Before Robbie Baitz was Jon Robin Baitz, the playwright, he was, in his words, \”a smart-ass little spoiled Beverly Hills snot\” who worked as a gofer for a couple of Hollywood con artists. Rather than sensibly going East to college, he had elected to remain in Los Angeles to glean some life experience, and so had fallen in with \”a den of thieves,\” he says.
When David Mamet, the son of brilliant but emotionally abusive parents, was growing up in Chicago, his mother told him, according to The New Yorker profile of the playwright, \”I love you, but I don\’t like you.\”
What makes this familiar setup fresh and involving is Margulies\’ wise, funny, wry dialogue and Lavin\’s strong performance.
Recently, The Journal caught up with three comics whose Judaism informs their act and whose career informs their Judaism. Cathy Ladman quips about her intermarriage; Mark Schiff brings his comic pals to perform at an Orthodox shul fund-raiser; and Larry Miller views stand-up as Talmudic discourse.
Never has Neil Simon dissected his marital specimen, genus Americana, with more astuteness and wit than in the world premiere of \”The Dinner Party\” at the Mark Taper Forum.
All her life, Jeanette Kopitowsky has been searching for a face in the crowd. She scans strangers\’ faces for someone, anyone who looks like herself. Her biological mother. Her father. A sibling.\nThe playwright-actress, who was abandoned by her parents as a baby, grew up in foster homes until she was adopted by a Jewish family at the age of seven. She describes the painful experience in her powerful, one-woman show, \”What\’s Your Name, Who\’s Your Daddy?\” which asks the question, \”Do I exist if I don\’t have anyone to claim me?\”\n\n
Joan Hyler sees her life in five acts. A bit like Shakespeare.
\”Enigma Variations,\” directed by French Canadian Daniel Roussel and starring Donald Sutherland as the author and Jamey Sheridan as the reporter, is that rare work in which every prospect pleases.
\”It\’s an Italian-Jewish mother thing. They don\’t understand that you\’re not hungry anymore!\”
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