By Michael Ryan
HUNTER - Comedy is a funny thing, sometimes springing from the darkest whims of the human condition which is why “Old Jews Telling Jokes” is being staged again by the Maude Adams Theater Hub (MATH).
Shows will run December 27 & 28, @ 6:30 p.m., at the Doctorow Center for the Arts in Hunter, sponsored by the Catskill Mountain Foundation. Tickets are $25 for adults, $20 for seniors.
“We did this back in October and it sold out one of two nights,” says MATH creative director Amy Schreiber, noting Hanukkah humor will be added to the latest presentations.
“Old Jews Telling Jokes” originated as a YouTube series, capturing the essence of the legendary Catskills Resort era stand-up comedians.
The theme of the local stagings is “loosely hung around five different people with story lines from birth to death, applying humor to every situation in-between,” Schreiber says.
While the heyday of Jewish humor was in the Catskills southern foothills, in Sullivan and Ulster counties, there were at one point, “twenty vaudevillian houses between Tannersville and Hunter,” Schrieber says.
“It’s amazing just how much theater was supported. People love to sit and laugh in the dark with other people. Imagine that.”
The real play, by Peter Gethers and Daniel Okrent, will be unfolding in the days immediately after Christmas, directed by Jacob Shipley.
Opening scenes are set just after synagogue (with piano accompaniment by Jennie Cawein from the town of Lexington), and Schreiber sheepishly reveals, “the dirtier jokes tend to be funnier.”
Like the one about the elderly man and woman who go to an analyst to fix their sex life, being told…well, something risque, better heard in person.
How about a Henny Youngman-style gag…”my wife hates housework so what did I do? I bought her an electric iron, an electric dishwasher, and an electric drier.
“Then she says there are too many gadgets around and there is no place to sit down. So what did I do? I bought her an electric chair.”
How about the husband who goes to court after being arrested for shoplifting? The judge asks, “what did you steal?”
“A can of peaches,” the husband replies and the judge asks, “how many peaches were in the can?”
“Four, your honor,” the husband says. “Okay sir, that will be four nights in jail for you,” the judge decrees.
But the wife pleadingly intercedes, approaching the judge, saying, “wait, your honor, please let me speak,” a request the judge allows.
“My husband,” says the wife, “also stole a can of peas.”
Two men love baseball. They cannot get too much baseball. They begin to wonder, as they get older, if there will be baseball in Shamayim - heaven.
They fear there won’t be so they hatch a plan. Whoever dies first will come back and tell if there is baseball in heaven. Hiram goes first and that same night, Moshe hears Hiram’s voice, as if in a dream.
“Is that you Hiram?” Moshe says. “Yes,” Hiram answers. “I have wonderful news. There is never-ending baseball in heaven.” Moshe is ecstatic. “The not so good news is,” Hiram adds, “you are pitching on Tuesday.”
A Jewish family is sitting on a porch at a dude ranch. They see a guy going by with a wagon load of manure. “What do you do with that manure?” they ask.
“We sprinkle it on our strawberries,” the guy responds. “You should come to our place,” the head of the family says. “We use sour cream.”
“Old Jews Telling Jokes” includes an intermission where, “we are planning to have latke,” Schreiber says. The audience is encouraged NOT to whisper aloud the punchlines, if they know them.
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