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February 13, 2009
Earning their deli bread
Four comedians unite for a Jewish-inspired show.
RON FRIEDMAN
There are few places more stereotypically Jewish than a New York City deli. And it is there, among the pickles and smoked meats, that the comedic quartet of Ross Bennett, Tom Cotter, Cory Kahaney and Brad Zimmerman decided to locate their new show Pastrami on Rye ... With Mayo.
The premise of the show, premièring at Chutzpah! The Lisa Nemetz Showcase of Jewish Performing Arts Festival's opening night gala, Feb. 19, is a group of comedians who meet up at the local deli to talk about their recent performances and kibbitz about their audiences.
"When a comedian is done performing, invariably we go out to eat together. If we're lucky, we do it in a deli and it just seemed the ideal placing of the show," said Kahaney.
The performance is a mixture of stand-up routines and set acts with a comedic bent. All of the participants are experienced comedians with a history of performing before Jewish audiences – mostly in New York and Florida.
"It's a very different world," said Kahaney. "It's not just that we entertain Jews, it's that we entertain this segment of the population ... even if they're not Jewish, if they have a lot of Jews around them, you know, cardiologists, accountants, tax attorneys ... they kind of become Jewish ... especially after they turn 55."
Kahaney said that the fun thing about the show is, "It's kind of like we're parting the curtains a little bit, so that you, the audience, can kind of see what our lives are really like, why we do what we do.... You get to see how incredibly insecure we are and what drives us to constantly be on the stage looking for the next laugh."
When asked whether the new act would be accessible to non-Yiddish-speaking audiences, Kahaney replied, "In a weird way, this is a far less Jewish show than the Princesses of Comedy – there's no old-time language and whatnot."
The last time Kahaney was in Vancouver was for last year's Chutzpah! festival, where she performed The JAP Show with an all-female cast of Jewish comedians. This time, she's the lone woman in the cast of four. "I sort of missed the testosterone. It was like three years of all girls ..." said Kahaney.
Kahaney said that one of the best parts of working with men was that everything went a lot quicker and that she had to worry less about hurt feelings. She also said that as the "token female" the other performers looked to her for etiquette and relationship advice.
Bennett has appeared on Comedy Central's Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, Evening at the Improv and David Brenner's Nite Life. His website states he is a West Point military academy graduate "armed with an expressive delivery and real life topics."
In the past year alone, Cotter has filmed his half-hour special for Comedy Central, won the grand prize at the Boston Comedy Festival and was voted best stand-up at the Las Vegas Comedy Festival.
Zimmerman, whose one-man show is called My Son the Waiter: A Jewish Tragedy, has performed in Montreal's Just for Laughs Festival and is a regular at comedy clubs in New York, Las Vegas and Atlantic City. He is also remembered for his role as Johnny Sacks in The Sopranos.
Pastrami on Rye should leave audience members hungering for more. For details and tickets, visit www.chutzpahfestival.com.
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