In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, you know that “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” snagged eight, count ‘em, EIGHT Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes, a Peabody Award and a slew of nominations for their first season. Today, its much anticipated second season begins on Amazon Prime.
The premise is simple. Miriam “Midge” Maisel is a happily married, Upper West Side, upper class, Jewish wife and mother, with a businessman husband and the requisite son and daughter and lives a few floors below her wealthy parents. Her husband Joel, although fairly successful in business, longs to be a stand-up comic and drags her along to the Gaslight Café in the West Village, where he has a late night slot.
Their lives move smoothly along, until Miriam learns that Joel’s hilarious routines are “borrowed” from Bob Newhart and that he has been having an affair with his secretary. He then packs a suitcase and walks out the door, leaving a stunned Miriam in his wake.
Drowning her sorrows and disbelief in a bottle of booze, Miriam finds herself at the Gaslight Café and promptly plunks herself on stage delivering an impromptu, raunchy monologue about her family, marriage and life in general. Thus, she begins her on again, off again career as a stand-up comic as “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
The cast is superb, led by Emmy Award-winning Rachel Brosnahan as Miriam (“Midge”), Michael Zegen as Joel, Marin Hinkle as Miriam’s uber-shallow mother Rose and Tony Shalhoub as her father Abe, a slightly OCD college professor. Adding to this disfunction are Emmy-winner Alex Borstein as Miriam’s “manager,” Susie Meyerson, who doesn’t really know what a manager does, but sees the raw talent and potential in her and Luke Kirby, in a brilliant turn as legendary comic Lenny Bruce. Joel’s parents, Shirley and Moishe, join Rose and Abe in their mutual horror of their children’s separation in a time (1958) where divorce is a no-no. The obnoxious Moishe and the way over-the-top
Shirley, played to perfection by Kevin Pollak and Caroline Aaron, exemplifies the vast class differences between the two families; one privileged and the other, not so. None of them know of Midge’s “life upon the wicked stage.”
“Mrs. Maisel” takes us to the world of Greenwich Village comedy clubs and cabaret rooms in the late ‘50s & early ‘60s. When I watched those scenes, my first thought was of the late Jan Wallman, the doyenne of the Duplex from 1959 – 1968. She gave an NYC start to Joan Rivers, Woody Allen, Stiller & Meara, Jo Anne Worley, Ruth Buzzi, Dick Cavett and Lily Tomlin, just to name a few. Like the character of Susie, Jan took a personal interest in the comics and as Joan Rivers put it, “She defended us, told drunks to be quiet when we performed, booked us even when the audiences hated us and on Thanksgiving, invited all of us to dinner at her apartment.” I’ve been in that apartment. It’s tiny. She did it anyway. That’s who Jan was.
In season two, the show takes us to The Catskills, that bastion of entertainment, replete with comics, singers and the ubiquitous caller of “Simon Says.” A rite of passage for most Jews at the time was leaving the city for the plush hotels of the “Jewish Alps.” With names like the Nevele, Fallsview, Kutscher’s, Grossinger’s and of course, the crème de la crème of resorts, the Concord, Sullivan County was abuzz with New Yorkers, desperate for a cooler climate, before air-conditioning became a common household thing.
It’s at the fictional Steiner Resort that we get to see a side of life that doesn’t exist anymore. It was in the “Borscht Belt” that comics like Red Buttons, Totie Fields, Joey Bishop, Milton Berle, Danny Kaye, Henny Youngman, Buddy Hackett, Sid Caesar, Groucho Marx, Jackie Mason, Victor Borge, Stiller & Meara, Woody Allen, Joan Rivers and Lenny Bruce all got their start. It was at the Stevensville Lake Hotel that a 14 year-old me, met a 19 year-old Marilyn Michaels, who 25 years later became my client. It was, as the documentary states, “When The Catskills was Comedy Central.” The hotels had everything from social directors to hairdressers to doctors.
Cabaret vocalist and MAC Award-winner, Barbara Malley, is one of those hairdressers in the second season of “Mrs. Maisel.” Barb relished in the part of Goldie. “I always get cast as Jewish grandmothers, even though I’m not even close to being Jewish,” the ex-nun told me. “Go figure!” She’s in three episodes of the new season and loved doing the show. “It’s a wonderful cast and so well-written.” Although a small part, she gets to hob-nob with the major characters at The Catskill’s resort.
Adam B. Shapiro, who is currently appearing in the Folkbiene’s Yiddish language Fiddler on the Roof and a cabaret veteran, plays, what else – the Cantor. Last season, his first appearance was so screamingly funny as Rose loudly demands to know where Midge got her mink, in the middle of Shabbat services, much to the consternation of the Rabbi & the Cantor. This season, he returns for Yom Kippur. Adam, like Malley, praised the cast, directors and writers. “It’s a wonderfully talented cast and the writing is brilliant. I get to play, what else, a Cantor, so my singing skills are in the forefront. As the Rabbi and the understudy for Tevye and Lazar-Wolf in Fiddler, ‘Mrs. Maisel’ was a perfect fit for me.”
Another cabaret face is also in the Amazon show, Michael Marotta. As he put it, “On episode 4, ‘Were Going to the Catskills!’ look for that plaid sport coat around 25 minutes in. Watch me as the gossipy, colorfully dressed Mr. Fuchtwanger, as he cuts a rug and shares a ‘blind item’ with everyone’s favorite heroine, ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel!’ If you’re a Where’s Waldo pro, I’m in and out for at least 6 minutes. But forget about me, enjoy this confection of a show.”
One of the most enjoyable parts of the show is the music that takes us from scene to scene and location to location. It’s a veritable Great American Songbook with touches of tunes from the ’50s and ’60s, from Blossom Dearie to Barbra Streisand to Johnny Mathis. Throw in the period costumes and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” is sheer perfection.
Today, the show goes from Greenwich Village to The Catskills and with it, the sweet memories of a time long ago, when raw talent was nurtured and encouraged. Somewhere, Jan Wallman is smiling.
Season One can be streamed on Amazon at any time.
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