It’s not easy sharing a stage with Phil Johnson, at least if you’re a phone.
In “A Jewish Joke,” the actor and playwright manhandles and hollers at and clobbers an old rotary-dial number to within an inch of its charmingly vintage-y life.
But if the poor phone gets seriously rung up over the course of the 90-minute solo show, we can still thank that noted theatrical impresario Alexander Graham Bell for making possible Johnson’s furious and funny and at times even awe-inspiring performance in this exceptional Roustabouts Theatre production.
Johnson, a Roustabouts co-founder, is known around town for his careening, see-what-sticks comic style, both as an actor and playwright. And true to the play’s title, there’s plenty of humor to “A Jewish Joke,” which he wrote with Marni Freedman.
But there’s much more as well, because the piece — as off-the-wall as it can be at times — grapples seriously with such issues as bigotry and political hysteria and the dangers of unchecked authority.
And while “A Jewish Joke” is set amid the Red Scare way back in the 1950s, some things just never seem to go out of style.
Johnson plays Bernie Lutz, a sweet but wheedling comedy screenwriter who’s about to get the break of his career: the boffo premiere of “The Big Casbah,” a big-studio movie he penned with his writing partner, the unseen Morris.
But there are hints of trouble: Bernie, amid his exuberance and his determination to “practice my red-carpet walk,” mentions a mysterious letter that he tore up as soon as it arrived at the pair’s cluttered studio bungalow.
When Bernie gets around to reading the first fragment to us, it begins: “Please be advised that evidence exists …”
Those ominous words will turn Bernie’s world upside down in short order, as he learns that suspicions about his and Morris’ contacts with possible Communists have made their way into print via a notorious publication called “Red Channels” (something like a ’50s version of fake news).
This was back in the day when being affiliated with Russians was seen as the kiss of death, and soon Bernie is hearing that the pair’s projects with the Marx Brothers and NBC and Danny Kaye are in peril.
So he works the phone — calling everybody from studio heads to reporters to a friendly FBI agent in a desperate effort to clear his name of the accusations (inflamed by anti-Jewish sentiment) and at least save the movie premiere.
And all the while, Morris is nowhere to be found — although he will loom large in what Bernie does next.
Bernie’s mom, as he tells us, used to say: “When there is no mensch, be the mensch,” invoking the Yiddish term for a person of honor.
Does he have what it takes to stand up against bullying and discrimination — to be a mensch? As it turns out, no one is less sure than Bernie himself.
North Coast Rep artistic chief David Ellenstein directs the piece with an expert feel for the ebb and flow of emotions, and if Johnson and Freedman ultimately stuff a bit too much into the show (including a somewhat distracting subplot involving Bernie’s dad), “A Jewish Joke” lands with a sense of real consequence.
Besides delving into difficult topics, though, Bernie and the play also make a great case for the place of Jewish humor in American life.
In fact, “the American sense of humor is a Jewish sense of humor,” insists Bernie, who intersperses his chats with us (“I talk to myself,” he says by way of explaining the conceit) with a series of well-delivered jokes — some of them groaners, others inspired.
(A sample: “What the waiter asked a group of Jewish mothers: ‘Is anything OK?’”)
Johnson’s commitment to the piece, his gift for physical comedy and his sheer stamina help carry the show, which is set for a mini-tour that will include an off-Broadway run next year.
At one point, Bernie yells into the phone: “I don’t care about the plight of the common man — everyone knows that!,” insisting he’s anything but a man of principle and of the people.
But this common man is at the center of a show that sparkles with not-so-common wit and wisdom.
‘A Jewish Joke’
When: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 7 p.m. Sundays. (No performance March 30). Through April 8.
Where: Roustabouts Theatre Co. at Moxie Theatre, 6663 El Cajon Blvd., Rolando District.
Tickets: $38.
Phone: (619) 728-7820
Online: theroustabouts.org