BROADWAY BUBBIES
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Not that you have to be Jewish to be bored by this show, but it helps to know a few Yiddishisms (schmatte, Oy-vay) and a few words from Jewish culture (Hadassah, kreplach soup, gefilte fish) so that you can understand just how tiresome and old the humor in this show is. Do we really need yet another bit about Jewish mothers and how seldom their children call them?
What the show lacks in originality it tries to make up for with a kitschy, desperate charm; Laurel Cronin’s tearful rendition of “Ain’t We Got Fun,” for instance, or the group number in which Edie Adams “admits” she’s envious of her less glamorous, more domestic friends (which we don’t for a minute believe) and they in turn admit (this we believe) that they are envious of her. But more often than not, the humor descends to the adolescent level of Sharon Carlson’s embarrassing version of “Makin’ Whoopee.” This involves–I kid you not–a whoopee cushion, which the otherwise dignified Ms. Carlson squeezes until it farts during the pause between the words “making” and “whoopee” in the chorus.
