Polish Joke

A comedy about ethnic identity and the eternal American search for "roots." Young Jasiu is a Polish-American who has been taught not to value his own roots, so he decides to make his own roots, reinventing himself first as a non-ethnic everyman, then sampling several different ethnicities. Jasiu's adventuresalternately zany and heartbreakingtake him through a job interview with an Ur-Wasp; to an attempt to become a Catholic priest; to a flower shop where he can't get service because he is weirdly invisible; to a doomed love affair with a Jewish woman; to an Irish travel agency where he has to prove that his Irishness before he can buy a ticket; and to a doctor more interested in ethnic pain than in healing. Jasiu is also bedeviled by a reappearing Polish relative and has to face off with the ghost of a dead Polish patriot. In the end, by trying to get away from his ethnic background, Jasiu finds out who he is and about the ethnic richness in all of us.
"furiously funny endearingly foolish." NY Magazine. "a thoughtful examination of the Polishness and Jewishness and Irishness that makes us at once alike and different." CurtainUp.
by David Ives