the last night of ballyhoo by alfred uhry

The four twenty somethings in the play could be viewed as archetypes for the American Jewish experience during the 1930s and early 1940s as each viewed being Jewish through an entirely different lens. Peachy's dialogue with Lala had me laughing and provided a stark contrast with the emerging relationship between Sunny and Joe Farkas. The older two women play Jewish geography in an attempt to find Lala a date to Ballyhoo and find Sylvan 'Peachy' Weil of an old southern family. Their interactions form the backbone of the play, along with exchanges between Lala and her mother and aunt. A Brooklyn Jew who is proud of his heritage, Freitag drops hints to Sunny that Farkas is a mentsch. He has hired a young assistant at his bedding company named Joe Farkas. Presently, she is more concerned with finishing college than carrying on her family's traditions.Įnter their uncle Adolph Freitag. Having blond hair and blue eyes, she could pass for not Jewish in circles where no one knows her. Meanwhile, Sunny Freitag, Lala's cousin and rival, has returned home from college for the holiday season, and while she isn't interested in xmas, also is no longer interested in marrying a nice Jewish boy. Lala has quit at everything she has ever done and at age 25 is already destined for spinsterhood.

Lala, an unmarried girl in her twenties, is more interested in becoming the next Margaret Mitchell than she is in marrying a nice Jewish boy and settling down.īoth Lala's mother Boo and aunt Reba would like for her to find a Jewish boy at Ballyhoo, the equivalent of a southern debutante ball. The family has never heard of Chanukah and on a Friday night there is no mention of the Sabbath. Even though the extended Levy- Freitag family ranks as one of the oldest Jewish families in Atlanta, they have faced their share of anti-Semitism through the years and have caved to peer pressure to act American. The play begins as Lala Levy is decorating an Xmas tree. Only 99 pages in length yet packing a punch, I rate this play 4.5 stars. Ballyhoo is a powerful insight into what it meant to be Jewish in the American south on the eve of World War II. The Last Night of Ballyhoo is a play written by Alfred Uhry, the Pulitzer winning author of Driving Miss Daisy.

The last night of ballyhoo by alfred uhry