If humor is a superpower, is it powerful enough to defeat a den of Nazis?
That’s one of the questions hanging over “Just for Us,” playwright Alex Edelman’s solo show that’s up in an engrossing must-see production by Six Points Theater in St. Paul. The company is celebrating its 30th anniversary and “Us” is a worthy offering of its gifts.
Edelman is a Jewish comedian who, after being trolled online by white supremacists, decides to infiltrate their meeting in a New York apartment. Jews are white in America, right?
Also recorded by the author as an HBO special, “Us” dives in headfirst in a search for answers. The show has lots of witty detours and sidenotes, and also a recognition that it’s not only photons that can occupy two positions at once.
Expertly directed by J.C. Cutler, this Minnesota production stars Ryan London Levin as Edelman. With excellent timing and expressive physicality, Levin skillfully distills a script that’s essentially a stand-up comedy act crafted for the legit theater stage.
Without giving away spoilers, the script is studded with quirky but germane observations. Things start with an anecdote about Koko the lowland gorilla who famously learns sign language and befriends Robin Williams. On being told, in sign language, about Williams’ death, the gorilla emotes.
“Us” marvels at Williams’ comic prowess — and his ability to cross the species barrier — with the implicit lament about the intractable walls that humans have intraspecies.
The story also takes jaunts into other bits, including one about the author’s brother, AJ. Improbably, he became a winter Olympian, competing in the skeleton race for Israel. Likening Israel’s winter Olympics entry to Jamaica’s, which famously was captured in the film “Cool Runnings,” Edelman hails his brother’s “shul runnings.” I thought it was funny.