PLAYSCRIPT

Bad Jews
Y J OS H UA HAR MO N

JOAN MARCUS

Philip Ettinger as Jonah, Molly Ranson as Melody, Tracee Chimo as Daphna and Michael Zegen as Liam in the Roundabout Theatre Company
production of Bad Jews, directed by Daniel Aukin.

APRIL14 AMERICANTHEATRE 63
 PLAYSCRIPT Joshua Harmon Bad Jews
Bad Jews
BY J OS H UA HARMON
CHARACTERS
DAPHNA FEYGENBAUM: 22, Liam and
Jonah’s first cousin. Two-thirds body, one-
third hair. Thick, intense, curly, frizzy,
long brown hair. Hair that clogs a drain
after one shower. Hair you find on pillows
and in corners of the room and in your
refrigerator six months after the head from
which it grew last visited. Hair that could
not be straightened even if you had four
hours and three hairdressers double-fisting
blow-driers. Hair that screams: Jew.
LIAM HABER: 25, Daphna’s cousin: his
mother is the sister of Daphna’s father.
Wire rim glasses. University of Chicago
Asian studies Ph.D. student. Former
Fulbright scholar in Japan. Has as much
of a sense of humor as an overdue library
book.
JONAH HABER: 21, Liam’s younger
brother. Sometime–University of Vermont
sophomore. Less lanky than his brother.
Less brainy. More brawn. More heart.
MELODY: 24, Liam’s girlfriend. Short, stick-
straight blonde hair. Which she wears with
a barrette. To be extra cute. Mousy. She
looks like someone who would have been
abducted when she was nine but returned
to her parents unharmed. Works for a non-
profit.
March. Not quite winter, not quite spring.
A studio apartment on the Upper West Side.
A pull-out sofa (which is pulled out), a full air
mattress, which has been inflated, and a twin air
mattress, which has not been set up. Guests are
coming, preparations have been made.
Jonah, in boxers, black socks and a button-down,
sits cross-legged, playing a video game. His suit
jacket and pants are balled up somewhere in
the room.
After a moment, he hits pause. Beat. Then he
stands up and presses his forehead against the
window, which looks out on the Hudson River.
The bathroom door opens, which sends Jonah back
to his video game. Daphna Feygenbaum emerges
from the bathroom in pajamas.
DAPHNA: I’m sorry but I still, I mean—you
can see the Hudson River! From the bathroom!
This apartment…
Really, Jonah? Boxers and black socks? Is that
supposed to do it for me?
Let me—I would never want you to do it for
me, you’re my cousin and, gross. Just, like,
if you’re at all interested in people of the
opposite sex who are not your cousins?
She gestures at his current get-up.
DAPHNA: Don’t.
66 AMERICANTHEATRE APRIL1 4
Where’s your suit—
But before she can ask, Daphna sees Jonah’s suit,
balled up. She wants to tell him to take better
care of it, but decides not to. She admires it, then
hangs it up.
DAPHNA: I love that your mom got you a new
suit for Poppy’s funeral before he even died.
JONAH: He was sick a long time.
DAPHNA: Mmm, not really, actually. But still,
like, in your mom’s checklist of shit to get done
while he was dying it was like, don’t forget,
Jonah’s gonna need a new suit for when it
happens. It’s great.
Give me your shirt. I’ll hang it up, you can
wear it tomorrow it’s not dirty give it to—
JONAH: No. I want to wear it.
DAPHNA: Suit yourself.
Daphna watches Jonah playing video games. He
senses her watching him.
JONAH: What?
DAPHNA: Nothing.
She can’t help herself.
DAPHNA: It’s just, like, in so many cultures,
like, I know so many guys AND girls your age
who’ve been fighting for years. Gilad’s been
in the army five years and he’s just two years
older than you, but here you are, not a care
in the world, in your boxers, in an apartment
your parents bought you! I still can’t get over
the fact your parents bought you and Liam
this apartment.
JONAH: It’s just a studio.
