Next Year in Jerusalem
Author
Brian C. Petti
Synopsis
The play opens in a hotel room where Moshe Zydowski, an 81 year old
Holocaust survivor, reluctantly prepares a speech he is to give the
following day. After being adequately prodded by his rabbi son
Benjamin, Moshe is left alone to relive his past. His remembrances
lead him on a inward journey, winding from encounter to encounter as
pieces of his past realign themselves.
In the first act his memory takes him to an encounter on a Warsaw Ghetto bread line with revolutionary childhood friend Ye'ev, a conversation with a cynical midwife before the birth of his daughter Rebecca, a seder celebration with his father when he was a child, and his painful separation from his family in the Ghetto purge. The first act ends with the shooting death of Moshe's daughter in 1943.
The second act finds Moshe, alone and bewildered, waking up on a transit car on the way to the concentration camps. Here he learns how his life was saved by a gay musician, who he in turn tries to help. Moshe's second wife, Leah shows him the universality of suffering by depicting a confrontation between herself and Moshe's presumably lost first wife Rachel. The play ends with an envisioned conversation with Rebecca as she would have been had she lived.
Cumulatively, Next Year in Jerusalem is one man's search for meaning, understanding and spiritual truth in the aftermath of a life broken by uncontrollable forces. The play takes place over one night, but moves in time to 1943 Warsaw, 1923 Lublin, and 1970's Brooklyn. The play consists of two acts and eight scenes and contains nine principals. View extract.
Cast
5 male, 4 female
Duration
90 minutes
Contact
16 E Parmenter St
Newburgh
NY 12550
USA