A divorce lawyer and a rabbi walk into a theatre … Faith, funny combine in Bar Mitzvah Boy

A bar mitzvah is a very special moment in a young man's life — or, in the case of Bar Mitzvah Boy, in the life of a 60-something divorce lawyer. 

That's the premise for B.C. playwright Mark Leiren-Young's 2018 play, which opens Winnipeg Jewish Theatre's season in a production that's by turns thoughtful and amusing, though uneven.

The 90-minute two-hander centres around Joey (Nicholas Rice, who previously dazzled Winnipeg audiences as Ray Cohn in WJT's Angels in America). A successful if morally complicated lawyer, he's never had a bar mitzvah — and with his grandson's approaching, he decides it's finally time.

There are deeper, more complicated reasons for his rush, though. Those unfold in conversations and verbal sparring with Michael (Amy Lee, familiar to Winnipeg Fringe fans as half of the clown duo Morro and Jasp), the young and progressive rabbi he enlists as his private tutor to help him prepare for his big day.

Indeed, nothing is simple in Bar Mitzvah Boy. Though it's comedic premise could be played just for laughs, Leiren-Young digs deeper. Joey, we learn, has a fraught relationship with faith, stemming back to his own childhood. 

Michael, meanwhile, has problems of her own, dealing with a sick child and a rocky marriage — along with a headstrong and often frustrating student in Joey.

That opens the door for Bar Mitzvah Boy to dig into central questions of faith — how can it be maintained in the face of hardship? What purpose does it serve? And how does one interpret the will of a divine being?

These questions are as old as the texts the world's major religions are based on, but Leiren-Young finds a fresh way to pose them in the back-and-forth between two very different but well-matched and well-drawn characters.

The humour in the script is more hit-and-miss. This is a relatively new play, and it shows in spots. Leiren-Young throws a lot of jokes at the wall. Some work but others fall flat, and it feels like Bar Mitzvah Boy is still perhaps a draft shy of honing its full comedic potential.

Director Krista Jackson's production, generally speaking, skilfully navigates the play's wide tonal range. On opening night, though, it felt at points like a particular rhythm called for in the back-and-forth between Michael and Joey — particularly in their opening scene — wasn't quite clicking at times. It's an issue that may even out as the run of the show continues, but it felt like it sapped some of the humour from Saturday's opening performance.

Both Rice and Lee turn in engaging performances, though. As Michael, Lee finds a surprising and dry humour in what could be the straight person role, and she handles her character's emotional turns gracefully.

Rice, meanwhile, has a mischievous charm as Joey — a lawyer who doesn't take no for an answer, but is still likable enough in his stubbornness that we root for him.

It may not quite elicit an ecstatic celebration, but there's enough to like about Bar Mitzvah Boy to draw a mazel tov.

Winnipeg Jewish Theatre's production of Bar Mitzvah Boy runs at the Berney Theatre at the Asper Jewish Community Campus until Sept. 22.