After the Revolution

ACT ONE

Lights come up on Vera Joseph’s apartment, in the West Village of Manhattan. It is June 1999 and Emma Joseph, Vera’s granddaughter, has just graduated from a top law school. The ceremony has just ended, and Emma’s father, Ben Joseph, stepmother, Mel, and uncle, Leo Joseph, are sitting around in the living room discussing the most recent ill-conceived social program that the superintendent of Ben’s high school (he is a history teacher) has devised to “serve” inner-city Boston kids. Ben and Mel tell Leo how the principal of the school accused the parents of a lack of “personal responsibility” when kids were failing classes, and that Ben stood up to him, saying: “My name is Ben Joseph, and I teach history and social justice here, and I’m a Marxist, and I don’t think the problem is your children, I think the problem is our society the product of which is this school. I’m sorry that we have failed you and I want to work with you and your children for change.” Leo, Ben’s brother,