Last night, I saw the play "Modern Orthodox" with Jason Biggs (American Pie), Molly Ringwald (do I have to tell you?) and Craig Bierko (Music Man on Broadway).

The essence of the play is that both religious and secular Jews have a lot to learn from each other about how to best love our fellow man (and woman!), even while we live our lives differently as individuals. Everyone's got their hang-ups and only by recognizing our own and dealing with them can we then go on to help others with theirs.

The play is mostly comedy, part farce and part drama. Of the three principal actors, I thought that Molly Ringwald was the most believable character as an aspiring doctor and Craig Bierko is fascinating to watch - charismatic and powerful.
Jason Biggs did a good job in bringing memorable traits and tics to his orthodox persona, but I still found it hard to believe that he was actually orthodox as opposed to someone acting like they thought an orthodox person should act.

Overall the show was enjoyable - it's the kind of show that makes you smile throughout, with an occasional "laugh out loud" moment. I was actually expecting a little bit more of a spiritual uplift from the show - something that might drive me to be a little more religious, or at least allow me to think more deeply about my faith. However, the show was more like a philisophical "guide to better sex" than anything else. I guess I should have expected this in a theater complex that had "Pieces of Ass" playing across the hall.

A word of caution - you'll never think of hamantashen the same way again.

Here's the NY Times review.

Before the show they were playing various Jewish-related tunes over the speaker system, incuding this very funny song by Tom Lehrer which I don't think I had ever heard.

One final note - I had actually bought seats in the last row of the baclony, but due to some technical problems (and a small, half-filled house) I was moved down to about the tenth row orchestra and sat in the center. Sweet.