Ben Hecht's Theatre of Jewish Protest
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A Flag is Born
A Jewish Fairy Tale
A01=Garrett Eisler
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Author_Garrett Eisler
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Ben Hecht
Category1=Non-Fiction
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Category=ATD
Category=DS
Category=JBSR
Category=JFSR1
COP=United States
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drama
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history
Holocaust
Jewish
Jewish Studies
Jewish theater
jewish-american
Language_English
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political plays
Political theater
politics
Price_€100 and above
PS=Forthcoming
Shoah
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The Terrorist
Theater
theatre
We Will Never Die
Zionism
Product details
- ISBN 9781978835955
- Weight: 513g
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 14 Jan 2025
- Publisher: Rutgers University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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Ben Hecht is most remembered as a famous Hollywood screenwriter and Broadway playwright, but only recently has his extensive Jewish activism during the Holocaust and its aftermath received scholarly attention. Unlike other, more expansive Hecht biographies, this book focuses in depth on his Jewish political theatre, drawing on extensive archival research of four dramas: We Will Never Die (1943), A Jewish Fairy Tale (1944), A Flag Is Born (1946), and The Terrorist (1947). Garrett Eisler's readings of these little-known (and out of print) texts reclaim them as pivotal to the history of Jewish American drama, being among the first works of U.S. theatre to address the Holocaust. The full texts of all four works are republished here for the first time, along with production details and full performance histories.
Hecht introduced a new heroic Jewish identity to the American stage, one that challenged popular stereotypes of villainy or weakness. This powerful and (still) controversial body of work stands as a striking testament to the power of theatre to rise to the moment. o. In their use of the stage to aggressively engage with history as it was happening, the story of Hecht and his colleagues is a compelling case of artists who made a difference.
Hecht introduced a new heroic Jewish identity to the American stage, one that challenged popular stereotypes of villainy or weakness. This powerful and (still) controversial body of work stands as a striking testament to the power of theatre to rise to the moment. o. In their use of the stage to aggressively engage with history as it was happening, the story of Hecht and his colleagues is a compelling case of artists who made a difference.
GARRETT EISLER has taught in theatre programs at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, the New School’s Eugene Lang College, Brooklyn College, and Boston University. He is the editor of Twentieth-Century American Dramatists: Fifth Series.