DAPHNA: It’s just a studio he says. Do you see
the view? Have you seen the view from the
bathroom? That’s the Hudson River.
JONAH: I know.
DAPHNA: An apartment with a view like that,
studio or no studio, on Riverside Drive, on
84th Street, I can’t even imagine what it cost.
JONAH: It wasn’t too bad.
DAPHNA: What’s not too bad, like a million
dollars?
JONAH: I don’t know.
DAPHNA: Holy shit. So what, they were just
like, here boys, have an apartment, mwah?!
JONAH: No, but Mom turned Liam’s room
into an office, so—
DAPHNA: Yeah that’ll happen—
JONAH: So we only had my bedroom for
guests or if Liam came home or, you know,
there was a while they thought Poppy might
move in—
DAPHNA: Are you kidding? Poppy was never
moving in here—
JONAH: They didn’t know for sure—
DAPHNA: Never. He was never moving in,
that was never happening. Never.
JONAH: Ok but—
DAPHNA: My parents wanted him to move
in with them but he said he would never do
that, he was so insistent he didn’t want to be
a burden on—
JONAH: Ok! But they weren’t sure and—
DAPHNA: No, they knew—
JONAH: then this apartment was for sale and
it’s in the building, it’s on their floor, so they
got it. I don’t see what the big deal is?
DAPHNA: Must be nice, that’s all I’m saying.
JONAH: You’re staying here.
DAPHNA: Right…
JONAH: So I guess it’s good they bought it.
DAPHNA: Um, in normal families, Jonah, if
people need a place to sleep, they like sleep on
the couch, or double up in beds, or even—and
this will really shock you—sleep in sleeping
bags. They don’t buy a spare apartment on
the off chance someone might need to spend
the night.
JONAH: Whatever. Real estate is a good
investment, plus I might maybe live here when
I graduate, so it’s not a big deal.
DAPHNA: Yeah, no, totally, totally, no biggie.
JONAH: Um… you’re not poor.
DAPHNA: Compared to your family? We’re
like the Joads.
JONAH: I don’t know who that is.
DAPHNA: You don’t need to. Your parents buy
you spare apartments.
JONAH: All I’m saying is, you’re not poor.
DAPHNA: Are you out of your— The reason
I’m an only child, Jonah, is because my parents
couldn’t afford another.
JONAH: So maybe they were poorer once, but
they’re not now—
DAPHNA: My parents are public schoolteach-
ers. Do you even know the first thing about
economics in this country? We are the middle
class. The dictionary definition. Your mom
hasn’t worked since she had Liam TWENTY-
FIVE YEARS AGO because you’re so rich
she didn’t have to.
JONAH: That’s not true.
DAPHNA: Oh right, my bad, she has a home
office now, so she can do what exactly?
JONAH: She’s a consultant.
DAPHNA: Right. On what?
JONAH: I don’t know. Ask her.
DAPHNA: Usually, people hire consultants
because they’re experts in their fields. In
what field does Fanny Feygenbaum profess
to be an expert?
JONAH: You know that’s not her name.
DAPHNA: It’s the name she was born with.
JONAH: But you know that’s—
DAPHNA: It’s what Poppy called her.
JONAH: You’re not Poppy!
A really intense beat. Somehow Jonah has hurt
Daphna, though he’s not sure how.
JONAH: I’m sorry. I didn’t—
DAPHNA: No, it’s—I’m just being… Sorry.
Totally not your… Today was just like,
intensely… intense.
JONAH: Yeah.
DAPHNA: Ugh. Feelings! Right?
JONAH: Yeah.
DAPHNA: Yeah.

JOAN MARCUS
Tracee Chimo (Daphna) and Philip Ettinger (Jonah) in the Roundabout production
at the Laura Pels Theatre.
Beat. Daphna gets up and tousles Jonah’s hair.
She gets a tissue, he turns off his video game,
goes to the unmade bed and starts to make it up.
DAPHNA: What are you doing?
JONAH: Making up the bed?
DAPHNA: Liam can make up his own bed.
