Alex Edelman is a stand-up comedian, and as such, his stock in trade is silliness — specifically, the jokes he thinks will appeal to the most people in any given audience. At Wednesday night’s performance of his solo show “Just for Us” at the Calderwood Pavilion, he made that point clear from the outset. As an example of what he finds funny, he revealed the dumbest joke he has ever written, about why you never see a fat horse (hint: They take way more steps than humans do, either two or four times as many, depending on Edelman’s math).
It may seem that Edelman was trying to lower his audience’s expectations, pointing out that he’s not a political authority and emphasizing the throwaway quality of some jokes. He talked about how Robin Williams was such a powerful comedian that when Koko, the famous gorilla who communicated in sign language, was told of his death years later, she expressed sadness. By comparison, Edelman says, “my comedy barely works if you’re a Jew from Brookline,” a nod to his hometown and ethnicity.
Don’t be fooled. What follows that declaration is a smart, air-tight monologue that is relentlessly funny and has something to say. The backbone of “Just for Us” is an exploration of Jewish identity, framed by an episode in which Edelman crashed a white supremacists’ meeting in Queens in 2017. But it’s also about ego, empathy, and, in an offhand way, about being a stand-up comedian.
This is Edelman’s third one-person show, but the first time he’s done an extended theatrical run in his hometown. (He’ll be performing “Just for Us” through April 23 at the Calderwood, followed by a date at the Emerson Colonial Theatre on May 20.) Edelman has performed it widely: off-Broadway, in London and Washington, D.C., at festivals in Edinburgh and Melbourne. Now the production moves to Broadway’s Hudson Theatre in June. It feels more than ready.
Working in the modest black box of the Calderwood’s Roberts Studio Theatre, with just three stools and a couple of spotlights, Edelman conjured vivid settings and made use of the full stage. To evoke the white power meeting — a group of racists sitting in a circle and “kvetching,” as he described it — Edelman put himself in the center, with the two other stools closer to the audience to his left and right. That allowed him to address characters in those stools. To illustrate the cumbersome length of his traditional Jewish name, he strode the entire length of the stage while reciting it.
Conversational and reacting in the moment, he noticed every time someone laughed out of sync with the rest of the audience. And he sometimes punctuated an idea with a near roar, as when he explained how he put all of his antisemitic Twitter followers in a Twitter group called “Jewish National Fund Contributors,” because, “Let them be on a list for once!” There were a few quieter beats in the show, but never a lull, and as serious as the subjects he raised might get, never a long wait for the next laugh.
“Just for Us” is a solidly constructed show. (Edelman credits comedian Mike Birbiglia, a master of the monologue and one of the show’s producers.) The stories Edelman breaks out from the framing device of the white power meeting are varied — from the year his Orthodox family celebrated Christmas to sympathize with a Christian friend who had lost her parents, to his brother being an Olympic athlete, to finding out what it meant to be Jewish when he was denied pizza at a birthday party at a Chuck E. Cheese in Watertown. But they never distract from the larger story.
And there is a wallop at the end. Why did Edelman go to that meeting? In the last 10 or 15 minutes of the show, Edelman stacks up a lot of questions about the empathy of Jews, white privilege, and his belief in his ability to charm bigots out of their ugliness. And when the blackout comes after an hour and 15 minutes of entertainment, those questions linger, but the heart is light.
JUST FOR US
Written and performed by Alex Edelman. Directed by Adam Brace. At Roberts Studio Theatre, Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts. Through April 23. $65-$99. 617-933-8600, www.BostonTheatreScene.com. At the Emerson Colonial Theatre, May 20. $25-$135. 888-616-0272, www.EmersonColonialTheatre.com
