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Culture Theatre

Zero Hour

ZERO HOUR by Jim Brochu, directed by Piper Laurie (Harold Green Jewish Theatre/Peccadillo). MNJCC Al Green Theatre (750 Spadina). To April 16, Monday-Thursday and Saturday 8 pm, mats Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday 2 pm. $40.50-$64.50. 416-366-7723. See listing. Rating: NNN

Many know Zero Mostel as Broadway’s original Tevye in Fiddler On The Roof or as Max Bialystock, the sweaty schlub in Mel Brooks’s 1968 film, The Producers. Writer and performer Jim Brochu’s solo show may not entirely soften that perception, but it draws an immensely sympathetic portrait of a man who lamented that very notoriety, posthumously granting him the artistic dignity that eluded him in life.

Taking the form of an interview Mostel did with the New York Times shortly before his death, Zero Hour draws us into the bug-eyed comedian’s Manhattan painting studio, complete with easels, oils and a slanting garret window. Addressing his invisible interlocutor, Mostel shuffles across the stage with brush in hand, tossing out the highs and lows of his life like bonbons: being blacklisted, his marriages, the eventual success he found in theatre and film.

The thrust of Brochu’s portrayal is that Mostel acted so he could paint, and Brochu instills that passion into a performance of unbridled, lovingly hokey humour. The monologue’s tension is brilliantly maintained through Mostel’s non-stop barrage of anecdotes. In one, for instance, an army doctor tells him he must stop masturbating, “But why?” asks Mostel. “Because I’m trying to examine you!” responds the doctor.

Sure, the set looks low-budget, 1962, and there’s a sentimental streak a mile wide, but Zero Hour is really all about Brochu, who with a shake of his epic jowls treats Mostel as more than just that funny schlemiel – he lets him be, as his mother used to call him, the kunstler.

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