JONAH: Oh, no but, I was gonna sleep here.
DAPHNA: Uhh why?
Oh, right, I forgot: your parents worship him!
So we should totally switch beds, that makes
sense. I mean, who cares that we’ve been here
for two days dealing with everything when
Liam couldn’t even be bothered to show up
to his own grandfather’s funeral.
JONAH: He’s getting in tonight.
DAPHNA: The funeral was today. Not tonight.
It happened. It’s over. And he missed it. And
I’m sorry, but between you and me, that is
APRIL14 AMERICANTHEATRE 67
so fucked up.
JONAH: It’s not his fault, he—
DAPHNA: Jonah, I literally, if I have to hear one
more time about Liam dropping his iPhone off
a ski lift and not having service for two days,
I will literally— He knew Poppy was dying.
He should have been checking in. I’m sorry,
but he was with—what’s her name?
JONAH: Melody.
DAPHNA: Melody. He could have used Melody’s
phone? If that had been me, if I had gone
skiing for spring break despite knowing full
well that my grandfather was basically on
death’s door, which, I would NEVER have
done, but if that had been me—
JONAH: Poppy wanted him to go—
DAPHNA: If that had been me, I would have
been calling home, every day, three times a day,
at least, to check in and see and—and at the
very least, I would have told my mom where
I was going in case of an emergency, which,
the pending death of the most important
person in your family is like the reason the
word emergency was even invented in the
first place. The idea that Liam just like flies
off to Aspen with Melody and his like $1200
snowboard when his grandfather is dying and
drops his phone off a ski lift which is in and
of itself a beautiful metaphor for what money
means to him—
JONAH: But I don’t mind sleeping on the—
DAPHNA: No Jonah! No. He’ll take the twin.
He’ll make some snide—but he’ll take the—
because I actually literally can’t take the twin
air mattress even if I wanted to because with
my back, I actually have to have the extra
room—but when he starts making a mockery
of shiva my blood is just gonna boil—
JONAH: He’s not going to mock anyth—
DAPHNA: Yes he will! He mocks us any chance
he gets. Always has.
JONAH: What are you talking about?
DAPHNA: What am I talking about? Ok.
Example. Example? Example. Two years ago
at Passover, when he randomly came home,
which was totally random and weird, with his
last girlfriend, what’s her face—
JONAH: Miyushi.
DAPHNA: Miyushi, right, his Peace Corps
whore. God she was atrocious. But so my dad
was reading a passage in Hebrew, which god
forbid one does at Passover, and I look up and
he’s giving Miyushi this look across the table—
JONAH: What look?
DAPHNA: This look, like, this would be over by
now if Jewy McJewerson would shut the fuck
up. This look like, “I’m above all this,” like,
“you and I are on this spiritual enlightenment
plane way above everyone else—”
JONAH: Come on!
DAPHNA: I’m serious. This look he gave her,
I’ll never forget it, it stayed with me so strong,
and then after seder, our parents had all gone
to bed, we were watching TV and Liam was
like, “I’m hungry,” even though we’d just
had this enormous meal and he went into the
kitchen and found these shortbread cookies
and even Miyushi was like, “I thought you
weren’t supposed to eat that on Passover,”
but Liam just smiled, popped a cookie in his
mouth and was like, “I’m a bad Jew,” then
turned to me even though he knew I was
keeping Passover, handed me the bag and
goes, “Want one?”
“I’m a bad Jew.”
JONAH: Not everyone cares about it the way
you do.
DAPHNA: I’m not asking everyone to! I don’t—
I’m not even saying, I’m just saying, I don’t
understand why he has to take so much pride
in how totally disdainful he is of—
 PLAYSCRIPT Joshua Harmon Bad Jews
JONAH: He’s not disdainful—
DAPHNA: He is, Jonah! He is. If you choose
not to see it, that’s your choice, but the fact
remains he looks down on me and looks down
on my family—
JONAH (On “and looks down”): He does not
look down on you! Or your family!
