By DORIS RUBENSTEIN
Why has Ari Hoptman chosen Is That Why? as the title for his one-man show at this year’s Minnesota Fringe?
Why is he explaining “why”? What is he asking “why” about?
Stage veteran Ari Hoptman explores those random language mysteries that occupy our minds while we’re trying to fall asleep at night or are stuck in team leadership meetings. Why don’t we have a letter for “th”? Is writing left to right logical? How do you name mammals? What’s wrong with “gooder,” anyway? See Ari talk about what a lot of smart folks figured out a while back.
Aside from being a freelance performer, in real life Hoptman is a professor of German philology at the University of Minnesota. Philology? That’s a word you don’t run into every day. The Webster’s dictionary I won in my fifth grade spelling bee says it’s “the study of etymology, grammar, criticism, literary and linguistic history, etc.” In other words, word origins and grammar.
Hoptman’s been studying and teaching it in German since he left the Detroit area in 1992 to study the subject with the University of Minnesota’s legendary Professor Anatoly Liberman. This explains why the Fringe promo describes Is That Why? as “a fast-moving show about the mysteries of language. Why are words the way they are? How do languages change? Why is grammar hard? And what IS the plural of ‘octopus,’ anyway? Every show will be different!”
The question now is: How did he come to choose such an esoteric subject to entertain a generally quirk-loving audience? Hoptman explained, “It’s an outgrowth of my performances at BALLS Cabaret at Strike Theater in northeast Minneapolis. I used to do comedy stories and bad poetry there. At some point, I decided to talk about words, word origins and language.”
This is not surprising since for years he worked on an etymological dictionary, an effort led by Liberman. “We rescued a lot of ‘lost’ articles on etymology in largely unread academic journals; for example, we found eight somewhat useless articles on the origin of the word ‘gazebo.’”
Hoptman likes to educate people through humor. “I use humor, hoping that the audience has a good time and that they learn something fun.”
Why would a guy brought up in one of the most Jewish suburbs of Detroit choose German over its Jewish relative, Yiddish? Our lingua franca never was part of his plan. After struggling through French in high school, he tried out German to fulfill a language requirement at Wayne State University and found it to his liking.
Outside of the classroom, though, Hoptman doesn’t find a lot of opportunity to use Yiddish or German. “I don’t run into a lot of German speakers on the streets of the Twin Cities, and when I do, the conversation is pretty superficial. I don’t get to use a wide vocabulary.”
As an actor, Hoptman has some favorite roles: Ira Stone — a brilliant comedy writer, hypochondriac and extremely irritating person in Neil Simon’s Laughter on the 23rd Floor, which he performed with Park Square Theatre. And then there’s his smarmy Department Chair Arlen Finkel in A Serious Man, the 2009 Coen brothers film shot in the Twin Cities.
Other Jews performing at the Fringe Festival this year include Abbey Lowenstein directing Guy For Now, described as a comedy for all ages that takes the audience on a “journey of self-discovery as our everyman encounters a cast of ‘unique’ characters who teach him about life, love, and the art of letting go,” as per the Fringe website.
Rachel Redleaf is the writer, director and star of Too Much of a Good Thing. The story follows our heroine from her challenge with The Itty Bitty Titty Committee to being president of The Big Booby Brigade. Somehow, Rachel enlists her talking breasts to help her decide: Can you have too much of a good thing?
Julia and Eli Maskin have written, produced and now star in Castrati: A Tale of Two. This show “weaves song with castration” and challenges the audience members to shed their bodily prisons during this groundbreaking musical.
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Ari Hoptman’s show will be performed on five dates, Aug. 7-16, at the American School of Storytelling, 1762 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis. Information on performances can be found at minnesotafringe.org.
(American Jewish World, August 2026)
