Awake and Sing!

“All of the characters in Awake and Sing! Share a fundamental activity: a struggle for life amidst petty conditions.”

ACT ONE

Seated around the table in their cramped Bronx apartment, the Berger family is finishing dinner. Bessie and Myron’s son, Ralph, vents his frustrations about their situation. He is dissatisfied with his job, sick of struggling to make ends meet, angry at the lack of opportunities to advance himself, the lack of money, even of having his own bedroom. The Bergers hear Ralph’s complaints, but do not succumb to his self-pity; this is hardly the first time this discussion has been raised.

Myron passes a gift to his daughter, Hennie, from Sam Feinschreiber, a kind immigrant man attempting to court her with little success. Bessie is exasperated with her daughter, still unwed at 26, and tries to make her take Sam seriously as a potential suitor. Hennie is resolutely independent, though, and refuses to be cowed by her mother’s wishes. She offers to take her parents to a