{"id":5104,"date":"2011-05-25T08:00:54","date_gmt":"2011-05-25T12:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=5104"},"modified":"2012-03-31T17:08:04","modified_gmt":"2012-03-31T21:08:04","slug":"oy-a-negative-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/25\/oy-a-negative-review\/","title":{"rendered":"OY: A NEGATIVE REVIEW"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

A Jew Grows<\/em> in <\/em>Brooklyn<\/em><\/strong><\/span>,<\/strong><\/span> <\/em>Jake Ehrenrich’s one-man Broadway show, was unadulterated nostalgia.\u00a0 Jake even flashed photos of his bar mitzvah on the big screen on stage.<\/p>\n

The show came through Cleveland recently.\u00a0 The audience, for the most part, loved the sentimentality and obviousness of the play.\u00a0 Did you know Jake and other Brooklynites played stickball?\u00a0 Did you know Irving Berlin was born Isadore Balin?\u00a0 Did you know Jews wrote many popular Christmas and rock songs?<\/p>\n

This just in: Jews like baseball.<\/p>\n

What about bark mitzvahs?\u00a0 (Bar mitzvahs for dogs.)\u00a0 Aren’t those (fake) events outrageous and cute? \u00a0Jake projected dogs in yarmulkes and tallism<\/em> (prayer shawls) onto the screen.<\/p>\n

There are<\/strong><\/span> acceptable levels of schmaltz and shtick. \u00a0Jake exceeded those levels.<\/p>\n

I know, Yiddishe Cup is not exactly schmaltz-free. \u00a0And Yiddishe Cup gets negative reviews too.\u00a0 We’re schmaltzy. We play “Romania” at the end of most of our shows.\u00a0 That is the imprimatur of a klez shtick band.\u00a0 But we also play original comedy tunes and regularly rip off the great Mickey Katz.<\/p>\n

We would gladly add more high-brow material to our shows if we could play our instruments better.\u00a0 But we wouldn’t add too <\/em>much high-brow.<\/p>\n

Some high-brow<\/strong><\/span> bands are monotonous, repetitive and monotonous.\u00a0 No names here; I don’t want to alienate any of my musician friends.\u00a0 OK, I’ll name one group . . .<\/p>\n

Los Mu\u00f1equitos de Matanzas.<\/p>\n

These drum-crazed Cuban dudes play rhythm patterns on four drums for 45 minutes. \u00a0And that’s just the first set. Very little melodic or harmonic variation.\u00a0 No chording instruments.\u00a0 No talking between songs.<\/p>\n

Yiddishe Cup talks.\u00a0 We explain our tunes and ad lib asides. I might say, “Ladies and gentlemen, on keyboards, Winston Churchill.”\u00a0 That’s class.<\/p>\n

Jake Ehrenrich, in his show, lifted many old Jewish jokes. That was the best part of his show — his Catskills routine.\u00a0 (And he’s a good singer and musician.)<\/p>\n

Jake’s best joke:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Two Jewish men are walking by a church sign:<\/p>\n

\"500-cash-trade-in\"<\/p>\n

Abe says, “I’m thinking of doing it — converting.”<\/p>\n

Murray says, “What? Are you crazy?”<\/p>\n

Abe goes into the church and comes out ten minutes later.<\/p>\n

“So?” Murray asks. “Did you get the $500?”<\/p>\n

Abe says, “Is that all you people think about!”<\/p>\n

Hurray for <\/strong><\/span>Oy Vey.\u00a0 There’s a market.\u00a0 And I want the T-shirt concession in the lobby.<\/p>\n

\"Say<\/p>\n

—<\/span><\/p>\n

For “inside baseball” blog talk, please check out the post below.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Jew Grows in Brooklyn, Jake Ehrenrich’s one-man Broadway show, was unadulterated nostalgia.\u00a0 Jake even flashed photos of his bar mitzvah on the big screen on stage. The show came through Cleveland recently.\u00a0 The audience, for the most part, loved the sentimentality and obviousness of the play.\u00a0 Did you know Jake and other Brooklynites played […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-klezmer","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5104"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8974,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5104\/revisions\/8974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}