Laura Pels Theatre

Theater review by Raven Snook A summer beach read of a musical, A Walk on the Moon delivers Jewish nostalgia with a smattering of schmaltz. Based on the 1999 movie of the same name—written by Pamela Gray and loosely inspired by her vacation experiences in the Catskills as a teenager—the show centers on the blue-collar Kantrowitz family as the societal upheavals of the late '60s shake up their world. What begins as just another season at their insular bungalow community is unsettled by the cultural rumblings of second-wave feminism, Woodstock and the moon landing. A Walk on the Moon | Photograph: Courtesy Joan Marcus Pearl (Talia Suskauer), a housewife in her early thirties, wrangles her kids with help from their bubbe (the invaluable Andréa Burns) and weekend visits from her menschy but unexciting husband, Marty (Max Chernin), a TV repairman. But the arrival of Walker (Sam Gravitte), a sexy hippie goy toy who sells blouses out of his camper, jolts Pearl out of her routine; soon she's slipping into more than his shirts and devouring his dog-eared copy of On the Road. Meanwhile, her rebellious 15-year-old daughter, Alison (Sophie Pollono), embarks on her own romance with Ross (Oscar Williams), an adorkable, guitar-playing adolescent who fancies himself a Jewish Hendrix. A Walk on the Moon | Photograph: Courtesy Joan Marcus  Considering the musical's rocky road to Off Broadway, which began in 2018 in San Francisco with a different songwriter and cast, A Walk on the Moon is...