James Karas
My Son the Waiter, A Jewish Tragedy! is an enjoyable one-man show written by and
starring Brad Zimmerman. He has a fine selection of one-liners, Jewish jokes,
touching and humorous stories that make for an integrated ninety minutes of
entertainment.
Zimmerman builds the show around autobiographical material (some of it
no doubt imaginary), his relationship with his parents, growing up in New
Jersey and becoming a stand-up comic.
He tells us that in high school he was voted
the one most likely to work for his father. This in a community where life
begins after one gets a medical degree. He applies to three colleges and
chooses the only one that accepted hm. He indeed does become a waiter for some
29 years. That provides fodder for observing the silly foibles of the way
people order, taste wine and generally behave in a restaurant. When a customer
asks him what he does when “you are not here” he replies that “I have other
tables.” Like many of his jokes, the laugh comes from
the unexpected reply to a simple question.
The Jewish jokes, some fresh, some classic, are always hilarious. His
mother (she is a mainstay of his routines) tells him that he will be well-taken
care of when she goes, he asks her to give him a time frame. He brings three girls
home for his mother to choose which one he should marry. She chooses the
red-haired one and he asks her why she chose
that one. The mother chose her because it is the one she does not like and
knows that that is the one her son will marry.
After he became a stand-up comic, Zimmerman got jobs as the warm-up
comedian for stars like Gabe Kaplan, Joan Rivers and George Carlin. He got
recognition as the best comedian for the money. In 2005 he started working on My
Son the Waiter and opened Off Broadway in 2004. He got good reviews and
the show stayed for 15 months. He is now taking it on tour and Toronto, with a
vibrant theatrical and Jewish community seems like an excellent pit stop.
The title is no doubt meant to be ironic but there is some truth in it.
Once a Jewish son, always a Jewish son and the mother is usually a great source
of material. When Zimmerman told his mother that, she asked him what will he do
when she dies. But his failure to make it as a big star does give some
justification for his self-assessment of his life as Jewish tragedy. When it
comes to being Jewish, Zimmerman confesses to not being a conscientious practitioner
of his faith he considers himself just a notch above a Muslim.
My Son the Waiter, A Jewish Tragedy! by Brad Zimmerman in
a production by the Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company continues until December 10, 2017 at the
Greenwin Theatre, Toronto Centre for the Arts, 5040
Yonge St, North York, ON M2N 6R8. www.hgjewishtheatre.com
No comments:
Post a Comment