Passing through New York in 1999, I was lucky to see Olympia Dukakis’s bravura solo performance. Reading the play brings back the laughter and the tears.
As Rose sits shivah for the dead, she tells stories from her life. Born in a shtetl in Ukraine, she survives the Holocaust, settling in Atlantic City, then Miami Beach. She has children and grandchildren in the U.S., Europe, and Israel who have not known pogroms and concentration camps. She has created a successful life. Her son tells her, “Your shadows will choke us to death.” But she does not forget. And -more important- she does not confine her compassion to people like herself.