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The Review - THEATRE by PAUL TEASDALE
Published: 17 July 2009

Texan teen’s kosher kicks

JORDY PORDY
NEW END THEATRE

TIRED of your job? Feel undervalued, overworked and unappreciated? Sick of pulling on the same old uniform, day after day and taking abuse from customers who don’t treat you as a person? Well meet Jordan Herskowitz or “Jordy Pordy” to his grandma.
A chance encounter leads him to work as a mascot for his local baseball team where his main duties are to wave, dance and pose for photographs with kids who think he’s a) a climbing frame b) a punch bag or c) both.
His job is unusual but then so is his life. He’s Jewish, he lives in Texas, he wants to be an actor and most people think he’s gay.
Talk about being in the minority.
In this autobiographical one-person show due at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August, Jordy throws off the oversized costume and breaks the mascot’s vow of silence to take us through his childhood.
We meet an older brother who thinks he’s the reincarnation of the rapper Tupac; a younger brother with severe cystic fibrosis who manages his high school basketball team from his “pimp-mobile” wheelchair; and his brat sister who dreams of being a cheerleader for the Dallas Cowboys.
We see his fumbling attempts at courtship, his struggles with being a Jewish teenager in the Bible-belt and how he and his family cope with his brother’s illness.
Blending both the extraordinary and ordinary events of his young life into a compelling reality somewhere between the real and staged, the strength of the show lies in its polished and carefully paced script.
Narration segues flawlessly into hyper-impersonations of his family and reenactments of his most cringeworthy and personal moments.
Apparent triumphs quickly deflate into bathos and absurdity and hilarious anecdotes are interspersed with the painful memories of his younger brother, Richie.
Jordon Herskowitz’s charm and sincerity, as well as some pretty impressive dance moves, allow his story to be engaging from beginning to end.
Behind his unique patchwork of recollections – the brother with cystic fibrosis and the struggles to fulfil his dream of becoming an actor – we are left with the realisation that inside the cuddly, anonymous costume lie ordinary teenage problems of self-identity and growing up, only this time concerning a Jewish actor from Texas with a laugh like a dying hyena and a ridiculously small bladder.
Until August 2
0870 033 2733

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