What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank (eBook)

Nathan Englander (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
96 Seiten
Faber & Faber (Verlag)
978-0-571-39443-2 (ISBN)

Infos

A viciously funny and intelligently provocative play about family, friendship and faith, adapted by the author from his Pulitzer-finalist short story. Who in your life would you trust to keep you alive? And who do you know who would risk their own life for yours? Debbie and Lauren were best friends until Lauren became ultra-Orthodox, changed her name and moved to Jerusalem. More than twenty years later, husbands in tow, their Florida reunion descends with painful but hilarious inevitability into an argument about parenthood, marriage, friendship and faith. If you really want to ensure a Jewish future, you should be like me. Good, old-fashioned afraid. Nathan Englander's serious comedy, adapted for the stage from his Pulitzer-finalist short story, received its European premiere at the Marylebone Theatre, London, in October 2024.

Nathan Englander was born in 1970. His first book, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, a collection of short stories, was published in May 1999 and became an international bestseller. It earned him a PEN/Faulkner Malamud Award and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Nathan was selected as one of '20 Writers for the 21st Century' by The New Yorker, was awarded the Bard Fiction Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship. His short fiction has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and numerous anthologies including The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Anthology, and the Pushcart Prize. His first novel, The Ministry of Special Cases, was published in 2007.

Textauszug

Scene One: ‘The Faithful’

A bright open-plan kitchen. Marble countertops, stainless- steel fat-knobbed oven, breakfast table and chairs. A store- bought feast is set out on disposable, takeaway platters. Huge glass doors overlook the pool, the deck and the garden.

Phil is out there in shorts, attending to the pool. Debbie is standing in the kitchen looking at an old Polaroid. They’re both completely still.

Trevor, their son, appears. He’s college age, rumpled. His parents are unaware of his presence. He addresses the audience, our MC.

Trevor ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank’. Scene One, ‘The Faithful’. (Makes to exit, stops to swipe a bagel from the spread.) Oh, these two are my parents. (Considers them.) Fuck me.

He slopes off as Debbie and Phil come alive. Phil enters the kitchen.

Debbie Pants, Phil. They’ll be here any second.

Phil I’m telling you, there’s something off about all this; tracking you down after two decades. It’s creepy.

Debbie She liked a post! I’m the one who wrote, ‘If you’re ever in the neighborhood give a shout.’

Phil What kind of sociopath takes a person up on an invite like that? And what kind of Hassidim are even on Instagram? That can’t be allowed. These are some very bad Hassidim.

Debbie I didn’t say they were good, I said she’s my old best friend.

Phil Which you should really stop saying, grownups don’t have best friends.

Debbie You’ve always had it in for her.

Phil I’ve never even met her! And I vacuumed and skimmed the pool. How is that having it in for your old best buddy?

Debbie You did that for me because I asked you.

Phil Because I want you to be happy.

Debbie Who’s not happy? I’m the happiest person I know. You’re the one who’s been an absolute fart since I told you they were coming.

Phil ‘Shoshana’ and ‘Yerucham’. How do you even get there from ‘Mark’ and ‘Lauren’?

Debbie I just don’t want you simmering in a rage while they’re here. I want to have a good time, which means you have to have a good time too. So whatever’s actually bothering you, spit it out right now.

Phil is about to when the doorbell rings.

Pants!

She makes to exit. Turns.

And don’t mention the war.

Phil What war?

Debbie Good boy. (Beat.) Also, don’t hug her. She doesn’t touch men.

Phil Gotcha. No touching. Not for a hug. Not to put out a fire.

Phil about to exit to put pants on, slight smile, stays in the kitchen. He listens to the voices out in the hallway.

Debbie (off) I can’t believe it! My Lauren! (Correcting.) My Shoshana. And you! Finally! So great to meet you, Yerucham.

Yuri Yuri!

Debbie (off) Yuri, then! So good to have you both. Come in, come in.

The guests come in. Yuri is a Hassidic man in a black hat, black suit, white shirt, tzitzit hanging down. Shosh, also Hassidic, is in a long dark dress. Atop her head is a sizable, blonde, Marilyn Monroe-ish wig. She carries a pocketbook.

