Hal Linden (left) as Lou complains to Bud (Bernie Kopell) about desert life.
Old Testament history has been amply recreated on the stage and in film—enslavement in Egypt, the Hebrews’ 40-year desert trek to Mount Sinai, the Ten Commandments, transmission of Jewish laws, and a passionate yearning for the Promised Land. In Two Jews, Talking, playwright Ed. Weinberger loosely and innovatively paints both this saga, a “revisionist” desert adventure, and its cemetery-centered finale, with a very broad brush. He does so with the aid of veteran actors Hal Linden and Bernie Kopell, whose characters face off against each other theologically and temperamentally yet find comfort in each other’s company.
Kopell (left) as Phil reminisces with Marty (Linden).
Despite a time jump of more than three millennia and one giant geo-leap from the Middle East to Long Island, all of Weinberger’s characters are endowed with wry, biting humor and polarized perspectives on how and why they (and their loved ones) fit into the universe. In the biblical retrospective, agnostic Lou (Linden) and traditionalist Bud (Kopell), who later morph into modern-day Marty (Linden) and Phil (Kopell), argue about an imaginary oasis, whether they are traveling in circles, and divine providence.
Lou’s frustrations with Moses—and God—overshadow his belief system, into which he sprinkles hefty doses of skepticism. Moreover, his disparaging remarks about his fellow Jews and God in other circumstances might be considered heretical. Bud acts as Lou’s rational foil and points out the latter’s foolishness in thinking that he was better off in Egypt than as a free man or that he can survive in the desert without Moses’ leadership or God’s intervention.
Interestingly, and thanks to both Linden and Kopell’s acting and to Dan Wackerman’s skillful direction, the emergent personalities of Marty and Phil and the dynamics of their respective relationships across centuries resemble those of Lou and Bud, almost as if Marty and Phil were reincarnations of Lou and Bud, their tribal ancestors. Curiously, the humorous, mismatched biblical pair share their names with another mismatched comic duo, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Like Abbott and Costello, the Lou and Bud of the desert excel at ping-pong exchanges and zinger dialogue in which Bud plays the straight man and Lou launches the punch lines.
An angry Lou vents as Bud looks on, aghast.
When Marty and Phil, Lou and Bud’s millennial counterparts, have a chance encounter on a graveside bench in present-day Long Island, they visit their departed ones. Marty is skeptical about all things God-based, for instance, heaven. He asks Phil, “What do I do all day?” to which Phil replies, “Heaven is not divided into days and nights. It’s ... timeless. We’re there through all eternity.” Marty then asks, “What do I do through all eternity?” Phil retorts, “What am I—a tour guide?” A bit later, Phil comments that God acts in mysterious ways. As if on cue, Marty responds, “God acts in such mysterious ways, half the time He fools Himself.”
Marty’s modus operandi, just like Lou’s, consists of chutzpah, cynicism, and sometimes crudeness. Even worse, he mouths off in front of the grave of the wife he loves and praises. Nevertheless, he comes nearly full circle by the end of Act II, when he says Kaddish and the “pintele Yid,” the spark of his Jewish identity, wins out.
Phil unburdens himself to an attentive Marty.
Phil, though, is the same grounded Jewish traditionalist as was the Bud of the biblical era. He may enjoy an off-color joke but nonetheless is respectful of his religion. Linden’s Lou and Marty both superficially reflect Jews, but only as stereotyped and misrepresented. Two Jews, Talking is far from an inter-millennial morality tale. Nevertheless, it is most successful when it uses the script’s humor and the multitalented Linden and Kopell, whose timing is spot-on, to elicit the pathos of four men, across time, who experience tragedy, endure multiple crises and yet find some level of connection to their Jewishness.
The irony, and beauty, of Weinberger’s script is that there are many funny, and even some sidesplitting moments, but that it avoids settling for the caricatures that the humor might suggest are true. Even though Lou and Bud bicker about the Jews’ hardships in traversing the desert for so long, about Moses’ leadership skills, about food, drink, or lack of them in the desert, about how good (or awful) things were as slaves in Egypt, in the end, they still stick together.
Two Jews, Talking runs through Oct. 23 at Theatre at St. Clements (423 West 46th St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays; matinees are 2 p.m. Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays. For more information, contact (212) 246-7277 ext. 44 or visit stclementsnyc.org.
