‘One Jewish Boy’ Review: Mixed Messages

metroweekly.com:

One Jewish Boy (★★☆☆☆), making its U.S. premiere at Theater J.Jogging back through years of their romance to where it began, the play posits Jesse (Danny Gavigan), a nice, Jewish professor from upper-crust North London, and Alex (Alanna Saunders), a biracial, fervently progressive free-spirit from more modest means, as both a fated love match and a combustible clash of not-quite opposites.Scene after scene, the pair struggles to find their balance, and, though their sexual attraction might spark a fire at any given moment, more often than not, they simply don’t see eye to eye on things that matter to either or both of them.“There’s nothing to discuss,” Jesse declares, dismissing Alex’s objections to holding a bris for their baby boy Finn.

Of course, Laughton finds loads for them to discuss — from whether a bris constitutes ritual circumcision or genital mutilation, to Black trauma and white privilege.

Their discussions commonly devolve into snippy bickering or escalate into all-out verbal warfare, which Gavigan and Saunders pull off convincingly.In every season of Jesse and Alex’s love story, be they carefree vacationers not-yet engaged, or semi-estranged co-parents, years-deep into a crumbling marriage, Gavigan and Saunders capture the sense of a real couple fighting.