Entertainment

‘Bad Jews’ is nasty, good fun

It’s unclear who the title characters in “Bad Jews” are. Joshua Harmon’s entertaining new comedy of hostility — did not open last night, as scheduled, at the Roundabout Underground — pits two strong candidates against each other, both bad in very different ways.

First to enter the ring is Daphna (the fantastic Tracee Chimo, already brilliant as queen bee Regan in the stage version of “Bachelorette”), a Vassar senior staying with her New York relatives for the funeral of the family patriarch.

Technically speaking, Daphna — who changed her name from Diana — is a good Jew. She’s committed to her heritage and identity, and plans to move to Israel.

But Daphna is also judgmental, spiteful and manipulative. A good Jew but a bad person?

Her prime nemesis is her assimilated cousin Liam (Michael Zegen), a grad student who missed the funeral because he was snowboarding with his chirpy gentile girlfriend, Melody (Molly Ranson, nearly unrecognizable from her starring role in “Carrie”). He hates Daphna’s self-righteousness.

“She wishes she were this, like, barbed-wire hopping, Uzi-toting Israeli warlock superhero,” Liam rants to his younger brother, the placid Jonah (Philip Ettinger).

But Liam is a wolf in nerd’s clothing. He’s just as selfish as Daphna, and they share a similar lack of empathy for others.

Their long-simmering animosity blows up into a fight over their grandfather’s prized heirloom, a chai he wore around his neck.

“I’m the only one who that stuff even matters to,” Daphna claims. Liam doesn’t care: He hates her, her ideas and her big mane of hair.

Director Daniel Aukin (“4000 Miles”) has a grand time pitting these two against each other within the tiny confines of Jonah’s studio — and since this is in the Roundabout’s smallest theater, the audience is thrown in the middle of the battle.

Unfortunately, Harmon paints himself into a corner, and he has a tough time wrapping up the 90-minute show.

But until then, “Bad Jews” is delicious, nasty fun, especially in Tracee Chimo’s expert hands.

Her Daphna stares at her opponents with such calculating intensity, you can almost see her brain whirring. And when she sidles next to Melody, it’s like watching a snake approach its oblivious prey.

Yet while Daphna behaves badly, Chimo also suggests her wounded core. Now that’s good.