the last night of ballyhoo by alfred uhry

Lala’s obsession isn’t glass figurines, however, but “Gone With the Wind.” The movie version is having its world premiere in Atlanta as the play opens in mid-December, and Lala - nicely played by Erin Neufer - wants to attend. Echoes of Laura in Tennessee Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie” can be heard. Harvey doesn’t hold back in displaying Boo’s frowning disapproval of nearly everyone but brings out the poignancy of Boo’s frustration in feeling shut out of the family business and burdened with a daughter, Lala, who can’t function successfully. The interactions surrounding Boo, the harsh-toned mother splendidly portrayed by Ellen Harvey, are often mesmerizing.

An engaging family portrait, including many funny moments, the play is enhanced here by Will Pomerantz’s vivid direction and a sterling cast. His keen observations helped him create an insightful look into an era before knowledge of the Holocaust diminished East-West divisiveness among American Jews. Uhry, who was born in Atlanta three years earlier than the setting of his play, knows the milieu well. The main problem at hand is finding a date for Lala to the formal ball that ends a celebration called Ballyhoo, the highlight of the year for German-Jewish society in the South. It symbolizes “the birth of Jesus,” Boo says, and should not be on “Jewish Christmas trees.” Her cheerful aunt, Reba Freitag, praises her singing voice, but her stern mother, Boo Levy, immediately criticizes Lala’s final touch, a star at the top. The action begins with Lala Levy, one of the two daughters, singing “The First Noel” as she decorates the evergreen. They are Jewish, though not in any readily discernible way. There, a middle-aged bachelor, his sister and his sister-in-law, who are both widows, and their young-adult daughters all live together. The serious comedy is set in Atlanta, in a house on posh Habersham Road (the street, like many places named in the work, is real).

Its significance, however, is huge.Īlfred Uhry’s “The Last Night of Ballyhoo,” which won the 1997 Tony Award for best play, is about Jews and their relationships with their religion and each other. The Christmas tree tucked into a corner of the living room depicted on the stage of the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor is not particularly large.

The last night of ballyhoo by alfred uhry