On first glance, the title resembles the beginning of a vaudeville joke. Rather than generating laughs from the punch line, you hear gunshots and explosions in the background. Philadelphia playwright Seth Rozin’s dark comedy “Two Jews Walk Into a War” is set in the recent past during the Taliban regime’s final days in Afghanistan. The title characters are accountant Ishaq (Jim Korinke) and carpet salesman Zeblyan (Robert Elliott), who are the last two surviving Jews in Kabul. The only thing that binds them together is that they hate each other’s guts. The play, directed by Cynthia Levin, made its Kansas City premiere last weekend and continues through March 20 at the Unicorn Theatre on the more intimate Jerome Stage.
The entire play takes place inside a dilapidated old synagogue in which the walls are crumbling, the stained glass window is broken and the ark is empty. The play opens with the death of a third person who kept the peace. Ishaq and Zeblyan are now forced to confront each other. Their loathing stems from the fact that Ishaq’s parents convinced Zeblyan’s family to leave the refugee camps after surviving the Holocaust and come to Afghanistan rather than the United States, Canada or Israel.
Ishaq tells Zebylan that they must declare a truce and stop hurling insults at each other. He believes the future of Afghan Jewry depends on them. He hatches a plan to repopulate the Jewish community in Kabul. They will find two Afghani women of child-bearing age, convert them to Judaism, marry and impregnate them. This will double the Jewish population in nine months. However, a conversion ceremony requires a rabbi. A rabbi will need a Torah. Ishaq happens to be a Torah scholar. He has memorized the Torah including all the punctuation marks. Since he is more than two decades older and his hands are unsteady, Ishaq dictates the passages and Zebylan serves as the scrivener. They kvetch, argue, debate and bounce ideas off each other in a verbal game of ping pong.
Their hilarious odd couple pairing finds Ishaq in the role of straight man to Zebylan’s questioning, smart-aleck jokester. The play consists of brief sketches, many lasting no more than a few minutes, followed by a blackout and Middle Eastern music. It closely resembles an episodic sitcom. While loosely based on a true story, this thought-provoking play points out how fragile religious freedom truly is. We too often take for granted our religious institutions that serve as the beacons for preserving our faith and the meaningful traditions passed down from our ancestors.
Levin is to be congratulated for bringing this play to Kansas City. She deftly handles a serious situation with doses of comic relief. Her Conservative Jewish background comes in handy in guiding these two talented non-Jewish actors through their paces. She gets a valuable assist from Jewish scenic designer Evan Hill for his masterful recreation of the synagogue which acts as a vital unifying linchpin. These two demanding roles pose a real challenge to the actors. Korinke and Elliott have a winning chemistry that allows for a believable give-and-take kibitzing. Elliott is very refined with a nuanced performance. He uses his physicality to bring out his character’s mischievous behavior. Korinke is simply amazing in overcoming a monumental memorization challenge. He gives subtle hints of the age disparity between the characters. His feebleness is demonstrated by taking pills and a bad back. He is convincing in his devout beliefs and stubborn adherence to the text being the literal word of God. The play effectively mixes the modern with the ancient and hints at the disparity between Orthodox and Reform Judaism.
The play is very generic with very few ethnic words and will appeal to all religious denominations. The Kansas City version is the first to include an intermission to break the 90-minute length in half. I give this uniquely intimate experience a solid grade of B.
For tickets or more information, call (816) 531-7529, ext. 10, online at www.unicorntheatre.org or in person at the box office.
