About the Play:

God of Vengeance is a full-length drama adapted by Donald Margulies from the play by Sholom Asch, based on a literal translation by Joachim Neugroschel. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Donald Margulies has transported Sholom Asch's 1906 Yiddish melodrama from Asch's native Poland to the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1923 and in the process has transformed a classic morality tale into a drama of spellbinding power and sweep.

God of Vengeance is a turn-of-the-century drama that centers on a father, devoted to preserving his daughter's innocence in his home and increasing his reputation as an honourable man in the community, even as he runs a brothel in the basement. Jack Chapman lives on the second floor of his tenement with his ex-prostitute wife, Sara, and seventeen-year-old daughter, Rivkele, and runs a brothel downstairs. The brothel has made Jack prosperous, but he aspires to something more – respectability, and towards that end, he hopes to marry his precious daughter to a Talmudic scholar. But the sheltered Rivkele has struck up a friendship with Manke, Jack's most-desired prostitute, and the gentle and genuine love affair that develops between the two young women threatens to destroy Jack's dreams for the future. When the 1906 play was first translated into English in 1923 and performed on Broadway at the Apollo Theatre in New York City, the producer, theatre owner and cast were arrested and found guilty of presenting an "immoral" entertainment.

God of Vengeance premiered in 2000 at ACT Theatre in Seattle, Washington and subsequently at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts in 2002. The play has been performed in regional repertory and college theatre productions.

Cast: 8 female, 9 male (extras)

What people say:

"Diabolical ingenuity and rueful tenderness...a playwright with a particularly pungent and intelligent vision." — New York Times

"…[a] colorful evocation of the Lower East Side in the '20s and [a play of] indisputable historical significance…." — Variety

"A vivid panorama of a Lower East Side street scene crammed with grimy tenements, riotous store fronts and packed pushcarts…epic theater…[a] fascinating new adaptation of Sholom Asch's 1906 drama…." — Hartford Courant

About the Playwright:

Donald Margulies is an American playwright, screenwriter, and a professor of English and Theater Studies at Yale University. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2000 for his play, Dinner With Friends. Other plays include Pulitzer Prize finalists Sight Unseen and Collected Stories. He has also developed screenplays for HBO, NBC, Paramount, Propaganda, Touchstone, Warner Bros., TriStar and Universal.