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Nancy Elizabeth Kammer and Evelyn Orbach in It Should Be

SUBIPMOUS APPETIZERS DELECTABLE ROT D
Ens
FABULOUS PARTY TRAYS TANTALIZING DESSERTS

Mother Load

JET play marginalizes supporting players.

Susan Zweig
Special to the Jewish News

D

ebuting at the Jewish
Ensemble Theatre's Festival
of New Plays several years
ago as a staged read-
ing, Ted Herstand's It
Should Be, now in
its world premiere at
JET through Feb. 18,
contains the trappings of what a suc-
cessful JET comedy ought to have, at
least theoretically.
It burbles with the customary angst,
a Depression era's want, and is con-
structed around a powerful matriarchal
figure that should be familiar to most
in the audience.
The setting is a filmy Bronx flat, to
which many of our ancestors held a key.
Mama (Evelyn Orbach) is this family's
glue — and alternately, its vice, wrench,
turpentine and pickax. Over the course
of the play, she must get her eldest
daughter, Becky (Jamie Moyer), remar-
ried without incident; build up hapless,
unemployed son-in-law Irwin (Fred
Buchalter); keep granddaughter (Rachel
Allison) from truancy; keep husband
(Loren Bass) properly cushioned and
keep daughter Muriel (Nancy-Elizabeth
Kammer) from hyperventilating.
Mama must accomplish all this and
keep a roof firmly over their heads
— while whipping up Shabbat dinner,
no less.
Curiously, many supporting play-
ers are fed only morsels to deliver; by
contrast, Mama's role is Herculean. Her
lengthy dissection of family goings-on,
prattle stretched further by Orbach's
hemming, becomes almost a frustra-
tion. This is mother not as architect of
her offspring's inner coping skills but
the source of emotional paralysis for
those in earshot.
Unless Mama angles and pulls
strings just so, it seems uncertain how
many members of this family could
find their individual path in life, let
alone their way out of the apartment.
As to those ancillary players with

little to do or say — or part of subplots
that are too easily foreseen — three
or four such characters could be sum-
marily erased by the introduction of
a telephone or use of the flat's cracked
window to yell down to the street, and
no one would be the wiser.
Instead, those with the
fewest lines are left standing
stiffly near doorways, hold-
ing boxes like statues — less
like characters supposedly there to pro-
pel a plot than props. While Loren Bass
as Papa and Nancy-Elizabeth Kammer
as Muriel do a yeoman's job with the
thinly drawn material, one wonders
how all might have fared if given more.
Rather than sketch characters with a
richly layered interior life, it seems writ-
er-director Herstand favors superficial
types, caricature over portrait. Those
seated in the dark thus have little, if
any, opportunity to catch glimpses of
themselves.
The set by Christopher H. Carothers
is appropriately dingy. Eli Magid's cos-
tumes invoke 1937, though his liberal
spats use feels of a slightly earlier era.
Herstand's script didn't call for it, but
properties like a crossword puzzle
from the newspaper, a manager's set of
apartment keys or console radio might
have given characters a bit more to do
with their stage time.
Throughout the second act, the din-
ing table, the presumed cradle of family
conversation, is dressed for a Shabbat
dinner that is dutifully prepared but
never served.
Fitting for a play that hints at much
that should be satisfying yet simply
fails to bring it to the table.

********** *************** **********************

REVI EW

JET presents It Should Be 7:30
p.m. Wednesdays-Thursdays, 5
and 8:30 Saturdays and 2 p.m.
Sundays through Feb.18 at the
Aaron DeRoy Theatre in the
Jewish Community Center in West
Bloomfield. There will be a matinee
2 p.m. Wednesday, Feb.14, which
replaces the evening performance.
For tickets, call (248) 788-2900.

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February 1. 2007

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