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`
Kissing
Jessica Stein'
Writers/actresses offer a fresh take on the
subject of sex and the single girl.
NAOMI PFEFFERMAN
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
hen Jennifer Westfeldt
and Heather Juergensen
shared bunk beds at a
1996 Catskills theater
workshop, they swapped stories about
Mars-Venus angst.
Westfeldt, an Upper West Side Jew,
was breaking up with her college
boyfriend and dating for the first time
ever. Juergensen, a downtown bohemi-
an, was juggling three guys and feeling
guilty.
Their girl talk led to a 1997 play and
a movie, Kissing Jessica Stein, opening
Wednesday, in which two women escape
heterosexual hell by dating each other.
The frothy romance, a lesbian take on
Sex and the Single Girl, puts a new spin
on the saga of the befuddled single
woman (think Annie Hall to Bridget
Jones' Diaiy).
Stein (Westfeldt) is a prudish Upper
West Side Jewish copy editor with a
mean ex-boyfriend (Scott Cohen) and
an overbearing mom (Tovah Feldshuh)
who thinks she's too picky
On a whim, she answers the perfect
personal ad (except it's in the women-
seeking-women section) and meets
Helen (Juergensen), a promiscuous, "bi-
curious" Chelsea gallery manager. The
comedy veers into bedroom farce when
Jessica's mom invites Helen to Shabbat
dinner.
Though the characters' dating histo-
ries are loosely based on the authors',
Westfeldt and Juergensten say they've
never dated women (or each other).
But Westfeldt — who has family ties
to the quintessential Manhattan singles
shul, B'nai Jeshurun — insists the con-
cept isn't far-fetched.
"While writing the story, we inter-
viewed dozens of women — straight,
gay, crossed over, crossed back," says the
actress, who began with a lesbian couple
at B'nai Jeshurun.
"Plus, we all have these wonderfully
close women friends, and lots of us won-
der, 'What if my girlfriend made the
perfect [boyfriend]?"'
- Westfeldt — who like Juergensen is
30-ish — dates her rela-
tionship woes to her child-
hood in a WASPY
Connecticut town.
"My mom would say,
`Why don't you date a nice
Jewish boy?' And I'd say,
`Because this one's ugly
and that one's crazy,'" she
breathily recalls. "That's
how many Jewish boys
there were around."
When the family
shlepped into Manhattan
for B'nai Jeshurun services
led by Westfeldt's
esteemed great-uncle, the
late Rabbi Marshall Meyer, Mom
pointed out cute guys for young
Jennifer to check out.
The memories inspired a Stein
Yom Kippur scene in which Jessica's
mother is so obnoxious, Stein finally
blurts, "Will you shut up? I'm try-
ing to atone!"
The film also features hilariously
exaggerated versions of the authors'
crummiest dates: The lech who sug-
gestively rubbed his chest; the nerd who
.meticulously split the check; the mala-
prop-prone dufus who declared he was a
"self-defecating guy."
"Like Jessica, I'm something of a
wordsmith, so that was absolute tor-
ture," says Yale theater grad Westfeldt.
Less icky was rehearsing her first girl-
on-girl smooch, courtesy of Juergenson,
though "we were both nervous," she
confides.
Juergensen, an earthy lapsed
Protestant, concurs: "I knew there was-
n't a man attached to those lips, but
eventually our professionalism kicked
in," she says.
After their 1997 play, Lipschtick, creat-
ed a deafening Hollywood buzz,
Westfeldt and Juergensen were barraged
by studio offers.
"Our play closed on a Saturday, and
by Monday my agent's phone was ring-
ing off the hook," says Westfeldt, who
previously starred in the ABC sitcom
Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place.
"It was the classic Hollywood
machine; people were like, 'We need to