THEATER - "A Jew Grows in Brooklyn"

A Jew Grows in Brooklyn is billed as a "true story" musical comedy. I don't know why true story is in quotes, since that's about the only thing this lower-than-average autobiography is. Jake Ehrenreich's had an interesting career, among which include his international tour as Ringo in Beatlemania, but what he focuses on here are lounge renditions of 60s rock, slideshow presentations of kitschy achievements, and a lot of in-jokes on Brooklyn, the Catskills, and everything Jewish in-between. What it lacks, save for when Jake gets carried away playing the drums late in Act II, is any originality. Due to the way the stage is built, audience members have to cross it to get to their seats on the other side, but while I watched these people crossing, I couldn't help but think that any one of them could've told this same story (and probably have). Jake's one asset is that he's a performer, he looks good onstage, and he at least looks like he's having a good time.

All that charisma should make A Jew Grows in Brooklyn a great lounge act. Then Ehrenreich's call-and-response won't seem so hokey, and it won't look like he's pleading for people to like him not for what he is, but for what he represents (a nice Jewish boy come to terms with his history). I don't get the references, I don't know why we're playing Simon Says, and Jake's right when he tells people (half-jokingly) who don't remember when phone numbers had names to "get the heck out of here." A Jew Grows in Brooklyn has a very focused demographic, and there's no attempt to appeal to anyone who isn't a Jewish senior. Art attempts to transcend such shallow things as race; that makes this show pure, smarmy commercialism.

At the end of the show, Jake closes by asking the audience to look at something white onstage, and then at something brown. He points out what what we see in life is what we choose to focus on, be it good or bad. But in all honesty, I tried to focus on the good things of A Jew Grows in Brooklyn and still came up empty. I'm sure Mr. Ehrenreich's a good person, and he seems like a great father and husband, but this show is far too limited in scope, audience, and depth to run for more than a week, and billing a lounge act as musical comedy is just false advertising. If you fit the demographic, you'll no doubt kvell for this trip down memory lane, plotz at the cheap humor, and maybe even get ver clempt at the shallow examination of family, but for the rest of you wondering what those words mean, A Jew Grows in Brooklyn might as well be Greek.