‘Mendel & Moses’ Searches for Higher Power

It took a long time, and many plagues, before the Pharaoh set free the Jews. Later, the Jews themselves displayed a similar inability to learn from their mistakes, while wandering in the desert.

The new musical “Mendel & Moses” glances at this theme. Yet the show’s creators, Jeremiah and Wendy Ginsberg, find it equally difficult to change their ways--judging from the new production of “Mendel” at the mid-sized Can~on Theatre, after an earlier run at the smaller Century City Playhouse.

Nothing of significance has changed in this half-whimsical, half-earnest treatment of the Moses story as seen through the eyes of Mendel, a 1990s Jew from Brooklyn who is transported back to ancient Egypt.

If anything, the whimsy isn’t as funny in the larger space. About 90% of the jokes fell flat on opening night. A supposedly amusing dialogue that opens the second act was especially lame. While this critic had already heard most of the punch lines, that alone doesn’t explain the paralyzing failure of most of the shtick.

Comic bits are seldom blended smoothly into the show’s overall texture. An Adam and Eve sketch that interrupts the first act still looks as if it exists because the authors didn’t know what else to do with some of their jokes. The funniest song, “Leeks, Onions and Garlic,” is almost completely irrelevant to everything else.

So are some of the serious scenes. Just when the momentum should be building to its peak, Moses’ wife, Zipporah, sings a solo that contradicts the sentiments she expressed the last time we saw her--with no explanation of her change of heart, and with even less connection to the narrative flow.

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But, then, this show generates very little momentum or flow. There still is no compelling reason why Mendel, of all contemporary Jews, should make this journey back into time--he isn’t facing a personal crisis, and his life isn’t notably affected by his trip.

In the opening Seder scene, Mendel has a few more lines now that indicate a thirst for Judaic knowledge. His story would be more dramatic, however, if he started as bored as the other Seder guests--or if he were initially rebellious against his heritage.

The casting of Mendel has changed. Gary Morgan is thinner and wirier than his predecessor, Ciro Barbaro, and more constantly “on”--which becomes grating. His singing voice is not up to the task of launching the grand finale.

There are some strong voices in the rest of the cast, including Jesse Garnee’s Moses and Ned York’s Pharaoh and all-purpose devil. This latter character has a name, Beelzebub, that’s inexplicably taken from the New Testament, and he has an assistant devil with two little horns--hardly a Jewish image. They wield surprising influence--Eve’s serpent and the golden calf are among their projects, though you wouldn’t know this from reading the Torah.

The score alternates between manic and stolid; on second hearing, the lyrics sound clunkier than before. There is a lot of dance--but much of it is designed to just stir up movement, regardless of whether it’s pertinent to the story.

* “Mendel & Moses,” Can~on Theatre, 205 N. Can~on Drive, Beverly Hills. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 3 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Aug. 31. $25-$35. (310) 859-2830. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.