Black Jew Dialogues to Be Performed on Campus Again
The Black Jew Dialogues, an interactive comedy show about racism, diversity, and racial stereotypes, will be performed in the BTC Auditorium on Thursday, Feb. 16 from noon to 1:30 p.m. The show is a play in the form of a dialogue, involving sketch comedy, puppets, interactive media, improvisation, audience participation, and a post-show forum to stimulate discussion on racial issues in a diverse America. The Black Jew Dialogues is the brainchild of co-creators and performers Ron Jones and Larry Jay Tish, the Black and Jewish halves of the show’s title, respectively. The idea behind the show is to eliminate what Tish and Jones call racial “feareotypes,” promote open discussion of grievances, and encourage harmony between not only Blacks and Jews, but all the other races coexisting in America.
The show first premiered in Scotland in Aug. 2006. Since then, it has been presented in numerous theaters, colleges, high schools and synagogues in the U.S. and the U.K. It has also been performed annually at HVCC. During last year’s HVCC performance, Tish and Jones described their show as an invitation to “Turn off your bias, your bigotry, and your ignorance, [and] turn on your love.” Tish and Jones’s show has something new to offer each time it is performed, but the core performance consists of a series of sketches and brief segments of audience involvement. A pair of puppets, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Tish and Jones, also occasionally step in to have their say in the matter.
Sketches performed in previous shows have included a heated encounter between two older women called “Mabel” (played by Jones) and “Esther” (played by Tish), a fishing face-off between a xenophobic man and his Black neighbor, and a stereotyping battle between Tish and Jones, involving a “Jew-fro,” a clown’s nose, and many references to food. Through these sketches, the performers reveal the most prevalent racial stereotypes and prejudices in 21st century America. They casually attack each other’s races and hurl insults back and forth in a comedic manner, thus encouraging an open discussion of race issues.
As an explanation of their candid discussions of these issues, Tish and Jones said during a show, “Giving [an insult or a slur] back in kind only validates it. Sitting down and talking breaks it down.” Due to the nature of their approach to the sensitive issue of racism, Tish and Jones precede each performance with a disclaimer about potentially offensive statements and language. The audience participation segments of the show include Q&A-type games, one of which is named “Jew or Not Jew?” a guessing game with photos of celebrities. Audience members are rewarded for participation with small gifts such as candy and decorative items.
For six years now, the Black Jew Dialogues has been performed before audiences nationwide. It has received rave reviews in many media sources, including CNN, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, as well as numerous high school and college newspapers. The co-creators Tish and Jones set out to expose racialstereotypes against all races in our cosmopolitan culture. Their aim is specifically to reunite Blacks and Jews, historically bonded during the WWII era and the American civil rights movement, but driven apart by misconceptions.
On a broader scale, Tish and Jones also hope to break down barriers between ethnic groups and emphasize humanity above all else. In their own words, “We need to take each other’s pain asseriously as we take our own.”
As a result of the work of this comedy duo, the freestanding company “Dialogues on Diversity” has been formed to provide colleges and workplaces consultations on how to increase human resource potential by understanding diversity. For more information about this show, go to www. thebl a ckj ewdi a logue s . com or www.facebook.com/ theblackjewdialogues