Joke-topic
come
Ecaelece gi§cfezoir
Thirty-sornething Jewish writers/actors poke fun at the dating scene.
ALICE BURDICK SCHWEIGER
Special to the Jewish News
I imagine being a single Jewish
male searching for a perfect
Jewish wife. Now think about a
place where eligible Jewish females
can be found. Perhaps an internet
site like jdate.com that hooks up
Jewish singles? Why not call that
venue "Jewtopia"?"
That's what Sam Wolfson and
Bryan Fogel did in their original,"
clever play of the same name. Now,
after nearly a year and a half of per-
formances in Los Angeles, Je- wtopia
has moved to Off-Broadway. And
not only did the talented duo write
the show, they star in it.
The play opens at an inter-temple
singles mixer, where Adam Lipschitz
(Wolfson), 30 years old and Jewish,
meets up with an old neighbor, Chris
O'Connell (Fogel); a 30-year-old
gentile.
But what is Chris doing at a tem-
ple mixer pretending to be Jewish?
Why does he want to marry a Jew?
So he will "never have to make
another decision the rest of his life,"
he says..
The two bachelors make a pact:
Adam will teach Chris how to be
Jewish, and Chris will help Adam
meet a suitable woman through
online dating.
Some of the play's biggest laughs
— and there are plenty of them —
occur when Adam introduces his
new pal to the world of stereotypical
Jewish living.
What does Chris learn? When you
go to a restaurant, never take the first
table they give you, never order any-
thing directly from the menu, but
always order your salad dressing on
the side.
And, oh yes, when you are order-
ing a salad, and after you have com-
pletely changed its contents, ask for a
little salmon in it. "I don't know
why, but Jews always like adding
salmon to their salads," explains
Adam.
To clarify matters, Adam makes a
poster listing things that are strictly
gentile. Among them: owning power
tools, knowing where they are and
Sam Wolfson and Bryan Fogel
in "Jewtopia"
how to use them; always being in
perfect health; renting The Passion of
the Christ; taking less than an hour to
say goodbye.
Chris does wind up meeting the
Jewish love of his life, but Adam
winds up in another direction. After
a string of Internet dating disasters,
his soul mate turns out to be a
Mongolian woman. His domineering
mother is hardly thrilled when he
brings her home for the family
Passover seder.
Much of the material rings true,
admit Fogel and Wolfson over coffee
at a cafe near the theater before a
recent performance. After all, they
say, they both are Jewish, have "typi-
cal" Jewish mothers and have experi-
enced the dating scene.
In fact, Wolfson, 31, met his last
girlfriend on JDate. "I dated her for
a while, and it was actually a good
way to meet someone," he says.
Wolfson, who is 31 and single, was
raised Reform but considers himself
a cultural Jew. "But I had a bar mitz-
vah that I will never forget— with a
Miami Vice theme," he smiles.
Fogel, who is 31 and now separat-
ed from his wife, was raised in a very
religious home. "We kept kosher and
went to shul for every holiday," he
says. "My great-grandfather was
Chasidic, my mother's father was
Orthodox, and I grew up
Conservative to modern Orthodox."
Fogel and Wolfson's playwriting
collaboration began in the mid-
1990s when they were both living in
L.A. and trying to make a living in
the entertainment industry. A mutual
friend introduced them.
At the time, Fogel, a Denver native
and a University of Colorado gradu-
ate, was producing one-act comedy
festivals. Wolfson, a native of
Jacksonville, Fla., and a
Northwestern University grad, was
auditioning for TV and movies. He
wrote a skit for Fogel's festival.
While working together, they start-
ed comparing notes about being
Jewish and in the dating scene and
decided to write a skit together.
"We wrote this 10-minute scene,
performed it about five times and
people thought it was the funniest
thing they ever saw," says Fogel.
"And we'realized we were on to
something."
b.
After seven months of drafts and
rewrites, and a reading in Los
Angeles, they found a theater and
put together a cast and crew. Since
they both had acting backgrounds,
they put themselves in the starring
roles.
With nonstop sold-out perform-
ances and an abundance of rave
reviews, they were approached to
bring the show to the New York
stage.
Nov that they are becoming big-
time New York playwrights and
actors, will their newfound fame help
them find nice Jewish women?
As they were walking out of a
restaurant, a 30-something curly-
haired brunette recognized them,
calling them over to her table.
"I absolutely love your show!" she
screeched. "Can I come back stage
after one of your performances? I
Would love to get together. I am
queen of the Jews!"
Perhaps she was a possibility?
"Nah," Wolfson says. "She says she is
`queen of the Jews' — that may be a
little too Jewish for me." Ci
Jewtopitz is running at the
Westside Theatre, 407 West
43rd St. between Ninth and
10th avenues. (212) 239-6200.
Ydr c/1/ . ■ ().ez: &`eze
265 Old Woodward • Birmingham
248-642-2555
Hours: Monday-Saturday 9:30-6:00
Closed Sunday
MO UNT
— N --
/?EPAIVI
9-ceRLI/vo
SILVER
dEwELFri
205 Pierce Street • Birmingham
248.647.8670
look for
T-71
...the first Friday of every
month...it's a monthly
lifestyle pull-out-and-save
section focusing on fash-
ion, home design, local
personalities, the arts and
more!
10/22
2004
67