Hufano tears up 'The Model Apartment', reproduced with permission from EncoreMichigan.com.

Playwright Donald Margulies may have written The Model Apartment as a dark comedy, but for the most part, director Lavinia Moyer Hart stops at "dark." Although the production at The Jewish Ensemble Theatre is twisted into absurdity, and objectively funny moments come and go, Hart doesn't play the scene for laughs, instead diving headlong into the characters and relationships of one nuclear family freshly and repeatedly ravaged by its history. Given a plot so intense it practically gasps for levity, the choice is indeed risky; it's also more than justified in this incendiary production, cemented by a must-see lead performance.

Max (Tom Mahard) and Lola (Trudy Mason) have sped from New York to Florida, eager to begin their retirement. However, their arrival is so early, they're waylaid in the model unit of the complex until their new-construction residence is completed. The production team has fun with the latest in 1988 retirement living: Beyond the busy tropical patterns, pastel-speckled flooring and bamboo blinds of the studio apartment, set designer Sarah Tanner's distinctly Floridian room even has a Florida room. Bland model-home accoutrements and ocean-inspired kitsch (properties by Diane Ulseth) are bonded to the furniture, enhancing the off-putting feel of a living space void of working appliances or any sign of life. Jon Weaver's sound design anticipates the trouble-free good life with placidly warm Nat King Cole tunes and uses ambient noises to expand on what's visible. Designer Donald Fox toys with automated lighting and lends both visibility and tone to the several lights-off scenes of Max and Lola's long night.

What happens when a playwright known for his distinctive, absurd flavor of comedy sets his sights on drama? If David Ives is any indication, it unleashes torrents of long-suppressed brilliant philosophical discourse, as evidenced by his New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza at Talmud Torah Congregation: Amsterdam, July 27, 1656. The show's Midwest premiere at the Jewish Ensemble Theatre, directed by David J. Magidson, is a seriously smart piece of historical fiction raising questions of philosophy, ethics, and religion that formed the basis of a pre-Enlightenment ethos.

The facts are these: on the date in question, Baruch de Spinoza was summoned to Talmud Torah Congregation in Amsterdam, where he had until recently been studying to become a rabbi; the same day, a cherem was issued against him, effectively excommunicating him and severing all ties to his faith and people. What remain unknown, and what Ives ventures to imagine, are the specifics of what was said and done that led to such a harsh and irreversible sentence. At the center of the controversy, young upstart Baruch (Mitchell Koory) is luminous with conviction, a man of supreme intellect who meets his spiritual needs by using science and logic to merge the God he loves with the world he understands. Wrongly accused of atheism, Baruch has actually conceived of a divinity that has strengthened rather than diminished his faith; the delight in his discovery is so powerful, in fact, he is compelled to disseminate the ideology as a better way to worship. His religious superiors are troubled that these ideas may directly contradict the Jewish Articles of Faith, and local governmental authorities take offense that he has discussed his philosophies with Christians, violating the rules under which Jews and Christians have agreed to coexist in Holland (where Jews have come to flee the Spanish Inquisition). The play’s two acts begin like a college-level discussion of philosophy, but veer into a kind of informal trial presided over by both church and state. Yet the production succeeds in emphasizing discourse rather than contentiousness — instead of resorting to defensiveness, Koory’s performance is purely enthusiastic, keen on debate and reason rather than self-preservation.

The premise of Daniel Goldfarb's Modern Orthodox is as outlandish as a sitcom plot: passing acquaintance makes himself a sudden fixture in our heroes' lives, much to their consternation. Yet beneath the heightened plot there is additional promise for growth, in the concept of people whose take on their shared religion makes them almost contentiously opposed before they start learning from each other. In the current production at Jewish Ensemble Theatre, director Aaron Moore looks beyond situation to character for the basis of his humor, and the result is a collection of comic performances so fine, they excuse whatever minor discord the perspective raises against the script.

The play begins with a disjointed first meeting between Ben Jacobson (Scott Crownover) and Hershel Klein (Aral Gribble). The latter's business is diamonds; the former is ready to pop the question to his girlfriend of six years, Hannah Ziggelstein (Christina L. Flynn). To group both men under the descriptor "Jewish" is to lump Kraft Singles and sushi together as "food" — their relationship with Judaism could not be more different. Although costume designer Cal Schwartz accents his yarmulke with a brazen Yankees logo, orthodox Hershel takes his faith and culture quite seriously, peppering his speech with Hebrew phrases and insisting on the seat that points toward Jerusalem; in contrast, non-practicing Ben disparages his nose and practically sneers at his devout acquaintance. But it's one fleeting moment, in which Ben callously humiliates Hershel, that serves as the catalyst for the plot: the luckless, loveless salesman suffers a catastrophe, blames it on the forced breach of faith, and explodes into Ben and Hannah's luxe shared apartment (courtesy of set designer Sarah Tanner) to insist that Ben right this wrong. After one patronizing lecture about kosher law and a few more callous and over-the-top comic scenes, Ben and Hannah are ready to do whatever it takes to end the indefinite visit.

Once upon a time, three young adults left home for good: the first fled Nazi-occupied Poland to live with relatives in the United States; the third answered a call within himself to serve his country after 9/11; and fifteen-year-old Sonia touched down alone in Miami shortly before the Bay of Pigs Invasion rocked her home country of Cuba. Melinda Lopez's complex and evocative Sonia Flew, a co-production now at the Jewish Ensemble Theatre, examines the path we expect our lives to follow, how outside forces can warp and sever that trajectory, and what happens in the aftermath. The play's internally and externally turbulent struggles of balancing opposing family and national identities is made all too palpable by David Wolber's marvelous direction and the work of a pitch-perfect cast.

