The Jewish comedian began with a routine about raising adolescents. “There was a reason Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac at 12 and not 13,” he said. “At 13, it wouldn’t have been a sacrifice.”
A half hour later, the Muslim comedian took the stage, raising his hands so the Jew could pat him down for weapons. He then urged the Muslims and Jews in the theater, adversaries on the world stage, to cheer their commonalities: “C’mon,” he exhorted, “let’s give it up for lunar calendaring.”
The evangelical Christian comedian also did a half-hour set, observing that though his children’s school teaches abstinence, it also gives out condoms. “That,” he said, “is like a department store saying ”˜No shoplifting, but just in case, here’s a trench coat.’ ”
It was only at the end of the program at Drew University here that all three comedians were on stage together. Operating under the wistful supposition that a troupe of jesters getting disparate people to laugh it up together is a first step toward something larger, the Jew, the Muslim and the Christian sought to ring in world peace in the only way they knew how: with a shamefully bad if highly enthusiastic Irish jig.
The dance was not pretty, but it had the audience convulsing.