SHABBAT, SLAPSTICK, AND
THREE SUITORS IN 1968 CHICAGO

The comedy cracks open plenty of laughs,
then lets the shell sit too long.

A domineering Jewish mother, her sharp-tongued teenage son, three oddball suitors, a hippie pimp, and two Chicago cops walk onto a stage. Chaos follows. The question is whether the play knows when to stop pressing the joke.

Kyle D. Ochs, Dennis Delsing

Three Coconuts, the world-premiere comedy by Howard Teichman and Daniel A. Simon for West Coast Jewish Theatre in Santa Monica, sets its farce in Chicago’s Albany Park during the violent summer of 1968, as police clash with demonstrators downtown. Ida Blumenthal (played at full throttle by Dana Weisman) prepares a Shabbat dinner that doubles as an audition for a husband. Though she claims her goal is to secure a father for her son Sammy (the nimble Zachary Nemes), her scheme seems driven more by her own restlessness than maternal concern.

Joelle Tshudy, Kyle D. Ochs, Skip Pipo, Warren Davis, Kevin Dulude,
Zachary Nemes, Dana Weisman, Dennis Delsing (on knees)

After Ida places an ad in the Jewish Sentinel, three candidates arrive. Her brother Irving (Shelly Kurtz), drawing on a vaudevillian instinct that echoes the Marx Brothers’ The Cocoanuts (1929), labels them the “Three Coconuts.” The situation escalates when tenants from the upstairs bordello intrude, followed by vice cops investigating the premises. Religious ritual, sexual commerce, and civic authority collide in an increasingly crowded living room.

Dana Weisman, Dennis Delsing, Kyle D. Ochs, Shelly Kurtz

Teichman and Simon, both of whom also direct, know how to build jokes and choreograph physical comedy. The program states that the story comes directly from Teichman’s childhood. Describing Three Coconuts merely a “comedy” or “farce” thus seems reductive, even if that is how it likely registers for an unprepared audience. The play leans hard into slapstick, often effectively. I laughed out loud repeatedly, though others responded more selectively; several patrons left at intermission, one citing a general aversion to slapstick. At roughly two hours and fifteen minutes including intermission, the show runs long. The script overflows with one-liners and comic business, but the story beneath them cannot support that volume of dialogue or the repeated explanatory soliloquies. Cutting aggressively would sharpen the pacing and strengthen the comedy rather than diminish it.

Dana Weisman, Skip Pipo

The play gestures toward larger themes—parenting versus desire, order versus freedom, conformity versus self-expression—but the dramatic structure supporting them is thin. When pathos finally surfaces near the end, it feels sincere yet blunt, arriving late and lingering too long. Ironically, it is the dramatic material, not the comedy, that stalls the momentum. The emotional turn hints at a more disciplined play buried under excess.

Zachary Nemes, Skip Pipo

The performances vary, but two character actors cracked me up. Kevin Dulude’s Benny Goodman lands laughs through precise facial control, while Kurtz’s Uncle Irving works through timing, inflection, and occasionally volume. Weisman sustains a consistent Yiddish accent as Ida, seasoning her speech with Yiddishisms even when addressing characters unlikely to understand them—a choice that reinforces the play’s comic priorities.

Dana Weisman, Warren Davis

At Miles Memorial Playhouse, Jeff G. Rack’s set design, shifting from a modest living room to a police precinct, establishes place efficiently and authentically without impeding the action.

Kevin Dulude, Dana Weisman, Warren Davis, Zachary Nemes, Skip Pipo

Three Coconuts succeeds most when it trusts its comic premise and falters when it insists on extending its emotional payoff. The humor is its strength; the drama is what needs pruning — a little less husk and a little more kernel. Greater restraint, particularly in the final stretch, would allow the production to land with more force.

Sean Michael Williams, Joelle Tshudy