Jeff Ross: Take a Banana for the Ride

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At the beginning of his eponymous Broadway foray, Jeff Ross: Take a Banana for the Ride, the self-styled insult comic promises a catharsis, which seems like an obvious setup to soon mock the forlorn theater geeks sprinkled among an audience predominantly there to see Ross unleash the “Roastmaster General” persona he’s cultivated over more than a quarter century of televised potshots at dais-trapped celebrities. But, it turns out the joke is on all of us. While Ross doesn’t completely abandon his sophomoric shtick, it’s also not the heart of his show, which has an unexpectedly big one.

The hint of a different Ross is there from the start, peeking through his unbuttoned, bright yellow suit jacket (designed by Toni-Leslie James) on a T-shirt emblazoned with the smirking mug of Gilbert Gottfried. Both a close friend of Ross and equally transgressive comic, Gottfried passed away a few years ago. Far from being an unspoken tribute, Ross eventually shouts out Gottfried’s talent and connects his death to the untimely ends of two of his other notorious comic compadres, Norm Macdonald and Bob Saget. The three men died within a terrible eight-month stretch, all of them in their 60s. That’s a decade of life Ross is himself on the verge of entering, but only after a recent and brutal battle against stage three colon cancer.

Another immediate and telltale sign that Ross plans to summon his inner Mike Birbiglia–the leading theatrical practitioner of waggish, death-fixated autobiography–is Beowulf Boritt’s set design (an artistic collaborator of Birbiglia, too), which predominantly consists of many gigantic, initially unfilled photo frames above a much less arresting stage. As Ross eulogizes Gottfried, Macdonald, and Saget, snapshot memories of the dearly departed trio are projected into some of the frames (projection design by Stefania Bulbarella). The same happens with the images of family members Ross similarly remembers with a still palpable sense of loss. That’s despite his well-meaning advice to mourn and then move on. Solely judging by his Broadway show, Ross doesn’t appear to be personally capable of following this guidance, as his thoughts betray lots of unbounded grief. Perhaps Ross should alter what he says to mourn while moving on. That’s not a bad compromise; it might even be preferable.

Born Jeffrey Ross Lifschultz and raised in New Jersey, it’s touching how little Ross wants to be the headliner of his own lifestory, instead choosing to focus most of his attention on the nurturing nexus of faces that pop up in those aforementioned floating frames. They include his mom, Marsha, and dad, Ronny, both of whom died while Ross was a teenager, the former due to leukemia and the latter from a brain aneurysm that was the tragic outcome of a drug-fueled spiral after his wife’s passing. Ross credits standup comedy for quickly offering him direction and self-fulfillment, but, on the heels of so much sadness, it was his maternal grandfather, Pop Jack, who gave Ross what he needed most: someone to love and to love him in return.

Following the death of his dad, Ross lived with the physically frail Pop Jack in the widower’s New Jersey house, serving as his caregiver while receiving constant reminders that the affectionate support was mutual. The way that Pop Jack’s feelings were most often imparted to Ross is the origin of the show’s cryptic title. Whenever Ross was close to heading out the door to hop a cross-Hudson bus for the Manhattan comedy club circuit, Pop Jack invariably offered his grandson “a banana for the ride,” along with a few bucks. As Ross recalls, the recommendation wasn’t simply about staving off traffic-induced hunger; it was also Pop Jack letting it be known that though he couldn’t ever see Ross perform in person because of his deteriorating body, he was still there in spirit.

It’s a shockingly sentimental remembrance, given that Ross has built his public reputation on being such a jerk. Irrefutable evidence for that assessment is definitely in Jeff Ross: Take A Banana For The Ride, including video of the infamous jab Ross took at Bea Arthur during a celebrity roast. To the headshaking delight of some, Ross even concludes his Broadway show by descending from the stage to give bizarrely willing members of the audience the Bea Arthur treatment. But, whether or not you’re a fan of Ross the comic, he leaves plenty of room to appreciate Ross the fellow human being, especially as he encourages us to release some of our own pain by listening to his.

Ross and director Stephen Kessler also deserve a bit of strange credit for imbuing the show with an old-college-try theatricality that forces the less than musically inclined Ross to sing and, let’s say, dance. In these brave efforts, he’s backed up by pianist/composer Asher Denburg and violinist Felix Herbst, two very good natured performers who will hopefully go on to work with someone much, much better at carrying a tune while simultaneously contorting their limbs to it. Still, in these two respects, kudos to Ross for having more courage than talent and being willing to prove that on a Broadway stage. That’s something to applaud, I suppose.

Jeff Ross: Take a Banana for the Ride (through September 28, 2025)

Nederlander Theatre, 208 West 41st Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.jeffrossbroadway.com

Running time: one hour and 30 minutes without an intermission