A working-class Jewish family struggling to make ends meet. A gangster uncle newly arrived from Russia. Conflicts between immigrant parents and their more Americanized children. It all sounds a lot like the early-20th century world of Samson Raphaelson’s “The Jazz Singer” or Neil Simon’s “Lost in Yonkers.”

Given the vicissitudes of Jewish history, it is no wonder that Jews developed a bleakly comic vision, a sense of life as teetering awkwardly on the edge of an abyss. Such a philosophy is amply on display in Lazarre Seymour Simckes’ absurdist new play, “Open Rehearsal,” in which a troupe of actors who are members of the same family rehearse a bizarre drama that enfolds with the fractured logic of a variety show. As the play-within-a-play keeps turning itself inside out, the characters finally find security only by clinging to one another.