Jackie Hoffman should know better than mixing things that shouldn’t be mixed.
In this case, it’s not dairy and meat but pills, which her stage alter ego washes down with a splash of Manischewitz — after which she suddenly finds herself emulating Patrick Stewart’s popular telling of “A Christmas Carol,” with a Jewish twist.
Under the spectral guidance of Yiddish-theater star Molly Picon and Shelley Winters, Hoffman hilariously meets the ghosts of holidays past, present and future in a version retitled “A Chanukah Charol.”
The show, co-written and directed by Michael Schiralli, did so well last year that the comedian’s brought it back, to the delight of those who dread the end-of-the-year avalanche of schmaltz.
Indeed, few do cranky as well as Hoffman. She’s made kvetching about her lack of a career into a career, wailing, “I have Martha Raye mojo in a world where NeNe Leakes is on two series!” It’s even funnier if you know that Hoffman appears in one of them, “The New Normal.”
At a performance at Beth Temple Shalom in Queens — what she calls a “synagig” — Hoffman hits the aforementioned lethal cocktail and goes on a tailspin. This involves revisiting her youth as a showbiz-crazy girl ready to do anything to score the most ridiculous parts, and foreseeing a future in which she stars in a self-abusing “scripted reality” show titled “Ugly Jew.”
Dressed in a blue leotard-y getup, she brings each horrific scenario to life with nothing more than dramatic lighting. Hoffman may have been on Broadway, but she’s figured out how to get by without props and sets.
It’s stereotypes she can’t live without, and here she gleefully, biliously spits them out, one after another, to better send them up. She’s just as sharp delivering classic shtick: The routine in which she imitates her family arguing about Coke Zero vs. Diet Coke may well be the new “Who’s on First?”
If you like your holiday treats cut with vinegar, “A Chanukah Charol” is the place to be.