Shoah for Sale

In “Turnaround,” the third play in Roger Kumble’s sardonictrilogy about Hollywood, Jewish hack Jeff Pelzman gushes over a sure-fire hitmovie. Compiled by combining the plots of Oscar-winners, the fictional scriptopens as the camera pans down through the worried faces of Jewish Poles “untilwe find Moishe, a 12-year-old mentally challenged boy, skipping through theghetto.”

“A retard in the Holocaust,” Pelzman says. “That’s f–kingbrilliant!”

The cringeworthy scene is typical of the hystericallymordant play, starring “Friends” star David Schwimmer as a leech who’d swindlehis mom (or trivialize the Holocaust) for a “go” film or a hot babe. JonathanSilverman, Schwimmer’s old pal from Beverly Hills High, plays the equallydepraved Jewish producer, Richie Tolchin. Kumble wrote the black comedy for thetwo actors, who each portrayed Pelzman in the trilogy’s first two plays, whichhave been called a Generation X take on a subject addressed in more matureplays, such as David Rabe’s “Hurlyburly.”

Although staging the satire at the Coast Playhouse has beena labor of love for the Jewish artists, each feels nervous about theprovocative subject matter.

Schwimmer warned underage “Friends” fans to stay away;Silverman begged a Journal reporter, “Don’t hate me!” while Kumble said he was”terrified” his motivations could be misconstrued.

At a Larchmont Boulevard cafe recently, the edgy butconvivial writer-director (“Cruel Intentions,” “The Sweetest Thing”) said heconceived the “Moishe” script partly as an homage to Mel Brooks’ Holocaustspoof, “Springtime for Hitler,” in “The Producers.” Another motivation was”noticing that every Holocaust-themed film seemed to get nominated for anOscar,” he said. “But I wanted to comment on people who use the Holocaust as ameans to an end, not to skewer my own people.” Kumble also wanted to continueskewering a real-life, reformed Hollywood creep: himself.

He said he invented Pelzman — “definitely an alter-ego ofmine” — for his 1993 comedy-drama “Pay or Play” (starring Silverman) after afriend suggested, “write what you know.” To create the character, he thoughtabout the life path that began when he was a Northwestern University movie geekdreading law school in 1988. Then he saw a newspaper photograph of some USC hotshotswho were selling spec scripts for big bucks and figured he could, too. The dayafter graduation, he drove out to Los Angeles, began the Hollywood hustle and,in 1989, moved into a studio apartment next door to Northwestern aquaintanceSchwimmer. “I was driven by envy and ambition,” he said of his first years inLos Angeles. “It was the ‘you-have-it-I-want-it’ mentality.”

If Kumble brought those qualities to his protagonist in “Payor Play,” he wasn’t above a Pelzman-esque maneuver to cast Schwimmer in its1997 sequel, “d-girl.” “It was New Year’s Eve at SkyBar, I was drunk and Davidsaid he wanted to see the play,” he recalled. “So I said, ‘F–k you, Schwimmer,you’re a huge TV star now, you’re not going to read my little one-act.'”

Schwimmer’s response: “Jackass, I will, too!”

Five years later, Kumble, 36, wrote “Turnaround” forSchwimmer and Silverman, after undergoing his own personal turnaround. Fearingthat his lifestyle would lead to an early death, he said he stopped drinking,smoking cigarettes and compulsively focusing on his career. He got married andstarted praying daily. He said he identifies more with the spiritually inclinedcharacter of Seth (John Di Maggio), who’s aiding a drug-addicted screenwriter(Tom Everett Scott), than the sleazeballs Jeff and Richie.

Silverman — sounding less like a Hollywood shark than thenice Jewish boy he played on TV’s “The Single Guy” — said he was drawn to”Turnaround” because he “craved the opportunity to play such a lecherouscharacter.”

“[One impetus] goes back to the days when I was the rabbi’sson at Sinai Temple and everyone expected me to behave properly,” he said.Acting gave him the chance to behave badly, if only onstage, as well as to meetSchwimmer in drama class his first day at Beverly Hills High. The two bondedbecause “We were short, gawky drama geeks the girls found cute but not trulydatable,” Silverman said.

“[Jonny] is a nice Jewish guy and I think we had similarvalues that we were … raised with,” Schwimmer, who grew up Reform, told TV Guidein 1996.

The two friends were in rehearsals for “The Diary of AnneFrank” their senior year when Neil Simon tapped Silverman to replace MatthewBroderick in “Brighton Beach Memoirs” on Broadway. For the next decade,Silverman worked regularly while Schwimmer struggled — until “Friends”catapulted him to superstardom in 1994. Yet unlike their “Turnaround”characters, the actors said, jealousy has never been an issue.

More on their minds during recent “Turnaround” rehearsalswas: what will our parents think? After all, their characters swear,masturbate, and grope a hooker (Jaime Ray Newman) — who, in typical Hollywoodfashion, also attends Kabbalah class. And then there’s that “Moishe” script.

“Opening night was a little uncomfortable,” said Silverman,whose character calls Steven Spielberg “Mr. Holocaust.” “But our parentsunderstand that this is a morality tale. I mean, these kinds of people actuallyexist. There are people in this town who would kick their grandmother in thetooth to make a movie. I don’t think it comes across as a smear of Jews inHollywood so much as it does on certain people who have just lost theirperspective.”

The show runs thru March 2 at the Coast Playhouse, 8325 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood. For tickets and more information, call(866) 468-3399.

Silverman on Screen

February is a schizophrenic month for actor JonathanSilverman. While he’s playing the despicable producer Richie in “Turnaround,”he’s also portraying an idealistic civil rights attorney in Showtime’s “Deaconsfor Defense,” to air Feb. 16.

Silverman got the role when Showtime’s Jerry Offsayapproached him at Valley Beth Shalom last Yom Kippur and whispered “Call metomorrow,” the actor recalled. The next day, he was on a plane to Toronto toshoot “Deacons,” based on the true story of African Americans who chose to takean armed stand in the civil rights movement. While his character, MichaelDeane, is a composite of real-life activists, Silverman used a renowned Jewishcivil rights attorney as inspiration.

“I read Peter Honigsberg’s autobiography, ‘Crossing Border Street: A Civil Rights Memoir,’ in which he describes why he was willing torisk his life for the movement,” Silverman said. “He said his parents escapedthe Nazis because American strangers vouched for them and helped them obtainvisas. And if strangers helped his family to live in peace and safety, whyshould he feel any differently?” — NP