Ten Plays

by David Pinski

Excerpt from Ten Plays
The Scene: A large room in the home of Nahmen Riskin. To the right, a door leading to the other rooms; to the left, the exit door; at the rear, two windows facing the street. In the middle of the room, a round table upon which there now reposes the phonograph, while overhead burns a hanging lamp. In the right foreground, a bureau; behind it, a closet; between the windows, a lounge; all manner of chairs and benches are placed in disarray; the room is packed with people. Some chairs hold two occupants; the benches creak under their excessive burden; even the bureau serves as a seat for some spectators; against the windowpanes curious faces are pressed, for a crowd has gathered outside.
Nahmen Riskin (in high feather, merrily relating something in the voice and manner of one who feels that he is the hero of the day and the center of universal admiration)... So, as usual in America, they told me to become a tailor, like the rest of them. But just to spite them all, I said to myself: "No, you'll become no tailor. You've never held a needle in your fingers and you're not going to begin now, even if the world should turn upside down."
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228 pages, Paperback

First published September 27, 2015

About the author

David Pinski was a Yiddish language writer, probably best known as a playwright. At a time when Eastern Europe was only beginning to experience the Industrial Revolution, Pinski was the first to introduce to its stage a drama about urban Jewish workers; a dramatist of ideas, he was notable also for writing about human sexuality with a frankness previously unknown to Yiddish literature. He was also notable among early Yiddish playwrights in having stronger connections to German language literary traditions than Russian.