Freddie Roman, the comedian/entrepreneur who put together the original Catskills on Broadway revue a decade ago, returns with an updated version of the show. Three of the original cast members, Roman, Mal Z. Lawrence and Dick Capri, are featured, along with impressionist Scott Record. Each of the four does a stand-up routine, backed up a six-piece band. Jewish humor abounds in this paean to the Borscht Belt, though the subject matter also deals with topical events: George W. Bush's first 100 days, the election intrigues in Florida, the greying of America, inter-marriage between Jews and Gentiles, and so on.
All four comics are polished performers working at the top of their form, which means they are consistently and hilariously funny. The largely Jewish and elderly first-night audience (which included some of the top comics in town, plus a large theater party from the Friar's Club) howled at every one-liner -- even the ones in Yiddish. (They also related strongly to the jokes about dieting, cholesterol, proctologists and waning sex drives.)
The differences between men and women, particularly husbands and wives, came in for much shared mirth too, with the comics dissecting their various failed marriages and/or flawed wives from an all-male perspective.
Scott Record provided a change of pace and style with his brief but witty impersonations of everyone from Richard Simmons, Jack Nicholson, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder and Louis Armstrong to Luciano Pavarotti. He finished his act with a surprisingly moving and impressive rendition of "Music of the Night" from The Phantom of the Opera. He knows how to sing, and the comics know how to make laughter.
