‘Mendal & Moses’ Brings Shtick to Passover Story

At the annual Passover Seder, Jews tell the story of their escape from slavery in ancient Egypt. Repeated each year, the recitation can become routine.

Jeremiah and Wendy Ginsberg try to make the story more vivid and immediate by transporting a contemporary Jew back to the first Passover in their new musical, “Mendel & Moses,” at the Century City Playhouse.

Returning home after the usual family Seder in Brooklyn, Mendel (Ciro Barbaro) is visited by the angel Gabriel, who whisks him into bondage with his fellow Israelites. He soon meets Moses (Jesse Garnee) and enlists in his cause.

At first, Mendel brings humor and high spirits to the story. Songs, dances and comic exchanges tell the tale through vaudevillian shtick, littered with anachronisms. This might disturb purists, but it will enliven the story for many others. The Ginsbergs appear to have learned a thing or two from “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

However, the fun and the sense of adventure slow down as the show goes on--and eventually fade into earnest sanctimony. The actual exodus takes place just before and after intermission, and the subsequent wandering in the desert is anticlimactic here.

By the end, one wishes that the Ginsbergs might have studied another popular holiday-themed story: “A Christmas Carol.”

In the Dickens story, a mean man is transformed by the visions he sees of Christmases past, present and future. Yet in “Mendel & Moses,” Mendel is the same nice guy at the end that he was at the beginning. His visions don’t make much of a difference in his life.

Even at the beginning, Mendel asks some of the other Seder guests to hush up so that they might learn something new about the old story. He certainly doesn’t appear particularly cynical or bored by his Judaism. Why the angel picks Mendel for this night of time travel is never explained.

If Mendel’s personal journey were more significant, his story would make the second act much less anticlimactic.

The first act also needs further work, for it contains a diversionary episode in the Garden of Eden that interrupts the flow of the Passover story for no compelling reason. And the Ginsbergs have assigned Beelzebub (Ned York) a curiously large role in the narrative, considering that he’s primarily mentioned in the New Testament and “Paradise Lost,” not in the Torah.

There are a few rousing laughs along the way, some clever lyrics and vigorous performances. But “Mendel & Moses” is still far from the Promised Land.

* “Mendel & Moses,” Century City Playhouse, 10508 W. Pico Blvd., West L.A. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends June 15. $20-$22. (888) 566-8499. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.