God of Vengeance

Sholom Asch, Donald Margulies

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781559362337
• eBook ISBN: 9781559367509
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

Donald Margulies offers up a vivid new adaptation of Sholom Asch’s 1906 Yiddish melodrama, reset on the Lower East Side of New York at the turn of the century. The original English language edition first appeared on Broadway in 1923, but was closed down and the cast arrested for its portrayal of a lesbian love affair on stage.

"Teasing out the pesky questions of spirit, love, family and commerce at the heart of Asch’s play, Margulies has achieved crossover success, making God of Vengeance a profoundly American play."—Alisa Solomon, Village Voice

Sholom Asch was a noted Yiddish novelist and playwright.

Donald Margulies is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Dinner with Friends. His other work includes Collected Stories and Sight Unseen.

ACT ONE

The Lower East Side of New York. 1923.

The set consists of a two-story cross-section of a tenement building, the suggestion of an alleyway, a sidewalk and a stoop. The tall buildings of the city loom in the background.

The upstairs apartment is living quarters to Jack Chapman, a.k.a. Yankel Tshaptshovitsh, his wife Sara, and their daughter Rivkele. The kitchen and master bedroom are not visible but the living/dining room and Rivkele’s girlish bedroom are. The living room, decorated with framed family photos and a variety of tschatchkes, is an incongruous mix of old world quaintness and greenhorn pretension. A fire escape is the urban balcony outside Rivkele’s window, with a ladder that leads to the alley.

Downstairs, below the staid residence, is a brothel. Brass beds are partly concealed in cubicles behind exotic curtains. A chaise splashed with colorful fabrics is prominently placed in the main reception area. Washstand, liquor stash, Victrola, lamps, secondhand chairs. The walls are decorated with mismatched ornate mirrors and various pictures of women in seductive poses.

A collage of sounds of the teeming city. Lights up: a spring afternoon. We find Rivkele, seventeen years old, sitting forlornly at her window, like a Jazz-Age Rapunzel, humming a Yiddish song while embroidering a vestment.

Manke, a streetwalker in her twenties, walks on and fixes her lipstick while looking in a compact. An Orthodox Man of late middle-age nervously shields his face as he walks past, but not without noticing Manke. Manke, standing near the stoop, lights a cigarette.

Sara comes on, her baskets full of challahs and flowers.

SARA (To Manke): Move.

(Manke blows smoke in Sara’s face and giggles.)

Very funny.

(Sara goes upstairs where she puts the flowers in a vase and putters around the living room, sets a buffet table, etc.

Rivkele sees Manke from her window. Her face brightens.)

RIVKELE (Calls in a whisper): Manke!

(Manke’s face loses its hardness when she sees Rivkele.)

MANKE: Rivkele!

RIVKELE: I prayed you’d be there. I said, please, God, I’m going to look out my window, please let Manke be there. And you were!

MANKE: Shh shh shh.

RIVKELE: Look at my stitching. See? I’m doing as you said.
(Shows her the vestment)

MANKE: Yes! You’re such a good pupil.

RIVKELE: I want to see you so much.

MANKE: Me, too. Come down!

RIVKELE: I can’t. My father’s having a party. And I’m the guest of honor.

(The Orthodox Man returns and nervously makes his move; he clears his throat to get Manke’s attention.)

ORTHODOX MAN: Can we go somewhere?

MANKE: Yeah, sure. Right this way.

(She takes a final puff and grinds out the cigarette, then blows a kiss to Rivkele and whispers:)

Later.

(Rivkele waves ruefully. She works on a paper flower chain as Manke leads the man into the downstairs apartment. He warily follows, kissing the mezuzah on his way in.)

ORTHODOX MAN: So this is what it looks like.

MANKE: You were expecting the Waldorf-Astoria?

ORTHODOX MAN: You hear about such a place your whole life . . . your imagination . . .

MANKE: It’s just a place. Four walls, beds that sag in the middle. My bed is here.

(She pulls open the drape on her cubicle and steps out of her dress.)

ORTHODOX MAN: No no no. Not so fast. (A beat) Could we maybe talk a little first?

MANKE: Talk?

ORTHODOX MAN: Yeah. You know. Talk.

MANKE: We didn’t come here for conversation.

ORTHODOX MAN: I know. But, please. Let’s sit a minute.

(He sits down on the chaise. She shrugs, then sits next to him. Silence.)

MANKE: Nu? (Meaning, Well. . . ?)

ORTHODOX MAN: I walked down this street so many times.
Summer, winter. Went out of my way. Just to see you.

MANKE: Oh, yeah? You’d gawk at me, then go home, screw your wife?

ORTHODOX MAN: No. (A beat) I just got up from shiva.

MANKE: Oh. I’m sorry.

ORTHODOX MAN (Nods his thanks): She was sick a long time, my wife, may she rest in peace. A long time.

(Manke nods. Silence. He sighs deeply, inhales her aroma.)

What is that?

MANKE: Rose water. I dab some on my neck.

(She lifts her hair so he can smell her neck. He nearly swoons, gets up, moves away.)

What.

ORTHODOX MAN: I never should’ve come.

MANKE: Why not?

ORTHODOX MAN: It’s a sin! That’s why not! What goes on here are sinful things!

(She laughs.)

What’s so funny?

MANKE: Sin now, atone later. That’s what they all do.

(Her laughter subsides. He’s charmed.)

ORTHODOX MAN: What’s your name?

MANKE: Manke.

ORTHODOX MAN: Manke?! Is that so? I knew a girl named Manke, once.

MANKE: Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that one before.

ORTHODOX MAN: No, I did. In the old country. Back in Vilna.

MANKE: Vilna?! You’re from Vilna?

ORTHODOX MAN: Yes.

MANKE: I’m from Vilkia.

ORTHODOX MAN: Vilkia! Small world! My mother was bo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Act One
• Act Two
• About the Author