Thoughts from scenic designer Hallie Zieselman
Alfred Uhry, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright (Driving Miss Daisy) paints another wry portrait of his typical, southern family dynamic in The Last Night of Ballyhoo (Tony Award winning Best Play of 1997), the theatre program's final faculty production of the spring season, directed by Douglas Sprigg.
America's immigrant populations have long struggled with the conflicting interests of maintaining a cultural identity while becoming Americans. This was never more prevalent than among American Jews in the 1930s. With Hitler on the rise in Europe (making no distinctions between assimilated or observant Jews), assimilated Jews in the American South often had no contact with observant Jews from the Northeast, and vice versa. So when Joe Farkas from Brooklyn encounters the family of his boss, Adolph Freitag in Atlanta, he quickly realizes that he is not in familiar territory.
This play is of particular interest for me because it parallels the courtship of my parents. My father, a first generation American from a Russian/Polish Jewish family in Stamford, Connecticut, and my mother, from an assimilated, German Jewish family from Fort Worth, Texas, began dating in the fall of 1959. When I was growing up, the only differences I understood between the two factions were gastronomical—Eastern European matzo balls are light and fluffy, German ones are easily mistaken for rocks; my paternal grandmother kept a kosher house, my maternal grandmother had bacon and ham shipped to my family in New York from a smokehouse in Texas. Until I saw The Last Night of Ballyhoo on Broadway, however, I was unaware that through geography and prejudice, a religious "culture clash" between the assimilated, Southern Jewish population and the observant, Northeastern Jewish contingent truly existed beyond my own experience.
Through the microscope of a budding romance, Uhry observes the macrocosm of this particular Jewish-American, cultural contrast. He sets his story in 1939, soon after Hitler's conquest of Poland, in the comfortable living room of the Freitag house (although not exclusively—Uhry does have penchant for vehicular motion which creates special challenges for a designer). The Last Night of Ballyhoo shows the humor and pathos that arise when these two "cultures" come into contact, and proves that common heritage does not always equal commonality.
The cast of The Last Night of Ballyhoo features Bill Army '07, Eliza Hulme '05.5, Retta Leaphart '06, John Stokvis '05, Sally Swallow '07, Nell Wright '05.5, and Andrew Zox '05. The stage manager is Rachel Ann Cole '08 and the assistant to the director is Meghan Stone '05. Set design is by Hallie Zieselman, costume design is by Jule Emerson, and lighting design is by Laura Eckelman '05 as her senior work. Technical direction is by Allison Rimmer with Jim Dougherty; costume direction is by Lin Waters with Melonie Bushey.
A free, Behind-the-Scenes Lunch and Discussion takes place on Tuesday, April 26, at 12:30 p.m. at Wright Theatre. Learn more about the production through a dialogue with director Douglas Sprigg, members of the cast, and design staff. Lunch is provided.
Performances take place in Wright Theatre Thursday, April 28 through Saturday, April 30, at 8:00 p.m. each evening, with a 2:00 p.m. matinee on Saturday only. Tickets are $5/4/3 and go on sale April 14 at the Center for the Arts Box Office. (www.middlebury.edu/arts)