Shlammer

Dan Froot’s Shlammer adopts vaudeville’s fractured structure and unrestrained performance style to inquire how masculinity is passed from fathers to sons in Jewish-American culture. A man vacillates precariously between the personae of a brutal thug and a postmodern performance artist. Through monologues, direct interactions with the audience, violent song-and-dance numbers and skewed comedy sketches, he tells the story of his father, “Daddy” Kleinman, a Yiddish gangster-turned-vaudeville comedian. Searching for authenticity as a Jewish man, he instead stumbles across the dirty secrets of American macho.