13 Sep 2007Size: 215mm x 137mm£17.99
God of Vengeance
Paperback £17.99
Adapted from Sholom Asch's classic morality tale - a work of spellbinding power from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Dinner With Friends.
Jack Chapman runs a brothel on the first floor of his tenement, but wants a respectable marriage for his daughter. But when his daughter falls in love with one of the prostitutes, the marriage - and with it, Jack's dream of redemption - looks very doubtful indeed.
Donald Margulies's adaptation shifts the action of the 1906 Yiddish melodrama from its original setting - 1906 Poland - to the Lower East Side of New York in the early 1920s, transporting Asch's concerns about piety and hypocrisy, love and transgression into the context of Jewish-American immigrant culture.
The original English-language version of God of Vengeance first appeared on Broadway in 1923, but was closed down and the cast arrested for its portrayal of a lesbian love affair on stage.
'Diabolical ingenuity and rueful tenderness... a playwright with a particularly pungent and intelligent vision'
New York Times13 Sep 2007Size: 215mm x 137mm£17.99