Slash Coleman Has Big Matzo Balls @ Fringe
Slash Coleman Has Big Matzo Balls is weird. Weird. But that’s because Slashtipher J. Coleman is weird.
The one-man play is a representation of the playwright-actor-jazz pianist-author-comedian-painter’s Jewish, eccentric, and quick mind. It is a collection of one-liners and songs, audience participation and balls-to-the-wind gimmicks.
Actually, the play is about Slash—he changed his name from Jeffrey after his Bar Mitzvah to include two letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the name his grandfather, who survived the Holocaust, assumed at Ellis Island—and his Jewish identity as a “halfy,” that is, a half Jew. Slash assumes a Jeff Foxworthy demeanor to explain: What’s a halfy? “If your Passover is ruined because you run out of ketchup, you’re a halfy.” Then what’s a Jew? “If you ever had a layover at LaGuardia, you’re in the tribe.”
He channels his family identity and uses the Holocaust as a symbol of alienation, as he seeks his “other triangle,” a reference to the yellow Star of David that Jews wore beginning in 1941. Eventually, he gives birth to a giant matzo ball, which is itself a “halfy.”
Continually poking fun at Jewish institutions and members of the audience, our hero eventually discovers his other triangle when he finds he and his matzo ball progeny are sufficiently Jewish.
And oddly enough, even though it takes 20 minutes to get warmed up, even though at least two couples walked out mid-performance, even though at times you cringe at the feeling that the oft-stuttering Slash might forget his next line, the hour flies by—the play works.
It works because above all the adjectives and comedic-references the play recalls, it stands primarily as a successful merger of personal narrative and plot; the frills of costume changes and punning are central to the play, but they are not the play.
Mostly, the play works because Slash has the chutzpah—the balls—to stand on stage and deliver his self, in all its unorthodox glory, with confidence and self-belief. By the end, you can't help but become a loyal follower.
Slash plays through this weekend at Warehouse Theater. More information on location and how to buy tickets can be found here.