Abe Weissman

Abe Weissman is Midge's father, a Columbia professor of mathematics and a fixture of Upper West Side propriety, more comfortable with proofs and Bell Labs consulting work than with feelings. He presides over family dinners with fussy authority, certain the world runs on order and manners, unaware how thoroughly his daughter is about to upend both.

Shalhoub plays pomposity as something almost tender—Abe's certainty is a shield, not a flaw to be mocked outright, and the show lets his bafflement curdle slowly into real reckoning. The writing hands him tantrums about ties and elevators, but the performance finds the frightened, loving man underneath every fussy pronouncement.