Broken Glass
Director: Neil Maidman
September 2009
Phillip and Sylvia Gellburg are a Jewish married couple living in New York in the last days of November 1938. Phillip is obsessed with his job at a Wall Street bank, where he works on foreclosing.
Philip and Sylvia rarely spend quality time together until Sylvia suddenly becomes partially paralyzed from the waist down after reading about the events of Kristallnacht in the newspaper. Dr. Harry Hyman is called in to help and concludes that Sylvia's paralysis is psychosomatic.
Sylvia reveals
to Dr. Hyman the problems in her personal life, in particular,
her marriage. After an argument with his boss, Philip suffers
a stroke. While he is dying, he and Sylvia finally
confront each other about their feelings. Upon Philip’s
death, Sylvia is cured of her
paralysis.
Cast Characters
Mark Thomas Phillip Gellburg
Yve Price Sylvia Gellburg
Claire Williams Margaret Hyman
Vic Mills Dr. Harry Hyman
Melanie Denholme Harriet
Graham J. Evans Stanton Case
More images of the production can be viewed here - it is currently a work in progress.
Here is a review of the show, written by Helen Morgan of the South Wales Argus:
Although frequently performing black comedies or light-hearted romps, this group is never afraid to pull out all the stops and tackle much more difficult material, with the same degree of dedication and enthusiasm as always.
Playing to a full house, composed
largely of students studying Broken Glass as an exam text, a small
but extremely versatile cast take on this serious, though
occasionally humorous play, with its theme of American
Jewishness.
Mark Thomas does an excellent job as central character Philip Gellburg, whose wife Sylvia (Yves Price) is suffering from paralysis, apparently after reading about the anti-semitic attacks and treatment of Jews in Berlin.
Vic Mills gives a powerful performance as the very confident and masculine Dr Harry Hyman, who is attempting to bring back feeling to Sylvia's legs.
As the play progresses and Dr Hyman unravels the couple's personal and sex life, we start to realise there is far more to this couple's problems than meet the eye - many of them tied up with Phillip's perception of what it is to be a Jewish man.
The action all takes place in just a couple of rooms, with a sparse set, but there is plenty of pace here and director Neil Maidman ensures that the audience's interest never wanes.
The original article can be found here.