‘Just For Us’ Review: Alex Edelman’s Broadway Stand-up Show is Irresistible
variety.comNaveen Kumar Alex Edelman wants to know that you’re having a good time. The 34-year-old comedian, whose nimbly clever solo show “Just For Us” is now on Broadway, describes himself as “solicitous” and “professionally charming.” To audiences at the Hudson Theatre, Edelman’s college-buddy congeniality is the key to this 75-minute narrative set.
How else could a nice Jewish boy walk into a meetup of white supremacists and turn his experience into hilarious social commentary?
He’d have to be granted entrance first, permission that Edelman allows he owed to his whiteness — though whether it was a privilege in this case is debatable. (He points to his hometown of Boston as especially stratified by racial hierarchies, with WASPs, or “the Mayflower whites,” at the top.) And this wasn’t a Klan meeting in the South, but a get-together in a Queens living room, where Edelman was drawn after tracking anti-semitic trolls who antagonized him on Twitter (the year was 2017).
Edelman’s encounter with a cozy circle of racists (or “antisemicircle,” in his characteristic wordplay) is fringed with circuitous tangents that gradually cohere into a detailed portrait of his principles and personality.
Read more on variety.com