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Review: Jobsite's 'The Last Night of Ballyhoo' a funny take on Jewish identity

 
The Last Night of Ballyhoo at Jobsite Theater in Tampa. PR photos for Jobsite Theater's production of The Last Night of Ballyhoo. (L-R) Suzy DeVore, Nathan Jokela, Emily Belvo, Ned Averill-Snell, Katie Castonguay, Jordan Foote, and Ami Sallee.   Photo courtesy Crawford Long.
The Last Night of Ballyhoo at Jobsite Theater in Tampa. PR photos for Jobsite Theater's production of The Last Night of Ballyhoo. (L-R) Suzy DeVore, Nathan Jokela, Emily Belvo, Ned Averill-Snell, Katie Castonguay, Jordan Foote, and Ami Sallee. Photo courtesy Crawford Long.
Published Sept. 9, 2014

Trying to explain the Last Night of Ballyhoo can get kind of convoluted, like, "It's about a Jewish family assimilating into Southern life in a changing era when the world was..."

But it's not fully clear until the lights come up.

There's a giant Christmas tree in this Jewish family's house. There's a star on top. Boo Levy gasps at her daughter, blithely hanging ornaments and singing The First Noel.

"Jewish Christmas trees don't have stars," Boo says.

Thus we are launched into the funny, at times baffling journey of Ballyhoo, a play by Driving Miss Daisy writer Alfred Uhry. Jobsite Theater has teamed with the Tampa Jewish Community Center to produce the play, enlisting help from a rabbi to get certain details correct.

The Freitags are a wealthy, multi-layered family living together in an Atlanta neighborhood of Junior Leaguers and WASPs in 1939. They are the only Jews on Habersham Road, except for on the end "where it gets a little tacky." They view the Christmas tree as an American gewgaw, like a Halloween pumpkin or a Valentine's Day card.

They're not quite self-haters, but definitely ignorant to their own heritage (Boo's daughter, Lala, doesn't know what Passover is). They're pumped for Ballyhoo, a country club cotillion for well-heeled Jews in town, all "wishing they could kiss their elbows and turn into Episcopalians."

Lala needs a date, but keeps repelling men with her eccentricities. She's obsessed with Gone with the Wind. She has dropped out of college and claims to be writing her own plantation novel. Her uncle Adolph (a hilariously exhausted Ned Averill-Snell) and mother Boo (equally matched in weariness by Ami Sallee) thinks she's ridiculous. And she kind of is.

It's a shame the script doesn't let Lala evolve, but props to Katie Castonguay for giving the character energy. Props, too, because Castonguay unexpectedly went to the hospital and missed opening night (assistant director Amy Gray stepped in) but was back on stage by Saturday.

Lala is jealous of her cousin Sunny, a smart, blond Wellesley student. Sunny has captured the affections of Joe Farkas, who works at Adolph's company. Joe is an Eastern European Jew from New York. He doesn't understand the family's self-denial, or how Jews in the town can hate themselves and each other.

Nathan Jokela plays Joe with an understated coolness, ushering in some more poignant story development. He has super chemistry with Emily Belvo, who plays Sunny. Belvo, last seen in a chilling independent production of Oleanna in St. Petersburg, is one to watch. Sunny's mother is Reba (a delightful Suzy Devore), a smiley widow who is a little less dense than she seems.

The delivery starts to verge on shrill cackling in the frenzy leading up to the Ballyhoo dance. The addition of a buffoonish Louisiana suitor named Peachy Weil (Jordan Foote) brings things to a pretty cartoonish level (and Peachy's red hair dye should seriously be reconsidered).

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Fortunately, some tender scenes with Joe and Sunny soften the tone before it's too far gone. The result ends up being rather sweet. And while some people have historically had problems with Ballyhoo's ending, which director Gavin Hawk has stuck with, it feels welcome here.

Hey, eagle eyes: At the start of act two, check out the top of that Christmas tree.