25 Questions for a Jewish Mother- By Kate Moira Ryan with Judy Gold
- Produced by Theater J
- Reviewed by Janice Cane
In Judy Gold’s world, selecting a sperm donor is like ordering Chinese food over the phone-you choose a dish, make a few substitutions, and dutifully recite your credit card number. And that’s why Judy Gold’s world is worth stepping into for an hour and a half at Theater J. Quite simply, she’s hilarious.
A self-proclaimed “Orthodyke”-an observant Jewish lesbian-Gold is 6 feet, 3 inches of impeccable comedic timing and delivery. She takes the audience through her childhood (Barbra Streisand albums and Judy Blume novels) and life with her partner, Wendy (fights about when to have a baby), all the way through her journey to create 25 Questions. Gold and co-playwright Kate Moira Ryan actually did ask 25 questions about being Jewish and being a mother, interviewing dozens of women across the country. These women are Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, “confused,” and converted Jews from all walks of life
In the show, Gold actually asks about half of her questions. The answers range from silly (“Who is your favorite Jewish mother?” Eleanor Roosevelt) to eye-opening (“How are Jewish mothers different from other mothers?” A paranoia regarding their children that traces back to the Holocaust). For each answer, Gold adopts a different woman’s persona. But she does more than adopt these women’s mannerisms; she becomes them. For one answer, she sits with perfect posture in an arm chair and enunciates each word with very proper precision. For another, she holds a palsied hand close to her body, subconsciously shielding it from view.
I was expecting to laugh during 25 Questions. After all, Gold was a writer and producer for “The Rosie O’Donnell Show,” she has had several HBO comedy specials, she has won awards. But I was not expecting to be as touched as I was. Gold is clearly more than just a stand-up comedian; she is a gifted interviewer. Some of the stories Gold tells-her own, her mother’s, her subjects’-are incredibly personal, even traumatic, and she tells them with strikingly raw emotion.
Gold’s best impression, of course, is of her mother. It’s a one-woman show, so we never meet Mrs. Gold, but we certainly come to know her: her reluctance to accept Wendy’s and then Judy’s pregnancies, her frantic worrying, her rugalech, and her catchphrase (“SO LONG!”). If for no other reason, see 25 Questions to hear Gold hoarsely yelling “So long!” as she imagines the Nazis coming for her family if they had hidden as Anne Frank’s family did.
In a recent review, I wondered if someone like me-in that case, a non-Star Wars enthusiast-could appreciate a play about Star Wars. The answer was no. Here, those outside the Jewish faith may miss some of the jokes in 25 Questions. The journey Gold takes is not to out herself as a lesbian, but as a Jew-moreover, a Jewish mother (beyond that, a Jewish mother just like her own mother). That part isn’t so hard to understand; self-acceptance (and even women becoming their mothers) is a universal message. But while it’s true that many of the Jewish-mother stereotypes Gold pokes fun at are common knowledge, she shares enough “inside Jewish jokes,” if you will, that only those of us raised by our own crazy Jewish mothers will find specific moments of connection. That said, I encourage readers to prove me wrong here.
My moment of connection came when Gold described growing up in a kosher home. Here, she pauses to explain to “the two people here who aren’t Jewish” that meat and dairy do not mix, and that a meat knife found in a dairy drawer can only be purified by soil-in her case, as in mine, in a potted houseplant. The delighted laughter this anecdote received made me realize how odd-sounding the practice is, and I was laughing loudest of all, as I pictured the plants in my mother’s kitchen, full of cutlery because my sister couldn’t get the hang of the rules. (OK, I may have messed up once or twice too.)
Of course, my mother will kill me for mocking her in this review-she specifically warned me before I saw this show NOT to mention her. Sorry, mom. But at least I didn’t write a one-woman show that gets its biggest laughs when I impersonate you and describe your idiosyncrasies in hilarious detail. But thank God Judy Gold did.
- Running time: 1 hour and 25 minutes, no intermission
- When: Playing through February 24. Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sundays at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
- Where: Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater at the Washington, DC JCC. 1529 16th St. N.W. (at Q St.), Washington, DC.
- Tickets: $15-$50. Visit http://www.boxofficetickets.com/ or call 1-800-494-TIXS
- Info: Visit the website.
Listen to our podcast with Judy Gold here.