Bad Jews, still on sell-out runs in the States and the UK, is an exceedingly well-written, fast-paced and dark comedy about testy family dynamics and the greater cultural forces that create them.
Jammed into a small-but-plush Manhattan apartment the night after their Holocaust-surviving grandfather's funeral, three Jewish cousins, Daphna (Maria Angelico), Liam (Simon Corfield) and Jonah (Matt Whitty), and Liam's totally non-Jewish girlfriend, Melody (Anna Burgess), have out their differences. The place is a powder keg and no one seems afraid of sparking it.
In an excellent cast led by Gary Abrahams' astute direction, Angelico is extraordinary as the unhinged Daphna. She plucks the script's heartfelt moments with grace, before launching hilariously into Daphna's next tirade.
Sensitive and entertaining, Joshua Harmon's play raises the question of what being Jewish actually consists of. Is it preserving the relics of Holocaust survivors? Is it whipping your loved ones to within an inch of their lives? As each of the characters demonstrates, a big part of it is continuity: You have to keep going, they tell us.
The Jews here are privileged. It is actually possible for them to keep going. This is not the case for people of many other cultures. But through its Jewishness, the play hones in on aspects of human experience about which Jewish people are exceptionally well placed to teach non-Jewish people: history, forgiveness, home, scarring and long-form culture. It's an almost-perfect comedy — snappy, scathing and philosophical — and brilliantly delivered.
