Full of haunting images from the Holocaust, the play is set in New York just after the end of the war and describes how Jewish immigrants tried to fashion lives for themselves in the strange and at times, uninviting surroundings of America. The central character is a Polish immigrant called Herman who escaped the Holocaust by hiding in a barn in rural Poland. He believes that wife and children were killed in the Holocaust. He therefore marries the Gentile peasant who looked after him in the barn, taking her with him when he emigrates to America. Once in New York he meets a beautiful Jewish woman Masha with whom he embarks on a tempestuous affair, she too is married. He constructs a complicated web of lies in an attempt to live out his double life. However, when his first wife, Tamara, turns up, not dead at all, the circle of conceit gradually closes in on Herman.| 22 Mar 99 to 10 Apr 99 | The Young Vic West End, Greater London Performance Details => Venue archive |
