Richard Chang Photo by Jeremy Varner

The sub-titular dim son, named Jackie Sun (Chang), has not been in the U.S. for very long, and he delivers food for Fook Hing Chinese Restaurant. (While "Fook Hing" may sound offensive to English sensibilities, the term, Jackie explains, means "good luck and prosperity" in Mandarin.) Decades prior, Jackie's mother, a Chinese opera performer in Changdao (a Chinese archipelago translated as "Long Island"), had an affair with an itinerant Jewish comic. Describing his father, Jackie explains in the New York Jewish accent he adopted upon emigrating: "He's a great traveler. He shlept all over the woild. He shlept from America to China. And then he shlept with Mama. That's how I came into this woild."

With only a few clues to his father's identity, including recordings sent to his mother that sound an awful lot like Jackie Mason, as well as cloth frisbees that he later identifies as yarmulkes, Jackie embarks on an expedition through New York to find his paternal roots. He finds that life in America isn't easy. In the manner of a Catskills comic, he states incredulously, "A restaurant wanted me to woik under the table, but I said that's disgusting. How am I supposed to crawl in there when everybody's legs are in the way?"

Like a Chinese Ulysses, Jackie travels throughout the boroughs to encounter the strange and enigmatic ethnic wonders of New York City while looking for his father. Along the way he comes across, for instance, the street hawkers of Chinatown, selling Walkman batteries and shouting, "Battely, battely, wan dallah." His odyssey includes interactions with a bevy of Muslims on Atlantic Avenue, Black blues singers in Harlem, and Hasidic Jews in Crown Heights, all of whom intersect culturally and socially with the intrepid traveler's own experiences. It turns out that Jackie, a Chinese transplant wearing Orthodox Jewish payes, isn't a walking anomaly, he's representative of New York City's teeming religious and social diversity.

Chang's approach to the array of characters is reminiscent of John Leguizamo's early works in which he depicted the vibrant denizens among New York's Latino neighborhoods. Chang's personae under Laura Josepher's direction, however, are not nearly as fully drawn, richly portrayed, nor as riotously funny. At their worst, the figures are constructed around familiar stereotypes and hoary gags. At their best, such as in his presentation of a Peking opera diva mother, they playfully juxtapose classical Asian and popular Western performance styles. Unfortunately, those moments are not in abundant supply.

A program note states that in addition to merging Chinese and Yiddish theatrical genres, the production conceit is also indebted to Charles Busch, who is known for the fabulous drag costumes he wears in his homages to larger-than-life Hollywood divas. Indeed, the most effective elements of Ai Yah Goy Vey! are the costumes, headwear, and ingenious props designed by Karen Boyer and Chang. (Sheryl Liu's set, Samantha Weiser's lighting, and Scott Leff's projections provide a suitable variety-show atmosphere to the proceedings.) Yet Busch's characterizations extend beyond the visual humor associated with over-the-top gowns and wigs. Without a character to animate and theatricalize the costume, the effect is mere pageantry.

Intermingled throughout the show are several musical numbers that reflect the fusion of traditional forms, such as klezmer, rap, and Broadway showtunes. The show contains some original compositions (provided by Christopher Liang) in addition to a handful of familiar songs with new lyrics. For example, in a reworking of "Reviewing the Situation" from Oliver!, Jackie considers the multitude of possibilities if his father were not Jewish but came from a different heritage. His mind reels, and like Fagan, he concludes, "I think I'd better think it out again."

Admirably, Ai Yah Goy Vey! does not require a great deal of thinking, and it revels in the unity we may find in our heterogeneousness. But in this cultural hodgepodge the disparate elements don't often cohere.