Victory lap for Alex Edelman’s ‘Just for Us’ scheduled at Berkeley Rep
Originally published in SF Chronicle’s Datebook
When comedian Alex Edelman performed “Just for Us” at the Curran in October, the only problem with the solo show — about how he, as a Jew, infiltrated a white nationalist meeting — was that its run was so short.
Now, with a victory lap run scheduled at Berkeley Rep, Bay Area audiences have the rarest of chances: to seize an opportunity they might have missed the first time around in an inherently evanescent art form.
Onstage, the Obie Award-winning Edelman has a hyperkinetic energy, as if his guiding philosophy is, “Why merely stand when you can jog in place?” He brings acerbic self-awareness to his own background as an Orthodox Jew raised in an insular community and his bleeding-heart, self-congratulatory attempt to empathize with those who by definition hate him.
“Just for Us,” while packed with those razor’s edge jokes where you’re not 100% sure if you’re allowed to laugh, takes the risk of saying something discomfiting in liberal circles: A bottomless well of empathy isn’t always the answer.
