promise of bringing her famous
kugel to Shabbos dinner, Sarah
concedes to having the family
meet him and calls an escort ser-
vice — fast.
Enter Bob Schroeder, a non-
Jewish actor with a deceivingly
Jewish name. With no time left
to get a new stand-in Jewish ac-
tor/beau, Sarah and Bob try to
pull off the charade for Miriam,
Abe and psychologist brother
Joel. Their hilarious shtick takes
them through one Shabbos din-
ner, a seder and more.
Now, James Sherman's older
brother is a therapist. And his
sister was once a kindergarten
teacher. Hmmm. Could mom
and dad Sherman actually be
Miriam and Abe Goldman?
"Miriam and Abe are intend-
ed to typify all parents every-
where," says Sherman. "And
that's really been the most grat-
ifying thing about the response
[to Beau Jest and Jest a Second].
They do seem to cross all cul-
tural and ethnic and religious
lines.
"[My parents are pretty tra-
ditional]. I think they were hap-
py to see me get married.
Period," adds Sherman, who's
married to Linnea Todd, a non-
Jewish actress who originated
the role of Sarah and is repris-
ing it six years later in Meadow
Brook Theatre's production.
"Family is big in my family,
and the idea of settling down,
having a family, is very impor-
tant," he says. "I was 38 when I
got married [four years ago], and
had been working on my career
and running around a lot. My
mother was once interviewed by
somebody in Chicago and the
woman asked her, 'Do you want
Jim to marry somebody Jewish?'
And my mother said, 'I just
want Jim to marry somebody' —
which is a line in my newest
play. So, actually, I guess that
sometimes I do get material from
my parents."
Beau Jest has been the most
successful show at the Victory
Gardens Theater to date, run-
ning for almost a year. It subse-
quently ran off-Broadway for
2 1/2 years and has played in
Germany, Turkey, Mexico, Ar-
gentina, Canada, Brazil and
Australia.
Sherman's comedy sequel,
To Act Or Not To Act
W
hen Henrietta Her-
melin-Weinberg first
auditioned for the role
of Miriam Goldman,
the Jewish mother, in Beau
Jest and Jest a Second, she
had no idea that one of the
performances would fall on
Yom Kippur.
A show portraying Jewish
characters, including a Shab-
bos scene and seder scene,
playing on Kol Nidre night?
"As a rule, we play over
Easter, we play Good Friday
and we're open on Christmas,"
says Meadow Brook Artistic
Director and Beau Jest Direc-
tor Geoffrey Sherman. "So I
thought it was as valid to play
through the Jewish equivalent
as it was to play through these
major holidays on the Chris-
tian calendar."
"For me personally, observ-
ing Yom Kippur was more im-
portant than anything else,"
says Hermelin-Weinberg, who
was raised a practicing Con-
servative at Congregation
Shaarey Zedek and keeps a
kosher home. "I was ready to
say 'Thank you very much. I
can't be in the play.' "
"I've only come across [a
conflict] once before in my 25-
year career, which was in New
York City with a stage man-
ager who felt he couldn't work
that day," recalls Geoffrey
Sherman (no relation to
James Sherman, the play-
wright). "This is the first time
an actor, of any persuasion,
has said that for a religious
reason he or she could not
work a performance. I think
it's her absolute right to do
whatever she wants to do, and
I could have chosen not to cast
her because it's an enormous
hassle to find somebody to do
that one performance. But I
felt that she was worth it."
On Sunday, Sept. 22, Her-
melin-Weinberg will attend
the 10 a.m. unveiling for her
father, Irving Hermelin, and
the 11 a.m. unveiling for her
mother, Florence Shiffman
Hermelin. She'll then go to
Meadow Brook for the 2 p.m.
matinee. The 6 p.m. show will
be performed by Hermelin-
Weinberg's understudy, Jan
Salisbury.
"It never occurred to me
that the theater would be so
accommodating," says Her-
melin-Weinberg about the
same role she understudied
when Beau Jest played at the
Birmingham Theatre. "They
were wonderful. They said
they would work it out. I was
overwhelmed."
❑
Jest a Second, is slated to open
at the Jewish Repertory in New
York in the spring and the Co-
conut Grove Playhouse in Mia-
mi in March.
"[Community theaters have
even put on] productions of it in
places where one does not think
that you're going to find a Jew-
ish audience — Montana, Utah
and Texas. I think I lucked out.
Robert Grossman plays Abe Goldman,
the grumpy, but lovable, Jewish
father. Henrietta Hermelin-Weinberg
is Miriam Goldman, the Jewish
mother, a role she's perfected in real-
life with her five children.
I connected with something that
people respond to.
"The play's about parents and
children. [It works] whether the
actors are Jewish or not — peo-
ple often think that Linnea is
Jewish and then, of course, there
were times when I played Bob
(Schroeder)," says Sherman, who
pursued an acting career for 10
years in New York before tran-
sitioning full time into play-
wrighting. "So you can have a
Jewish actor playing somebody
who's not Jewish who's pre-
tending to be Jewish," he says.
Although Beau Jest has run
at the Jewish Ensemble Theatre
(spring 1994) and the Birming-
ham Theatre, this is the first
time that any theater has pro-
duced both of Sherman's shows
back-to-back.
Jest a Second picks up where
Beau Jest leaves off. By now,
Sarah and Bob, who's converted
and keeps kosher, have entered
wedded bliss, are pregnant and
planning the bris. Guess who's
coming to Shabbos dinner this
time? Brother Joel's beau. How
do you tell your parents you're
gay? Buy a ticket to the shows
and find out. ❑