Cross a family from TV Land with the next-door neighbors from William Finn's Falsettoland and you might end up in the world of The Judy Show, stand-up comic Judy Gold's solo piece about life as a self-described "6'3" Jewish lesbian mother of two." Cowritten with Kate Moira Ryan—with whom she also collaborated on 2007's successful 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother—the show takes place on a set wallpapered with images from famous situation comedies, whose theme songs Gold periodically sings and pounds out on an upright piano.
The organizing conceit is that all Gold really needed to know, she learned in a den watching network TV. Recounting tales of peer rejection and family tension points, such as her mother's paranoia about anti-Semitism, she draws connections between them and the life lessons of sitcom king Norman Lear; she also details multiple efforts to pitch a TV show of her own to various outlets. Gold's style is often abrasive, but in an essentially warm, I-scream-because-I-love way that will be familiar to connoisseurs of Jewish mothers (with whom she has an oddball love-hate-lust relationship). Funny though Gold can be, however—especially when she is mocking or screaming—the show returns too often to the shallow well of pop-cultural references, and Gold seems uncomfortable with sincerity; as directed by Amanda Charlton, her serious moments sometimes recall the very special episodes of the sitcoms depicted on her walls. The evening is entertaining, but might be even swifter if her train of thought veered less often from the laugh track.
DR2 Theatre. By Judy Gold and Kate Moira Ryan. Dir. Amanda Charlton. With Gold. 1hr 25mins. No intermission.
