Religious and ethnic jokes abound in “Miracle on South Division Street,” the new sitcom — excuse me, play — being appropriately presented in St. Luke’s Theatre located in the bowels of a church. Tom Dudzick’s comedy about a Polish Catholic family forced to re-examine its beliefs should come with its own laugh track.
Set in Buffalo, NY, it concerns a decades-old statue of the Virgin Mary erected by a long-dead barber who claimed to have had a miraculous vision of the Blessed Mother.
His daughter, Clara, has perpetuated the legend, having once even unsuccessfully solicited the Vatican to give it a “Good Housekeeping seal of approval.” But her world is rocked when her daughter, Ruth, reveals her grandmother’s deathbed confession about the icon’s real origins.
Add to that son Jimmy’s secret romance with a Jewish woman — his request to add gefilte fish to the shopping list provides a not-too-subtle hint — and you’ve got the makings of a family crisis.
Clara is an Archie Bunker type who thinks that “The Ten Commandments” is an Easter movie and doesn’t realize that Jesus was Jewish.
“It was Jerusalem, Ma,” her son points out. “Who do you think was running around, the Shanahans?”
Needless to say, she’s also less than thrilled about Ruth’s aspirations of becoming an actress, especially her auditioning for a local production of, gasp, “The Vagina Monologues.”
At a concise 80 minutes, the play, breezily directed by Joe Brancato, features enough funny one-liners to please undemanding audiences. And the performers, especially Peggy Cosgrave as the unenlightened family matriarch, have fun with their stereotypical roles.
But despite its admirable refraining from stock Polish jokes, the play, supposedly inspired by a real incident, never rises above its clichés.