{"id":16738,"date":"2015-03-13T09:30:18","date_gmt":"2015-03-13T16:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=16738"},"modified":"2015-03-13T09:32:44","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T16:32:44","slug":"hysterically-funny-one-man-show-targets-ethnicities-and-aging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/hysterically-funny-one-man-show-targets-ethnicities-and-aging\/","title":{"rendered":"Hysterically funny one-man show targets ethnicities and aging"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Woody’s [rating: 4]<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Ron Tobin in \u201cMy Mother\u2019s Italian, My Father\u2019s Jewish & I\u2019m in Therapy!\u201d Photo by Rudy Lens.<\/p><\/div>\n

Actor-comic Ron Tobin has mastered, I\u2019d guess, at least 17 voices and 42 verbal sound effects.<\/p>\n

Or maybe it\u2019s the other way around.<\/p>\n

Plus, give or take, 28 accents.<\/p>\n

He can instantly change faces \u2014 and identities \u2014 by distorting his mouth or brow and scrunching up or widening his eyes.<\/p>\n

His elastic body and swinging hands can conjure up hysterically dysfunctional and hysterically funny men, women, dogs and a cat.<\/p>\n

During a one-man show at the Del Valle Theater \u2014 \u201cMy Mother\u2019s Italian, My Father\u2019s Jewish & I\u2019m in Therapy!\u201d \u2014 Tobin portrayed, in quick succession (and with exquisite comedic timing) a nasal stewardess, a cabbie from a Middle East country, a guru from India, an 83-year-old Jamaican gated community guard, a phlegm-ish uncle \u00a0\u2014 as well as the constantly bickering title characters based on writer-comic Steve Solomon\u2019s ethnically divided parents.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m normally a tough audience for comedians. But Tobin made me laugh out loud repeatedly.<\/p>\n

The show isn\u2019t seamless, though.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s uneven, and may lean too heavily on potty humor.<\/p>\n

It also becomes fleetingly awkward when a singular poignant grandma moment unexpectedly interferes with the cresting comedy.<\/p>\n

And some of its gags and situations are older than Moses.<\/p>\n

Like the clich\u00e9d notion of his wife loving<\/em> sex \u2014 until the second they wed.<\/p>\n

Promotional materials call the monologue \u201cone part lasagna, one part kreplach and two parts Prozac,\u201d and say it\u2019s really all about leaving dinner \u201cwith heartburn and a headache.\u201d<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m pleased to report \u201cMy Mother\u2019s Italian\u201d is much funnier than its publicity.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t begin to count all the one-liners crammed into the two-act, 100-minute show that ran for two years in New York City and has toured internationally in more than 200 cites since.<\/p>\n

What absolutely worked for me were the numerous set-ups about the aging process \u2014 especially hearing loss (maybe you had to be there, but mom hears \u201cLebanese\u201d instead of \u201clesbian\u201d) and bodily non-functions.<\/p>\n

And the obvious ethnic jibes (\u201cWhat are genitals?\u201d \u201cThose are the people who aren\u2019t Jewish\u201d).<\/p>\n

Most of the jokes, such as those, play vastly better on stage than they read in a review. And the laughter they provoke is appropriately contagious.<\/p>\n

A guy behind me saw the show in San Diego with Solomon and found it side-splitting enough to see again with Tobin.<\/p>\n

He couldn\u2019t stop laughing the second time around.<\/p>\n

The cackles of several women near him were so raucous they nearly drowned out the next three punch-lines.<\/p>\n

Tobin had learned his script well. But he also inserted an amusing smidgeon of reality. In a five-minute encore, he riffed about having gotten lost while trying to find the Walnut Creek theater where I saw him perform \u2014 after I, too, got lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell your friends,\u201d he mockingly pleaded, \u201cnot just about the show \u2014 about how to get here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy Mother\u2019s Italian, My Father\u2019s Jewish & I\u2019m in Therapy!\u201d will run through March 29 at the Del Valle Theater, 1963 Tice Valley Road, Walnut Creek. Evening performances, Wednesdays and Thursdays, 7 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 6 p.m. Matinees, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $45 to $65. Information: www.LesherARTScenter.org<\/a> or 1-925-943-7469.<\/em><\/p>\n

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net<\/a>\u00a0or at www.vitalitypress.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Woody’s [rating: 4] Actor-comic Ron Tobin has mastered, I\u2019d guess, at least 17 voices and 42 verbal sound effects. Or maybe it\u2019s the other way around. Plus, give or take,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"