Dramatis Personae
(in order of vocal appearance)
Hans……………………………………………………….…….……………Tenor
Herr Mueller…………………………………………………….…..…………Bass
Herr Schmidt…………………………………….………………...…...…Baritone
Frau Schultz…………………………………………….………Mezzo-Soprano
Frau Koch………………………………………………...……..………..Soprano
Gang of Youths (6)………………………………………………………….Tenor
Frau Zeller……………………………………………………….………..Soprano
Policemen (3)……………………………………………………………..…Tenor
Policemen (3)………………………………………………………………....Bass
Fritz………………………………….………………………….….…………Tenor
Ilse…………………………………………….……………….….……….Soprano
Hilde………………………………………………….……......…Mezzo-Soprano
Lotte………………………………………………..……….………….….Soprano
Ingrid………………………………………….…………….……………..Soprano
Frau Ernst……………………………………………………………..…Contralto
Herr Ernst…………………………………………………….…………...Baritone
Rachel Hanau, the wife of Jurgen Hanau…...………….………...…Soprano
Thomas Frodhi, a Danish doctor…………………………...………….…Bass
Customer, a police lieutenant………………………………...……….Baritone
Jurgen Hanau, a wealthy industrialist………….…………..………..…Tenor
Rudolph Hanau, his son, age 5…………………………….……...………..Alto
Wilhelm Hanau, his son, age 11…………………………......……...………Alto
Gershon, Rachel’s brother……………………………….……………….Tenor
Synopsis
The action takes place in spring, 1943, in an industrial city in Germany.
Scene I – On a city street, shopkeepers are closing up their stores for the day. Several policemen enter, looking for Jewish prisoners who have escaped from a factory. As the police search the vicinity, the people become agitated and start blaming the Jews for all their troubles. A little girl finds a man hiding and the police are barely able to restrain the angry mob from killing him. The Customer, a plainclothes police lieutenant, enters and orders the policemen to remove the prisoner. The crowd, afraid of the Customer, disperses.
Scene II – In her basement apartment, Rachel Hanau is busy hanging and ironing laundry. She is interrupted by Thomas Frodhi, a Danish doctor, who has a bundle of food for her, including some matzoth for the Passover. Rachel accepts his gift reluctantly, uncomfortable with his blatant reference to her religion. The Customer enters to retrieve some laundry and asks if anyone has seen some escaped prisoners. Both Thomas and Rachel answer no. After he leaves, Thomas presents Rachel with false papers to sneak her and her two children out of the country. Rachel is reluctant to leave her home as it means leaving behind her husband, Jurgen Hanau: a wealth industrialist who keeps her safe through his connections.
Scene III – Rachel’s two boys, Willi and Rudi, burst through the door followed by their father. While Rachel prepares a bath for the children, Thomas berates Jurgen for neglecting his family and leaves. Jurgen laments that his relationship with Rachel has soured and asks her if she regrets marrying him. Her father disowned her because she married Jurgen. She helped her husband achieve his status. Despite that fact, she finds herself once again with nothing. Jurgen informs her of his impending marriage to his employer’s daughter, admitting to divorcing Rachel, and implying that unless she continues to expose Jews in hiding, things could go badly for her and the children. Rachel realizes Jurgen’s true nature and refuses to cooperate. In a rage, she lunges at him. He brutalizes her and leaves. Suddenly, aware of someone lurking outside the window, Rachel hides the boys.
Scene IV – A half-starved man, Gershon, breaks into the apartment. Rachel confronts him. She is strangely drawn to Gershon and offers him some bread. Touched by her kindness, he relates his story. His father was killed in a gas chamber and he was shipped from camp to camp as a slave laborer. He heard of a woman who betrayed other Jews, including her own family, to the enemy. He believes this woman to be his sister and has sworn to avenge their suffering on her. Overcome with remorse, she identifies him by his real name, Etan, and reveals herself to him as that sister. She begs him to kill her. He cannot. Rachel explains that she was given a choice: surrender the whereabouts of her family or go to the camps with her children. Their reconciliation is interrupted when Thomas bursts in. Before they can escape, the police arrive led by the Customer. Thomas takes a cyanide capsule and Gershon is shot.
Scene V – Rachel, alone now, says kaddish. She cannot collaborate with the enemy any longer, nor can she let her children go to the camps. She fetches them from their hiding place and together they celebrate a brief Passover seder. The boys drink a cup of wine she has poisoned. Rachel sings a lullaby as the children drift off to sleep. Once they are dead, Rachel puts them in their beds and begins to straighten up the apartment. Jurgen returns. He apologizes for the outcome of the evening’s incident but uses it as an example of what happens to those who do not cooperate. Rachel says she has only one more name for him, her own. Jurgen realizes what she has done and falls, defeated, beside his dead sons. Rachel ascends the stairs and walks slowly upstage as the curtain descends.