DAPHNA: For being what he is but doesn’t
want to be and for not hating it. He looks
down on us. You know what, let’s just drop
it. Ok? Let’s just. Whatever. Let’s just drop it.
Long pause.
DAPHNA: Whatever.
Long pause.
DAPHNA: It’s not even worth it.
Long pause.
DAPHNA: It’s just the reason I bring it up at
all is, well, there is a reason, and I hate that I
even need to do this but I know if I don’t say
something it’ll just be, whatever, so there’s
something I want to ask you. Ok?
Ok?
JONAH: O…k…
DAPHNA: Poppy’s chai.
I want it.
It’s the only thing of his I want. Everything
else, count me out, but Poppy’s chai is like…
And I’m the only one who that stuff even
matters to. You said so yourself, it doesn’t
matter to everyone like it matters to me so
it makes sense that the person who religion
like actually really means something to should
get the most religious, I mean, I’m moving
to Israel when I graduate? I want to join the
army—there are all these weird immigration
regulations but in the fall, I’m starting my
rabbinical coursework with—did I tell you
this? There’s this amazing rabbi who does
pre-rabbinical coursework in Haifa? For
women? And she’s vegan, and like—I know,
a chai is typically worn by, men usually wear
them but technically it’s a piece of jewelry. I
mean, a medallion on a chain? That’s jewelry,
and I’m the only one who wears—this is
important to me, Jonah. I wouldn’t be saying
something if it wasn’t, you know? And so, like,
what do you think?
JONAH: I don’t, I mean… it’s not really up
to me.
DAPHNA: It’s not up to you, but when my
mom talked to your mom she was like the kids
should work it out, because apparently as it
turns out Poppy’s will is like basically useless
which I don’t blame him for, at all, but like,
no one actually realized that someone would
have to actually figure this stuff out at some
point but it’s like that point is now here, and,
but, so, like…
JONAH: I really don’t want to be involved in—
DAPHNA: You’re one of Poppy’s grandchildren,
you’re involved.
JONAH: I don’t know.
DAPHNA: You have to know—
68 AMERICANTHEATRE APRIL1 4
JONAH: No. I don’t want it, so just… That’s it.
DAPHNA: You don’t?
JONAH: No.
DAPHNA: So then it’s cool with you for me
to—
JONAH: I really don’t want to be involved
in this—
DAPHNA: What about Liam?
JONAH: What about him?
DAPHNA: Do you think he’ll agree with us,
or, like, do you think like, he like, wants it?
JONAH: I said I don’t—
DAPHNA: Has he said anything to you, or
your mom, or—
JONAH: You asked me how I felt, I said I don’t
want it, that’s it.
DAPHNA: Ok. Then I’ll talk to Liam about
it. But—ok.
Beat.
DAPHNA: It is so good to see you! Even under
these circumstances, it’s still like—you should
visit me. Before graduation.
JONAH: What?
DAPHNA: Cause that’s just gonna be a
clusterfuck. But you should come down some
weekend. It’d be fun, don’t you think?
JONAH: …Yeah.
DAPHNA: Do you have a car? At school?
JONAH: I did, but then… not anymore.
DAPHNA: There’s a bus. I know there is
because some of my friends took it last fall
to see Ben Harper maybe, or someone who
is definitely not worth getting on a bus and
driving four hours to see, but he was playing
at your school that weekend and they took a
bus, so you should come visit me.
JONAH: Ok.
DAPHNA: What weekend are you thinking?
JONAH: Um…
DAPHNA: Cause graduation’s the last weekend
of April, and the weekend before that is senior
week—don’t ask, and the weekend before that
I’ll be studying for finals but so maybe the
weekend before that, which is in, like, two
weeks. Weird. Would that work?
JONAH: Maybe.
DAPHNA: Ok, well, um, do you want to check?
JONAH: Yeah.
DAPHNA: And you’ll let me know…
JONAH: Yeah.
DAPHNA: Cause I think you would really,
really love Vassar, and I want to talk to you
about that some more actually, because I know
UVM has not been… which really says more
about that school than anything about you.
I mean that.
