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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #187 (6/15/2024): Tony Awards 2024

airs June 15, 2024 on Dave’s Gone By.  

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for June 16—Tony Night—2024.

Oh, my friends, the time has come as it does every year (except the year of the pandemic) to celebrate and honor excellence in the Broadway theater. The Tonys are named for Antoinette “Tony” Perry, an actress and early female stage director who founded the American Theater Wing, which brought shows to our servicemen in World War II. In 1947, Tony Perry and producer Brock Pemberton cooked up the idea of giving out prizes at the end of the season. Here we are, 77 events later, and the Tonys are a ritual, a commercial for Broadway, and an excuse to complain when musical numbers all sound the same or a performer we love gets egregiously overlooked. 

For me, the Tonys are also a time to remember, with pride, just how crucial Jewish people were in creating Broadway, and how they are still—even in this age of trannies and Sudanis and Kardashian fannies—a theatrical force to be reckoned with. For example, “Mary Jane” may be the most goyische name for a character ever, but Mary Jane the Tony-nominated play is by Amy Herzog. She’s half-Jewish on her mother’s side and comes from a long line of Marxist, far-left socialist, and other politically wrongheaded but super-Jewish beliefs.

Speaking of 50/50 Jewesses, Paula Vogel is back on the Tony roster with Mother Play, about a mama who smokes and drinks gin. Okay, not Jewish, but we don’t want her to be. Plus, last decade, Vogel wrote Indecent, that lovely play about Yiddish theater and lesbians, two subjects I can’t think about without reaching for a box of tissues, albeit for different reasons. 

Now, another nominated playwright, David Adjmi, is American-Syrian. (worried pause) Syrian-Jewish! (happy dance) Adjmi’s play Stereophonic, about a rock band in crisis, looks to be the one to beat for the Tony statuette. The competition is Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, by schvartze-shickseh playwright Jocelyn Bioh—hey, Jews can’t hog every nomination—and also a new play by Joshua Harmon, who wrote a comedy years ago called “Bad Jews!” 

Well, Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic is a three-hour Jewfest, a heartfelt exploration of why Jews never feel safe anywhere for very long. If you can believe it, the play was written two years before the latest cataclysm and before every putz walking a college campus turned into a billboard for Hamas. One of the show’s characters is a progressive Jewish chick who rails against Israel because she doesn’t understand that without Israel, Holocaust II is just a sequel waiting to happen. For making that case alone, Joshua Harmon deserves an award—not from the Tonys but from the B’nai B’rith.

But before we get too serious, let’s find some other Yids in the Tony tally. Songwriter Shaina Taub, the shayna maidel who wrote the musical Suffs, has said that the Jewish idea of tikkun olam, repairing the world, is a vital part of her ideology. Half-Jewish Liev Schreiber just played Anne Frank’s father in a TV miniseries,and Michael Stuhlbarg, raised as a Reform Jew, was the Rabbinically cursed Larry Gopnik in the Coen Brothers’ film, A Serious Man.

Now, this does bring us to actress Quincy Tyler Bernstine. She’s black. And I have no idea if… (mouths) Bernstine? However, both her parents were lawyers, and she went to Brown University, so even if Bernstine is not a Bernstein, she’s fine. The same goes for special Tony winner Abe Jacob, a legendary sound designer who’s probably Jewish, but I can’t prove it, and Alex Edelman, whose one-man show, Just for Us, brings us back to—you got it—anti-Semitism as an American pastime. Edelman, raised Orthodox, talks about assimilating and wanting to be like everyone else but still feeling unsure how he fits in. He also recounts attending a meeting of Neo-Nazis just to study their mindset. Actually, I could have saved him a trip; just go to your nearest university student government and watch them vote on divestment.

But Mazel Tov to Alex Edelman, Featured Actress nominee Shoshana Bean, Featured Actor Steven Skybell (whose last big role was a Yiddish Tevye!), and let’s not forget half-Jewish Daniel Radcliffe! Yes, Harry Potter’s magic wand is circumcised.

Not surprisingly, we see many landslayt in the Best Musical Revival category—remember when all musicals were Jewish even when they weren’t Jewish? (sighs) Anyhoo, there’s Cabaret, Gutenberg! The Musical!, Merrily We Roll Along, and The Who’s Tommy—all with some Jewish connection. Cabaret covers the rise of Nazi Germany and its effect on Jews and Gentiles alike. Well, not alike: Jews suffered worse. But the score was co-written by John Kander—Jewish, and still alive at 97!—and Fred Ebb—no longer alive but Jewish when he was!

Gutenberg! The Musical! was written by two shaygitzes, but the name “Gutenberg” sounds Jewish, and, hey, he printed the Bible, so he gets a pass. Pete Townshend, who wrote the music for Tommy, has always looked Jewish, so thumbs up for that. And how can we leave out the melech malchei hamlachim, Stephen Sondheim, whose Merrily We Roll Along finally became a Broadway smash? That musical shows how youthful idealism corrodes into cynicism, disappointment, and schadenfreude. What could be more Jewish?

And so, chaverim, we await Broadway’s big night: the teary-eyed speeches, black actresses thanking the Lord, gay directors thanking their husbands, viewers at home thanking God that Jo Koy isn’t hosting. My hope for the Tonys is that anyone wearing a Gaza pin on their dress accidentally sits on it, and that we are spared acceptance speeches that sneak in brainless homilies on ceasefire and two-state solutions and other subjects pampered Broadway snowflakes know less than nothing about. Stick to art, stick to entertainment! I just wish they’d stop sticking it to consumers by charging $200 for orchestra seats. (Go figure how all these socialists don’t mind a little free-market capitalism when it comes to their paychecks.)

But I can get only so angry at the theater, which has given me so much nachas over the years. May creativity and beauty always be replenished, and may Broadway, that Fabulous Invalid, which has survived world wars, assassinations, Covid, and even TikTok, forever go on with the show.

This has beena Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Curtain up!

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