Bad Jews: A Savagely Funny Play About Religion, Family, and Identity
Photo: Craig Bailey. The actors are l. to r. Allison McCartan, Victor Shopov, Gillian Mariner Gordon.
Josh Harmon’s hilarious comedy Bad Jews at Boston’s Speakeasy Theatre deals with a serious, and for many, uncomfortable issue, secularism vs. religiosity. The play pits two extreme adversaries against one other. Formidable and pious Daphna (formerly known as Diana) a senior at Vassar, with plans to move to Israel, join the Israeli army, marry an Israeli boyfriend, and become a rabbi is at odds with her cousin Liam, an aggressive and decidedly non-religious graduate student in Japanese cultural youth studies, who intends to marry his WASP girlfriend. Two other characters, Liam’s brother, Jonah, performed with sensitivity by Alex Marz, who builds his characterization around being unobtrusive, and Liam’s girlfriend Melody, peacemaking and naïve, round out the cast. Through most of the performance, the latter two appear to be the play’s losers.