The God Box

The God Box, running at the New Rep's Black Box little theatre through April 19, is the third and last in their series featuring women theatre makers. Like the first two previously reviewed, it is a one act short piece with a solo performer. In this case, Antonia Lassar is both playwright and performer. The basic plot line is that Gloria Adelman, an observant Jew, is cleaning out her daughter's apartment after the daughter dies tragically in a car accident. She finds a shoebox labelled "God" and in it an assortment of objects (New Testament Bible, Crystal, Koran) suggesting that her daughter may not have been an observant Jew. Armed with her superb cheesecakes as warm-up gifts, she sets off to discover what her daughter may have become. In addition to playing a somewhat over-the-top Jewish mother, Ms Lassar also takes the roles briefly of a Christian minister, a new-age practitioner and a Muslim with an Irish accent. The play is quite funny and while somewhat "in-group" in its use of Yiddish-isms and jokes that are funnier if you grew up Jewish, is universal in its look at what faith means.