Bronx Express
Translated and adapted from Bronks Ekspres by Osip Dymow, 1926
A cheerful, satirical fantasy in jazzy 1920’s political idiom.
A working guy falls asleep on the subway and dreams about selling out to Big Business. In his dream he becomes a sporty millionaire on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, mixing with the celebrities he sees in the ads posted above his head: the Nestle’s Baby, the Smith Cough Drop Brothers, the Arrow Collar Man, Aunt Jemima, and a harem girl advertising Turkish tobacco. But is the American high life of “football and bathing suits, moving pictures and chewing gum, ice cream and shoe shine every minute” worth sacrificing his happy life back in the Bronx?
A production directed by Miriam Weiner played at the FringeNYC Festival 2005, with specially composed music by Jonathan David and lyrics by Glen Berger (from Spiderman!) and Joseph Goodrich.
The script, partly subsidized by the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, is available in God, Man, and Devil: Yiddish Plays in Translation, Syracuse University Press, 1999.
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