Rules Schmules. Etcetera Theatre.

Suzie Depreli’s cabaret monologue Rules Schmules: How to be Jew-ISH offers up an engaging mashup of original songs, personal anecdotes, and comic reflections on the things that makes her Jewish. Immense pride in family heritage and the traditions of her faith are a sine qua non. As for the rest, she picks and chooses what she likes and interprets religious practices with quixotic flexibility. The piece is a kind and gently entertaining reminder that lazy religious stereotypes mostly say more about the people who hold them than the endlessly diverse people they describe.

“Keep Kosher” Depreli’s faith tells her. It is an injunction the performer reinterprets in Jewish Mummy Syndrome (a musical homage to Friday night family dinners) to mean “when you’re offered food say yes”. The suggestion she should “marry In” to the faith spurs the tango-themed number Nice Jewish Boys, a musing on the tendency for young Jewish men to favour mothers over wives. “Worship only one god” inspires a Christmassy tune about the benefits, in gift terms, of celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah. “Do good deeds” stirs a musical theatre themed anthem on the supposed Jewish affection for careers in law, medicine, and in Depreli’s case show business.

Depreli’s musical palette is as eclectic as her religious interpretations, and she helpfully places a glossary of common Yiddish words stage front to explain some of the less familiar lyrics. Anticipate a piano tribute to a much loved father and grandfather, an Irish jig that comments on the longwindedness of traditional Jewish storytelling, and a love ballad with the unlikely chorus “if you’ve got nothing nice to say, say it in Yiddish”. Some darker reflections on antisemitism that close the piece come in the form of a Sesame Street-style children’s song. Background projections including animations and family pictures add depth to the storytelling.

Writer and Director:  Suzie Depreli