Beyond the Golden Door Jewish American Drama and Jewish American Experience

by Novick, Julius

• ISBN13: 9781403970091
• ISBN10: 1403970092
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-04-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Clifford Odets. Arthur Miller. Paddy Chayefsky. Neil Simon. Jules Feiffer. Wendy Wasserstein. Tony Kushner. These leading American playwrights do not just happen to be Jewish: they are Jewish playwrights . They and other Jewish playwrights have written out of their own experience, for general American audiences, about what it feels like to be twentieth-century American Jews. Beyond the Golden Door is the first book devoted to showing how Jewish playwrights have dramatized the great struggle to balance Old World heritage with New World opportunity'”a struggle with implications for all American ethnicities.

Author Biography

Julius Novick is Emeritus Professor Emeritus of Drama Studies, Purchase College of the State University of New York.  He is the author of Beyond Broadway: The Quest for Permanent Theatres. He was the theatre critic at The Village Voice, The New York Observer, and New York Newsday and has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Magazine, the Forward, and many other publications. He has been honored with a Fulbright Scholarship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, among others, and has served twice on the Pulitzer Prize Drama Jury.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
The Golden Land	p. 9
Israel Zangwill: The Melting-Pot (1908)	p. 9
Aaron Hoffman: Welcome Stranger (1920)	p. 14
Samson Raphaelson: The Jazz Singer (1925)	p. 18
Elmer Rice's Multiethnic New York	p. 25
Street Scene (1929)	p. 25
Counsellor-at-Law (1931)	p. 28
The Bronx	p. 35
Clifford Odets: Awake and Sing! (1935)	p. 35
Gertrude Berg: Me and Molly (1948)	p. 42
Arthur Miller and the Jews	p. 47
Death of a Salesman (1949)	p. 47
After the Fall (1964)	p. 55
The Price (1968)	p. 56
Broken Glass (1994)	p. 57
Prosperity and Its Discontents	p. 61
Paddy Chayefsky: The Tenth Man (1959)	p. 61
Jules Feiffer: Grown Ups (1981)	p. 66
Jon Robin Baitz: Three Hotels (1993)	p. 69
Neil Simon: Brighton Beach to Broadway	p. 71
Come Blow Your Horn (1961)	p. 71
The Brighton Beach Trilogy	p. 78
Brighten Beach Memoirs (1982, 1983)	p. 78
Biloxi Blues (1984, 1985)	p. 79
Broadway Bound (1986)	p. 80
Lost in Yonkers (1991)	p. 82
Three Show-Business Plays	p. 83
The Sunshine Boys (1972)	p. 83
Laughter on the 23rd Floor (1993)	p. 84
Forty-Five Seconds from Broadway (2001)	p. 86
The Musicals	p. 87
Joseph Stein (book), Jerry Bock (music), and Sheldon Harnick (lyrics): Fiddler on the Roof (1964)	p. 87
Joseph Stein (book), Charles Strouse (music), and Stephen Schwartz (lyrics): Rags (1986)	p. 90
William Finn (book, lyrics, music) and James Lapine (book): Falsettos (1992)	p. 94
German Jews, Southern Jews	p. 97
Alfred Uhry: Driving Miss Daisy (1987)	p. 97
Alfred Uhry: The Last Night of Ballyhoo (1997)	p. 100
More Fathers and Sons	p. 109
Donald Margulies: The Loman Family Picnic (1989)	p. 109
Donald Margulies: Sight Unseen (1991, 1992)	p. 116
Herb Gardner: Conversations with My Father (1991, 1992)	p. 122
Jewish Daughters	p. 129
Barbara Lebow: A Shayna Maidel (1985, 1987)	p. 129
Wendy Wasserstein: Isn't It Romantic? (1981, 1983)	p. 131
Wendy Wasserstein: The Sisters Rosensweig (1992)	p. 135
Epilogue	p. 141
Tony Kushner: Angels in America (1991, 1992)	p. 141
Acknowledgments	p. 145
Notes	p. 147
Bibliography	p. 173
Index of Playwrights	p. 183
Index of Plays	p. 185
General Index	p. 187
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