| I saw one of his Broadway appearances, I don't remember which. I remember being taken with the Yiddish musicality of his delivery, cantorial in a profane way. He was fascinating. I felt that the older audience was listening deeply to Mason as if what he represented was going away. Some of it, good riddance, the insularity of its racism and homophobia as well as the insularity of the Borcht Belt culture itself which at its beginnings welcomed Jews to the kind of resort that denied them access in Christian America. But the musicality of the patter, that was beautiful and it was sad to see people saying goodbye to it. |
