A classic play at Boca Stage, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Alfred Uhry, explores the pre-WWII challenges of German-Jewish identity and assimilation.
The Last Night of Ballyhoo, the second production of Boca Stage's 2024-2025 season, is a dramedy set in Atlanta, focusing on German-Jewish characters who sacrifice their religious identities in their pursuit of acceptance within the upper echelons of southern, Christian society.
“If you lose sight of your roots, who are you really?" Program Director Keith Garsson told WLRN. "These German-Jewish immigrants assimilated and, in the process, forgot about their past."
Ballyhoo is the second play in Alfred Uhry's "Atlanta Trilogy." Although it was written after Uhry's Pulitzer Prize winning Driving Miss Daisy, the story is set 25 years earlier, just before World War II.
Garsson said Ballyhoo, which won the 1997 Tony Award for best play, shows German Jews in Atlanta struggling to connect with their New York counterparts.
“You move down to Atlanta, it becomes this sprawling geography, and it's much easier to move further and further out into your own,” he said. “Whereas in New York, you're huddled together. One kept the old ways and one let them go.”
In the play, the characters confront intra-ethnic differences which brings unresolved identity issues to light.
“One of the young ladies is courted by a New Yorker who gets the family to face these final questions,” Garsson said.
Ballyhoo is set in December 1939 in the affluent German-Jewish community of Atlanta, Georgia, during a time when Adolf Hitler conquered Poland and the now-classic film Gone with the Wind is about to premiere.
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The play follows the family of Adolph Freitag, owner of the Dixie Bedding Company, his sister Boo, sister-in-law Reba, and nieces Lala and Sunny — so assimilated that the family embraces a Christmas tree.
The women in the play are preparing for a lavish cotillion ball, known as a Ballyhoo, hosted by their exclusive country club. When Joe Farkas, a bachelor of Eastern European Jewish descent, enters the scene, Sunny begins to question her own Jewish identity.
The third work in the trilogy, the musical Parade, recently experienced a successful revival on Broadway and Ballyhoo is capitalizing on that momentum.
The Ballyhoo cast includes Hannah Hayley as Lala, Liz DeBeer as Reba, Betty Ann Hunt Strain as Boo, Shane Tanner as Adolph, Alex Bakalarz as Joe, Rachel Whittington as Sunny, and Christian Cooper as Peachy.
Joseph Long serves as the Stage Manager for The Last Night of Ballyhoo. The production's Technical Director is Christian Taylor, with set design by Claudia Smith, lighting design by Stevie Bleich, sound design by David Hart, and costume design by Timothy Charles Bowman. And Jeff Davis handles set construction.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: The Last Night of Ballyhoo
WHEN: October 24 - November 3
TIME: Thurs., Fri., and Sat at 7 p.m.; Sat. and Sun. at 1 p.m.
WHERE: Delray Beach Playhouse, 950 NW 9th Street, Delray Beach, 33444
For more information: delraybeachplayhouse.com
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