In the late 2001 of the first act, adult Sonia (Milica Govich) is in the throes of an acute but nonspecific anxiety, which finds a legitimate, full-throttle outlet when her son (Russ Schwartz) announces that he has dropped out of college in order to join the Marines. Her inability to come to terms with his news blows up another tenuous situation: the apparently un-religious family's rare observance of Shabbat, in which it falls upon Catholic-born Sonia to recite the blessing. As Zak, Schwartz displays sides of conviction and adult behavior as well as the petulant self-righteousness that seems to prevent his mother from trusting his decision making. Govich's anger is solidly based in a pleading incapacity to cope, and Jon Bennett as Sonia's husband gives a subtle example of a troubled marriage eroding against both partners' wills.

The Internet swears that The God of Isaac is a comedy; I say that's not the whole truth. Instead, what the Jewish Ensemble Theatre and director Christopher Bremer serve up for two hours is a deceptively light approach to serious questions of faith and culture. It's funny, but don't be fooled — comedy alone can't make you feel nearly this much.

The play has a layered meta structure: Isaac Adams (Michael Brian Ogden) has written a play, about himself, and this is it, and he's in it, and he plays himself. (It works better on stage than it does in print.) Keep in mind that Isaac Adams is a character, and that the play was actually written by James Sherman, and that everything that plays out is scripted, because the production does a fine job of trying to make the viewer forget. Front and center on designer Sarah Tanner's city apartment/front stoop for nearly the entire show, Ogden spends much of his time talking directly to the audience in a narrative role, adding story details and anecdotes and providing commentary about his own feelings, but he also takes part in scenes with characters identified only as "Actor" and "Actress." The predominant sense is that Isaac is, by contrast, real, that this is a private expedition playing out in front of a paying crowd — so much so, in fact, that one almost forgets to credit Ogden for wholly disappearing into the role. His command of the audience and differentiation of scripted moments from supposedly off-the-cuff dialogue (remember, still just as scripted) makes it easy to accept that he is playwright/actor Isaac, digesting these issues in real time as well as in the world of the show. And he does it all while battling the ultimate heckler: his Jewish mother.

One part history lesson, one part local-hero narrative, and one part victory lap, Joanna McClelland Glass's Palmer Park hits home because it is home. Any success story in Detroit, even a relatively short-lived one from four decades ago, remains cause for celebration. Now, economic turmoil and vanishing industry contributes to the city's bottomed-out property values and high crime rate; back in 1968, it was civil unrest, when "integration" generally signaled not diversity, but white flight.

The Palmer Park neighborhood of Detroit was one shining exception, a middle-class neighborhood fiercely united in its dedication to maintain the integrated balance of 35% black, 65% white. (Any more residents of color, the logic went, and "white eyes" would be scared away.) In its professional US premiere at the Jewish Ensemble Theatre, directed by Yolanda Fleischer, the play documents the political and human implications of a concept that succeeded until it failed.

This review was a long time coming — at least two days later than I intended to post. Unfortunately, the extra time hasn't softened my frustration with this show. Don't get me wrong, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife isn't a bad production: for me, bad outings inspire malaise, not agitation. Instead, the conviction that's nagged at me since I left the Jewish Ensemble Theatre is that this one could and should have been better.

Charles Busch's plot-driven script concerns Marjorie Taub (Kate Willinger), who we meet in the throes of lamentation of the "idle rich" variety. She's bereft at the death of her therapist, and all the graduate-level literature and culture in the world can't shake off the sense that her life took a wrong turn somewhere. Enter Lee Green (Lynnae Lehfeldt), a childhood friend turned world-traveling mover and shaker, littering the scene with dropped names. However, suspicion quickly builds in Marjorie's husband, Ira (Phil Powers), and her mother, Frieda (Henrietta Hermelin); as immersed in Lee's world as Marjorie has become, no one else has even lain eyes on the woman — a conflict that comes to a head in a snappy and perfectly paced scene at the end of the first act. The second act shifts gears to examine a relationship that turns toxic, and the ending is predictably preachy-cathartic.

The premise is almost disarming: performers Greg Trzaskoma and Brian Thibault (using their actual names) have written a musical. An expensive, bloated Titanic of an epic musical — ship or film, both apply. And they're pitching it to you, their audience of potential investors and sponsors.

Such is The Big Bang, the title of both the "proposed" show and this current offering by the Jewish Ensemble Theater. It brings something new to the genre, a fine solution to the problem of staging a traditional musical: all the people, the costumes, the orchestra! Here, Stacy Cleavland doubles as music director and the third cast member, single-handedly providing live accompaniment and delivering a few great jokes of her own. Director Mary Bremer establishes immediate contact between performers and audience that completely blurs the lines of pre-show and the play's start, delightfully heightening the unconventional portrayal. The conceit of pitching the play instead of performing it also allows for numerous descriptions of the artists' visions for the final product, each as gaudy and costly as a Las Vegas revue.

The writing process is difficult to translate into theater, because so much of it is deeply private and not easily put into words. Kitty Dubin's The Blank Page, in its world premiere at the Jewish Ensemble Theatre, uses a writer's professional and personal relationships to give the audience a better view, and very nearly triumphs.

Novelist Amy Kaplan, played here by a guarded Sarab Kamoo, is facing a three-month deadline for her second novel. The play covers those three months and ends on the deadline day. Meanwhile, her rabbi husband appears to give little more than lip service in supporting her, and a headstrong, youthful graduate student serves as a walking reminder of the vigor Amy had when she wrote her first, bestselling novel. Despite the play's title, there is a book in place at the beginning of the play; Dubin avoids clichés like writer's block, instead showing the audience a professional, disciplined scribe and her attendant insecurities.