When a beleaguered Beth Kaplan Bongar could no longer stand her mother's obsession with weight and social status, she abandoned her posh Park Avenue life and literally ran off to join the circus, becoming every Jewish mother's nightmare. About 30 years later, Bongar is still juggling red balls and performing magic tricks, but now it's for her autobiographical one-woman show, Jews Don't Join the Circus.
Bongar is fully clad in black, with a flowing blouse that does little to hide her ample cleavage. Her lips and fingernails are "hellfire red," as her grandmother called it, but most remarkable is her oval face, which she contorts like putty, crossing her eyes, wagging her tongue.
Bongar embodies many characters in the show, from her loving but alcoholic grandmother Kitty to her snobby mother to their foreign-born housekeeper, as well as herself at various ages. Through these roles, she relives the pain of seeing her beloved grandmother institutionalized, her frustration with her mother's abuse and ceaseless calorie-counting, and her eventual disillusionment with life under the big top.
While Bongar's bio states that she trained with Marcel Marceau and Stella Adler, neither her miming nor her acting take center stage here. Jews is more art therapy than performance piece. The script is lackluster and contains a few groaners. After meeting a street clown, for example, young Beth excitedly shares the news with her grandmother, who replies, "Don't marry a Bozo like I did, Bethy." There are a few laugh-out-loud lines, however, including her mother's title argument.
The set is minimal — a few pieces of red fabric draped around the black masking. The sound design, by Richard Ricciuti and Sound Dimensions, is heavy on the Yann Tiersen but includes some good effects, especially a clear tinkling sound when Bongar touches an invisible chandelier.
It's not the greatest show on earth, but you won't feel like a complete clown for going.
Presented by Highbrow Entertainment as part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival at Where Eagles Dare Theatre, 347 W. 36th St., NYC. July 26-Aug. 6. Schedule varies. (212) 868-4444 or www.smarttix.com.