JONAH: …Thanks?
DAPHNA: But the onus is on us now, you know?
If we want to maintain these relationships,
we’re adults, so it’s not like if our parents make
plans then I’ll see you, cause, Poppy’s dead, so
our parents are gonna start transitioning into
being the next generation of our family and
we’ll be like the parents, you know, like if Gilad
and I get married next summer which we’ve
been talking about then we’ll have kids in five,
six years tops which is why we need to start
acting like, like taking responsibility which
is why I don’t even know if he wants it but
if he does, like, you know, that conversation,
if it winds up being a conversation it needs
to happen at the right—it needs to happen
properly, so if Liam brings it up before I’m—
which I don’t even know if he will, but if he
does, can you just help me just quash that
conversation?
JONAH: Uhm…
DAPHNA: Cause as long as that conversation
happens in the right way, it won’t even be
an issue.
JONAH: Ok.
DAPHNA: Ok what?
JONAH: I don’t know.
DAPHNA: So are you gonna visit me, or…
JONAH: Yeah, I just have to check.
DAPHNA: What do you have to check?
JONAH: My schedule and stuff.
DAPHNA: Um, ok, well do you wanna do that?
JONAH: Like now?
DAPHNA: Like yeah?
JONAH: Oh well I’ll check when I’m back at
school. My syllabuses are there. And stuff…
DAPHNA: Aren’t those all online? All of my
syllabi are online.
JONAH: Oh, maybe.
DAPHNA: Ok, so… I mean, if you don’t wanna
come you don’t have to, there’s no pressure,
I just thought—
JONAH: No, yeah, it would be—
DAPHNA: If you don’t want to come you
don’t have to.
JONAH: No I do I just have to check.
Without words, Daphna says, “Then check!”
Jonah opens his laptop and begins surfing the
internet, sort of hoping that before he can find
his syllabi, a meteor lands in the apartment,
which is sort of what happens when there’s a
knock at the door. Liam and Melody have come
down the hallway, wheeled suitcases behind them,
Liam’s $1200 snowboard tucked under his arm.
Daphna gives Jonah a “here we go” look, then
opens the door.
DAPHNA: Hi.
LIAM: Hey.
Liam gives Daphna the most tepid hug
imaginable.
LIAM: Melody, this is my cousin, Diana.
DAPHNA: It’s Daphna.
LIAM: And you remember—
DAPHNA: You know that. He knows that.
LIAM: Jonah, maybe you could get off your
laptop?
JONAH: I’m just checking something.
LIAM: Maybe you could just check something
later and say hello?
MELODY: Hi Jonah.
JONAH: Hey.
DAPHNA: He’s checking to see when he’s—
LIAM: Why aren’t you wearing pants?
Embarrassed, Jonah finds pants.
DAPHNA: free to come visit me—
JONAH: We were just getting—
LIAM: Visit you?
DAPHNA: At Vassar.
LIAM: For what?
DAPHNA: For fun.
LIAM: What?
MELODY: This apartment is so nice!
DAPHNA: Who are you again? Sorry, just—
MELODY: Melody.
DAPHNA: Melody. Like a song.
Liam lifts his suitcase onto the full air mattress,
setting it down on top of something belonging
to Daphna.
DAPHNA: Hey, um, that’s my—sorry, that’s…
where I’m sleeping?
Daphna pulls her cardigan out from under Liam’s
suitcase and refolds it.
LIAM: I thought Mom said we were all staying
here?
DAPHNA: Yeah, but, we’ve already been here,
so, all that’s left is…
Daphna points at the twin air mattress.
LIAM: But that’s a single. Two people can’t
fit there.
JONAH: I don’t mind switch—
DAPHNA (To Jonah): No. (To Liam) We didn’t
know you were bringing a guest if we—
MELODY: We just came from Aspen—
DAPHNA: No one told me you were bringing—
MELODY: We flew here as soon as Liam heard
the—
JONAH: I don’t mi—
DAPHNA: NO. If we’d known you were
bringing—we would have changed the sheets,
washed them, dried them, re-made the beds,
plus with my back…
LIAM: Why doesn’t someone take your room?