Shoshana, Yuri, this is Phil. My half-naked husband.

Phil (to Yuri) Pleasure.

Phil and Yuri shake.

(To Shosh.) Hi.

Shosh Hello.

Phil Shalom!

Awkward silence. Yuri is both looking at and avoiding looking at Debbie’s bare arms.

Debbie I should have worn sleeves, I could put a jacket on?

Shosh Your house, your rules. We don’t judge.

Judging, Shosh stares right at Phil’s naked legs. All eyes follow, including Phil’s.

Debbie I told him! (to Phil) I fucking told you!

Phil gestures to his hairy gams.

Phil Sorry, I forgot to shave. I usually keep ’em smooth as a mole rat.

A silent warning from Debbie. Shosh returns her attention to her friend’s outfit.

Shosh I’m just not used to it anymore.

Debbie I guess this would be pretty racy in your … enclave.

Shosh In our part of Jerusalem? You’d get stoned.

Debbie laughs.

Literally, the men would throw rocks at you.

Phil quietly groans. Debbie shuts him down, racing to cover it up.

Debbie Well, in Florida I’m practically a nun. You should see –

Shosh We’ve seen! We were stocking up for the kids, and those girls at Aventura Mall, what they walk around in – and not even for the beach! Teenagers in short-shorts cut up so high they cross the middle of the tuchus. I had to cover his eyes. At a minimum, a girl’s shorts should be longer than her vagina.

Phil But you guys, with the sleeves to the wrists and skirts to the floor. You act like a girl’s vagina goes down to her ankles.

Shosh We have friends with fifteen kids. Where we live, some of them do.

Phil I knew I’d like you!

Pause.

Yuri And me?

Phil Welcome!

Yuri It’s so kind of you to host us in your big – your lovely – home. Me? I thought we were pulling up to a hotel.

Shosh stares daggers at Yuri.

Shosh (to her hosts) It really is lovely.

Yuri And this is all just the kitchen?

Debbie How do you mean?

Yuri This one room. It’s not also the dining room, maybe a conference center? All of this is just where you pour cereal into a bowl?

Phil There’s also the pantry. And the mud room. Which, in Florida, is more of a sand room to shake off the beach on the way in from the garage.

Yuri Of course, a room for the shaking of sand! (To Shosh.) All this house and one son. Can you imagine? The way we live in Jerusalem. (To Phil.) You ever been?

Phil Nope.

Yuri and Shosh glance at Debbie.

Debbie Not yet.

Shosh He’s just saying, it’s still tight for us at home. A big family. And before our oldest two moved out, you should have seen how we lived with all eight.

Yuri flinches slightly. Phil notices.

Phil Eight! We could get you a reality show with that.

Debbie They don’t even watch TV, you think they want to be on it?

Beat.

Phil (to the guests) But how does it work with so many kids?

Shosh Bunk beds, shared beds. No privacy!

Yuri (to Shosh) He’s asking about money. (To Phil.) I’m a service tech for the electric company. I set transformers, repair the systems.

Debbie You go up the poles?

Yuri Climb up. Climb down. Ride the cherry picker.

Shosh And I run an Iyengar studio. It’s a yoga thing. Sort of like being a marionette. Lots of hanging from ropes on the walls. We both dangle for a living.

Beat.

When can we see the house? I want the tour!

Debbie After Trevy wakes up. I’ll show you the medicine cabinets and everything.

Shosh I cannot wait to meet your son.

Phil Unless you suddenly turn into a bong he may not crawl out of his lair.

Debbie Phil!

Phil It’s been like a week since we’ve seen him.

Debbie That’s not true! He was already up some this morning; he’s excited to meet you.

Phil Yes, we warned him –

Debbie We told...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 14.11.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Lyrik / Dramatik ► Dramatik / Theater
• ISBN-10: 0-571-39443-4 / 0571394434
• ISBN-13: 978-0-571-39443-2 / 9780571394432