Aisle View: Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda

Something old, something new Something borrowed, something blue-ish. If you can predict that “blue-ish”–in the new musical, “It Shoulda Been You” – rhymes with something like “it’s true-ish when you’re Jewish,” then you’re two (or five) steps ahead of the authors. If it’s Jewish jokes you want, there’s a truckload of them onstage at the Atkinson. If you don’t want Jewish jokes, there’s a truckload of them at the Atkinson. Viewing the 2011 tryout at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick (N.J.), I found the humor mirthlessly forced. (“It would have been a scream back in 1965,” I wrote). 30 months later, I’m here to report that “It Shoulda Been You” is now considerably better than it was. This, thanks to a general upgrading of the cast (other than four central actors); slicker, fast-farce work from director David Hyde Pierce; and what seem to be many more jokes. Weaknesses still remain, led by the contrived story and a decidedly non-rousing score, but what was well-nigh intolerable in New Jersey is now… well, tolerable. The story harkens back to “Abie’s Irish Rose,” which was already hoary when Anne Nichols wrote it back in 1922. Jewish boy weds Irish Catholic girl, with the parents and everyone battling away. The critics loathed it, but it ran five years and became Broadway’s longest running play; 93 years later, “Abie” somehow remains in the number three slot.