Alter Brody, American Poet and Playwright (2)
LAMENTATIONS
Jews of the Old World in the New World
by
ALTER BRODY
Author of “A Family Album”
Lamentations are four one-act plays about Jews of the Old World who lead lives in the New World.
In Lowing in the Night a married couple who owns a candy store in the Bronx serve children every day but can have none of their own. They give vent to their frustration but are bound to each other by love and affection.
Recess for Memorials takes place in a synagogue where two old women bemoan the demolition of tradition that life in the New World has brought about.
Rapunzel is about a young girl who became blind after losing her balance when she leant out of the window like the storybook character. Braille provides her with a fantasy world that she is afraid of losing when she suddenly regains her sight.
The mourning in A House of Mourning comes after a father has unsuccessfully tried to force his maverick daughter back to the pious life.
The language of the plays is ingenuous and yet poetic. As in his poetry, Brody’s love and compassion for his fellow man is omnipresent. Lamentations was published in 1928. After that, Brody went more or less unheard from until his death in 1981. He left a small body of work in manuscript. The Holy Ledger and Sermon of a Text, which were written after the Shoah, are eloquent expressions of despair in which he challenges and reproves the deity. The plays have not yet been produced. They are being translated into German by actor-director Marius Schiener
-Herbert Kuhner
