"'A Jewish Joke' brings immediacy to not only the personal and professional effects of the Hollywood blacklist, but to the current onslaught of internet finger-pointing and fear-mongering that can, and does, ruin lives even more quickly than in the slow-moving fifties. Watching Bernie squirm and sweat over issues not of his own making, but issues that will take him down, is made only slightly more palatable by his self-deprecating humor."
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"It’s a sound set-up for drama, but 'A Jewish Joke' fails to deliver. First, there is nothing particularly Jewish about the political landscape it evinces...Despite excellent staging by David Ellenstein and an evocative set design by Michael Joseph Ormond, this hackneyed production adds little to what we already know about Joseph McCarthy’s campaign to rid the U.S. of the 'Red Menace.' Worse, it does nothing to help viewers connect the dots to contemporary political concerns."
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"A crowded, unsubtle piece, jammed with annoyingly incessant, desperate phone business, including frustrated banging of the receiver...Extraneous issues…further clutter the narrative…This should be tour-de-force territory, and Johnson's intensely strenuous efforts are likely to be appreciated as such by some. For my gelt, however, he lacks the innately East Coast tone of, let's say, a Jackie Mason or a Mel Brooks, although faintly shadowing their aggressive mannerisms."
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"Director David Ellenstein keeps the show moving, but this is Mr. Johnson’s piece. He embodies those men who were up against the wall and used a much humor as they could to survive this hellish attack on humanity based not on facts, but trumped up lies and fear...This play made me remember that time in history and the fact this should NEVER happen again."
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"With taut direction by David Ellenstein, Johnson recounts Bernie’s story between phone calls as step by step the situation becomes fraught with increasing tension and danger to his career...The process of reading gags from Bernie’s collection periodically breaks the tension...The strength of the play, which lasts 90 minutes without an intermission, lies in uncertainty right up to the bitter end. Johnson does a superb job connecting with his audience."
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"When it falters, does so because the script is, at times, contrived or repetitious. When it succeeds, it does so because Phil Johnson so fully inhabits his role that his character’s stressed-out persona transcends the page...Bernie frequently turns to the audience and tells one of the many off-color gags he has collected on index cards. Most are groaners and, whether meant to be awful or not, they do keep the audience from becoming too emotionally caught up in Bernie’s dilemma."
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“Zero drama...For a ‘dramedy’ that surely fancies itself more comedy than drama, having the majority of laughs coming from the occasional joke spouted off a notecard isn’t exactly a good sign...The evening didn’t do much for me...The whole blacklisting movement isn’t really addressed with any depth—fine, so if that was the case, what’s left is a borderline unlikable, snarky comedy writer fumbling around his office answering phone calls for 90 minutes with no intermission. "
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"Johnson’s delivery embodies the period-style clichés, in the neurotic goofball shtick of the wisecracking writer’s cynical jokes, then increasingly captures the man’s real emotional reactions to the slow-paced disclosures...’A Jewish Joke’ not only presents audiences with a flashback to the tastes of the mid-century and a personal perspective on a disturbing slice of American history, but also offers an implicit warning not to let it happen again,."
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