Alex Edelman in "Just For Us" at Williamstown Theater Festival

Returning to Greenwich House Theater in NYC From August 8 to Sept. 2

Alex Edelman is a young and vibrant comedian who is getting accolades across the Theater World for his monologue-comedy drama, “Just for Us,” which just completed a week-long run at the Williamstown Theater Festival and returns Monday for a run at the Greenwich House Theater in NYC until September 2. If you can get to NYC to see this up and coming Jewish Comedian, drop everything and get tickets. If world events have gotten you down, Alex will lift your spirits as he draws belly laughs for his provocative and intelligent comments as, for example, the expressions of sadness in sign language by Koko the Gorilla on hearing of the death of Robin Williams or how Jared Kushner is so infatuated with himself that he reads the Torah in Synagogue as though he wrote it.

Edelman definitely has a lasting fondness and admiration for Robin Williams, as Edelman’s rapid-fire delivery brings back images and sounds that only Williams could make. But Edelman’s delivery is not all rapid fire as he intersperses those comic shots across the bow with reflective and even pensive observations on life in general.

Though Edelman is a Jewish comedian and adheres to that Jewish tendency of self-flagellation, he is also an honest broker for other religions revealing their own peculiarities. Audience laughter is mixed religiosity with Christians, Muslims and Jews sharing in the laughter.

Edelman’s show is a mix of observations coming from several different story lines which mix, diverge and, when you are not looking, come back to build on a theme from the next or the last story. So, his monologue is hardly that, rather, it is one guy telling stories, short jokes, long jokes and whatever fits in between.

His idol, among others, was Robin Williams with his lightening mind, quick wit and also his go-slow approach between those bursts of humor inducing laughter. I think Koko in the opening segment is actually Edelman, as I am sure that he, like most of us, was deeply saddened at the passing of Robin Williams. His death took a star from us, someone we would love to watch and for a while relieve us of our pains, agonies and concerns of the moment. Robin was an escape.

Edelman also has that split second wit and rapid fire delivery like Williams in his heyday. But like Williams, he does slow down and savors some of his more esoteric thoughts or leave them for the audience to digest and contemplate.

Humor is often the linking of things that normally do not go together. Like Henny Youngman’s line that his wife talks so much that her tongue was sunburned. Or early Woody Allen, when he did stand-up comedy in the 1960s, and said that he met a girl (we might now say a lady or woman) that he really liked. But they had incompatible religious beliefs: she was an atheist, and Woody was an agnostic, and they could not decide what religion they would not bring up their children in.

Edelman had a deeply Orthodox religious upbringing in Boston which provides a vessel for many of his interrelated skits. He pulls the wool down off Chanukkah telling the non-Jews that Jewish kids do not get gifts over eight days, rather they get gifts piecemeal to fill the space. He goes from there to a story about a friend of his mother whose husband died, and in order to console her friend, she tells the family that they will celebrate Christmas to perk up her Christian friend. This requires Edelman’s father to educate the sons what Christmas is all about, sort of, so they decorate a Christmas tree in the garage as a concession to father’s desire not to have a Christmas tree in the house, but they top the tree off with a dreidel. Their rabbi gets word of the Christmas celebration in this devout Jew’s home, so he admonishes the father for permitting such an affair, even if limited to the garage. But true to my promise to Edelman after the show at Williamstown, I won’t give away the ending.

There is another skit-storyline, about Edelman getting invited, sort of, to a White Nationalist meeting in Queens. You can imagine what transpires when they find a Jew in their midst. Predictable, but he does great character development of the attendees.

At the sh

ow’s conclusion, the audience leapt to their feet in unison with vigorous applause.

So, if you need a pick-me-up and an opportunity to escape drudgery, go see Alex Edelman starting tomorrow until September 2 at the Greenwich House Theater at 27 Barrow Street in NYC. JustForUsShow.com

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