ENTERTAINMENT

Dinner in 3 Acts

Two meals,
a seder, and
intermarriage
make their
way to the
Birmingham.

KENNETH JONES

Special to The Jewish News

n playwright James
Sherman's comedy, Beau Jest,
a single Jewish woman in
Chicago invites her parents
over for dinner to introduce
them to her new boyfriend,
who is actually a gentile
hired from an escort service.
"Your name is Schroeder?"
says Sarah, shocked to learn
her hired beau isn't kosher.
"That's a Jewish name . . . I
specifically asked the agency
for somebody Jewish."
But it's too late to return
her order: Her parents are
knocking at her apartment
door.
So starts an ongoing mas-
querade devised to please
Sarah's parents, "who only
want what's best" for their
daughter.
Over three acts, Bob
Schroeder (a.k.a. Dr. David
Steinberg) and Sarah
Goldman grow closer in the
approving atmosphere of
three separate dinners — in-
cluding a seder — with
Sarah's nurturing, if pushy,
parents.
"What always fascinates
me are the choices that peo-

"Beau Jest" is a comedy with a message.

ple make and how they deal
with the ramifications of
those choices," says
playwright Sherman, a
native Chicagoan whose Vic-
tory Gardens Theatre produc-
tion of Beau Jest ran nine
months there. It closed Aug.
12.
The comedy, in the style of
a Neil Simon play, will have
its second regional production
at the Birmingham Theatre
beginning Nov. 13. A separate
production is slated for off-
Broadway later this season.
Despite the comic premise,
which seems like the stuff of
door-slamming farce, each act
in the one-set play involves
the theatrically mundane ac-
tion of sharing a meal. If you
read the script you imagine
these table scenes might lack
a certain energy.
"I'm probably most proud of

the seder scene because
before it was produced a lot of
people read it and said, 'You
can't do this scene. They're
just sitting around the table
and talking,' " says Mr.
Sherman.
"Part of my job as a writer,
in this case, was to make the
choice of exactly which piece
of the seder I'm going to in-
clude," he says, referring to
Sarah and her parents
editing the "script" of the
seder as they go along.
Sarah, of course, wants to
speed it up because Bob
doesn't know the ceremony.
"Can we skip the Four
Questions?" asks Sarah.
"Skip the Four Questions,"
agrees her father.
"Do the Four Questions,"
instructs her mother.
"Do the Four Questions,"
her father parrots.

"If you do the whole thing,
it's three hours before you get
to eat," says Mr. Sherman,
who grew up in Skokie and
other northern Chicago
suburbs. "I heightened the
reality of it a bit, but it is very
typical of the kind of seders
that I used to go to when I
was younger. The nice thing
about the way that scene
plays is that one still gets a
feel of what the seder is
about."
Did some Jewish theater-
goers find the situation offen-
sive or irreverent?
"Not so much with this
play," says Mr. Sherman,
author of a handful of scripts,
including The God of Isaac,
about a mother-son relation-
ship set against the backdrop
of the anti-Nazi demonstra-
tions in Skokie.
To avoid any irreverence in

Beau Jest's seder scene, God's
name is replaced in prayers
with "hashem."
"In God of Isaac I did use
one prayer, and said it correct-
ly as if I was actually doing
the prayer," Mr. Sherman
says. "I got some flak for that.
In this play I decided if I us-
ed the substituted word .. .
people wouldn't be thinking:
`Should he? Shouldn't he?' "
Otherwise, the situation of
Sarah struggling to both
please her parents — via the
well-meaning "beau jest" —
and satisfy her own desires
apparently spoke true to both
young and old Jewish
theatergoers who came, and
came back, to Beau Jest.
Much of the box office success
in Chicago, says Mr. Sher-
man, was due to repeat
business.
"I've met many, many peo-
ple of all different creeds and
colors and backgrounds who
enjoyed the play immensely
because it's a play about
parents and children," he
says.
Mr. Sherman began his
career as an actor and still oc-.
casionally performs in com-
mercials or industrial films.
His parents introduced him to
theater, he says.
"I remember I couldn't have
been more than 4 or 5 years
old and my parents took me
downtown to the Shubert to
see The Sound of Music and
the original tour of Fiddler
with Zero Mostel," says Mr.
Sherman, 36.
His first professional acting
work was with Chicago's im-
provisational comedy group,
Second City, and he eventual-
ly did his share of bartending
and waiting tables
although he never worked for
an escort service.
After earning a bachelor's
degree in theater from North-
eastern Illinois University, he
got a master's from Brandeis
and soon moved to New York
City to pursue acting.
Writing for the theater was
a natural extension of his ac-
ting, and between 1979 and
1989 he shuttled between
New York and Chicago,
developing several plays that
premiered at Victory Gardens
(he is one of six playwrights-
in-residence there).
"I've been a big believer in
the old adage of writing about
what one knows," he says.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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