his hands, refuses to move out of their apartment until they find him a bride. It’s like Kaufman and Hart, but with kosher dishes.


Mr. Goldfarb writes Hershel way out on the edge – he obeys strict guidelines about meat, women, and the Sabbath, but he’s got no personal boundaries. He’s fearless when he presses Ben and Hannah about their beliefs, and his questions lodge thornily under their skin. Ben, in particular, can’t quite shake his guilt and fascination over Hershel’s orthodoxy. Hannah’s doubts have to do with her relationship and reclaiming a sense of innocence, but Ben may actually be traveling back to his faith.


Mr. Bierko, whose blocky, muppety jaw makes him a great straight man, just has to watch while Mr. Biggs goes berserk. Hershel has more tics and bizarre affectations than a bag full of Woody Allens – if you want to be offended by him, it would be easy.


Accept it as farce, though, and Mr. Biggs looks like a mastermind.


Late in the game, though, even he has to take a back seat to the brilliant Jenn Harris, whose paltry scene-and-a-half are Madeline Kahn-unmissable. Ms. Harris enters as Rachel, the match Ben and Hannah find for Hershel on the Internet. On their first date, she guzzles fuzzy navels and raises the bar for the production about 40 feet.


Director James Lapine must be having a ball. He dresses his stage-crew up in big sombreros when necessary and has enough faith to run a two-hour show with no intermission. Derek Mc-Clane’s set, a charming forest of New York’s loveliest buildings, lets lighting designer David Lander paint postcard perfect skies across it. The designers seem to be writing love notes to the one city that could produce and appreciate this play, or maybe just luxuriating in the rarity of a funny comedy.


Now the real question is: Why is Molly Ringwald in this production? Far be it from me to suspect there were cynical reasons involved. The lush look of affront that worked so well in her teen movies (and even, to some extent, in “Cabaret”) can’t keep up with the stylized antics necessary for a stage fable. She and Mr. Bierko do sustain their storyline, but they don’t make it shine. And they have less emotional truth than your average sitcom.


To be fair, Mr. Goldfarb does veer from talented farceur to indulgent sentimentalist, and I’m not sure the arc he describes for the secular couple makes absolute sense. But why not cast a brilliant actress in the role and see how it goes?


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