Not just anyone can do New York-based, Jewish comedy.

Jewish comedy or “schtick” at its best is characterized by great timing, lots of complaining and, with the right amount of inflection, a few insults. It’s never cruel and is usually substantive. It often involves two characters playing off each other. The comedy style has been part of the Jewish identity and the American zeitgeist since Eastern Europeans began arriving on New York’s shores pre-World War I.

Here’s an example of an uncle from the “old country” reprimanding his nephew: You’d better start being nice to people; you’re going to need at least six pallbearers at your funeral.

Yiddish theater, which thrived in the Bronx and Brooklyn, eventually gave way to vaudeville. Vaudeville helped form the basis for everything from Broadway to early movie comedies, from the Marx Brothers’ “Duck Soup,” to the sitcoms of today, including “The Simpsons” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” The story of Jewish humor in America, in fact, was just beautifully laid out in the five-season run of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” This style of humor influenced everything Mel Brooks did. And out of cultural enclaves of the Lower East Side came Neil Simon, a contemporary of Brooks and one of the best comedic playwrights of the 20th century.

Simon lived it, breathed it and worked it. He used that humor while writing some of the funniest TV shows of the 1950s, alongside Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. He eventually left TV sketch-writing for playwriting. Over the next 30 years, he wrote more than 25 plays (many made into films) including “Plaza Suite,” “The Goodbye Girl,” “Barefoot in the Park,” “Brighton Beach Memoirs” and “The Odd Couple.”

In 1972, Simon finished “The Sunshine Boys,” a funny, touching, two-act play about two Old World vaudevillians — an eccentric Willie Clark and his straight man Al Lewis. They are meeting to consider an appearance on a TV retrospective about comedy greats after having had a falling out over some finger-poking and invasion of personal space, 12 years earlier. If you would like to see how these two come to terms with all of it, “The Sunshine Boys” is playing at the Barnstormers Theatre in Grants Pass through Sept. 10.

In this production, David Blake plays a disgruntled Willie Clark. Blake shows us Willie’s discontent reasonably well. However, despite Wille’s objections to just about everything, Willie is not one-dimensional or flat, yet Blake plays him this way.

Willie is an old man wrestling with the disappointments that accompany aging and retirement. For an actor, the challenge comes in making us see the humor in Willie’s predicament. An actor who might not fully understand the cultural context from which Willie’s complaining comes runs the risk of coming off as an actor who is just complaining. That leaves us, the audience, having to work harder to find the humor in Willie, too.

It is mentioned in the program that this is Blake’s debut. Since Willie Clark is the main focus of the play, it would be good if Director Robert Pyle worked with Blake to be less like an unconvincing Walter Matthau and more of a convincing Willie.

However, it isn’t all on Blake.

“The Sunshine Boys” is a bit dated. People’s views of what is funny have changed. Sight gags from Benny Hill that would have been considered funny in the 1950s and ’60s would seem offensive today. Political correctness would probably not allow for Willie and Al’s skit about a buxom, blonde nurse.

Kent Prickett as Al Lewis has it a bit easier. He is more resigned to his fate and his life in retirement. And so Prickett as Lewis can be the counter to Willie’s griping, a little more surrendered and with a bit more ease. We find, however, that even easygoing Al has his breaking point, and it’s amusing when he gets there.

Aaron Barber as Ben Silverman, Willie’s nephew, is a welcome and refreshing buffer to Willie’s stubbornness. Nancy Ryan really steps up as Willie’s no-nonsense home health care nurse. Supporting cast members Ed Johnson, as a patient; Jerry Lancaster as Eddie; James Humphreys as Phil Schaefer; and Heidi Elise as a young nurse round out the production.

Robert Pyle, director and lighting designer, and his family members Jeremy Pyle, stage manager; Emery Pyle, assistant stage manager; and Alayna Riley have been with Barnstormers’ and the production team for years in various capacities.

In light of the difficulties of the past three years, it’s encouraging to see him and others in the cast and crew remaining faithful to their mission to present live theater in Grants Pass.

Barnstormers Theatre is located at 112 N.E. Evelyn Ave. Performances of “The Sunshine Boys” are set for 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Sundays, through Sept. 10. Tickets begin at $20; group discounts are available.

See barnstormersgp.org, email at barnstormersgp@gmail.com or call 541-479-3557 for showtimes, tickets and information.