
DATE: Saturday, March 1, 1997               TAG: 9703010061

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E2   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Theater Review 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, THEATER CRITIC 

                                            LENGTH:   54 lines

``GOD OF ISAAC'' IS HEAVY GOING

FOR ISAAC ADAMS, ``to be or not to be'' is not the question. Rather, he's concerned with ``to be, but how not to be.'' He's concerned with finding his Jewish identity.

For a comedy, ``The God of Isaac'' takes itself much too seriously. After a long evening in which the actors are forced to mug in search of humor, the hero is sent away with a culture, but not a girl. Perhaps he and Woody Allen should get together.

Bruce K. Hanson, who is likable as Isaac, is barely into his plaintive whine that he's neglected his heritage when his mother interrupts from the audience. As played by Freda Wolf, she's obsessed with getting in every possible stereotype. She berates him for not calling her and suggests that she'll have chicken soup waiting. Meanwhile, he trudges forward with the play he's written and is performing.

His wife, Shelley (Audra Stovall), is a blonde shiksa whom he feels doesn't understand him. She makes big money in modeling, while he has no job.

The Actors' Theater seems to have made a markedly uncommercial decision in choosing this play because it is a notably preachy and repetitive outing. It seems more suited to a seminar than a comedic evening. In an effort to perk up the comedy, a series of skits are trotted out. There's a Jewish Dorothy in the land of Oz (with house dog Magilacuddy as Toto). There's Joe Donahue in a laughable version of Marlon Brando in ``On The Waterfront,'' moaning ``I coulda had class. I coulda been a mensch.''

There are also sketches, no less obvious, from ``Huckleberry Finn,'' ``The Grapes of Wrath,'' and Eliza Dolittle and Henry Higgins from ``My Fair Lady,'' singing in Yiddish.

The actors, especially those in the sketches, work hard. Under the direction of Betty Xander, there is a notable effort to mine any humor from this scattershot script, but the seriousness of Isaac's plight undercuts the whimsy. Finding jokes amidst such serious concerns as Holocaust remembrances and an impending invasion of Nazi marchers to Skokie, Ill., in 1977 becomes a bit stressful after awhile.

The balance is simply not there. It's a heavy evening. ILLUSTRATION: THEATER REVIEW

``The God of Isaac''

What: The comedy by James Sherman

Where: The Actors' Theater, Pembroke Mall, Virginia Beach

Who: Directed by Betty Xander, featuring Bruce K. Hanson, Freda

Wolf, Wade Brinkley, Kathy Ecobichon, Joe Donahue, Audra Stovall,

Magilacuddy

When: Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m.,

through March 16

How Much: $12; senior, military, full-time students, $10

Call: 757-557-0397