JONAH: Cause, her parents are staying there.
LIAM: They are?
DAPHNA: Yes Liam, they are. You know we
can’t afford a hotel in this city—we always
stay with—
MELODY: It’s fine. Don’t even worry. We’ll be
fine. We like to cuddle.
Beat.
LIAM (To Jonah): How’d it go today?
JONAH: It was fine.
LIAM: And…
DAPHNA: More than four hundred people
showed up.
LIAM: Jonah?
JONAH: It was nice. It was sad.
MELODY: Liam really wanted to be there.
It’s really such bad luck that everything with
his phone and everything just went kaplooie
when it did.
DAPHNA: It’s not “bad luck” but you know
what? Let’s not go into it right now. Or ever.
APRIL14 AMERICANTHEATRE 69
Ok? Thanks.
JONAH (To Melody): How was Aspen?
MELODY: Oh. Uhm, it was so much fun. I’m
still learning. I mostly just stayed on the bunny
hills, but these little munchkins kept showing
me up! It was so embarrassing!
LIAM: She was great.
MELODY: He’s being generous. I fell down so
many times I—
DAPHNA: Yeah there were more than four
hundred people at the funeral. It was really
packed.
MELODY: Four hundred! That’s—
DAPHNA: He touched a lot of people, and he
was a hugely important figure in the—
LIAM: Who spoke?
DAPHNA: I did. I spoke. Your mother spoke.
The rabbi. Abraham Foxman.
MELODY: Who’s he?
DAPHNA: Aunt Ruth.
MELODY: Whose aunt is that again?
DAPHNA: There were eight speakers. Maybe
nine. Maybe ten. Ten, Jonah? It was a big deal.
Nine. It was a big deal. A big deal.
LIAM: I really wanted to be there. We both did.
DAPHNA: Then you should have been.
Beat.
LIAM: I’m just… I’m gonna see if we can pull
out the couch in my parents’ place, cause—
DAPHNA: It’s already set up for shiva, you
can’t—
LIAM: Well maybe we can find a spot to—
DAPHNA: There are no spots—
LIAM: Well maybe we can—
DAPHNA: You can’t. We had tables brought
in. Lots of tables. And they’re all—
MELODY: This is fine—
LIAM: We can move a few tables and make
a little—
DAPHNA: You can’t move tables everyone’s
asleep do you know what time it is it’s really
late and those tables are really heavy you
can’t just move them they’re actually very
heavy tables.
LIAM: We can at least give it a shot. Jonah.
DAPHNA: Please do not start moving
everything around that some of us have spent
hours and hours getting—
LIAM: Jonah. (To Melody) We’re just going
right down the hall to my parents. We’ll be
right back.
Liam exits into the hallway. After a beat, Jonah
follows. Melody and Daphna are alone. Melody
removes her shoes, then goes into the bathroom.
Daphna watches her, occasionally running a brush
through her hair.
But our focus shifts to the hallway. Jonah closes
the door. Liam points at it.
LIAM: I can’t stay in there tonight.
JONAH: You can take the pull-out. I don’t
mind—
LIAM: No, I will not— You’re not actually
going to visit her at Vassar?
JONAH: I don’t know.
LIAM: Jonah.
JONAH: She asked me to.
LIAM: Just cause she asked doesn’t mean you
have to go.
JONAH: I know.
LIAM: That’s not how things work.
JONAH: I know.
LIAM: Jonah.
JONAH: What?
LIAM: You’re not going.
JONAH: Uhm, ok.
LIAM: If she tries to—
JONAH: She—
LIAM: If she fucking does her fucking thing,
in front of Melody? Fuck. No, we’re staying
in the apartment.
JONAH: There really isn’t any room in there
for—
LIAM: So we’ll make room.
JONAH: It’s just for a night or two—
LIAM: We can stay in the living room.
JONAH: It’s set up for tomorrow. The couches
aren’t—if you start moving things, Mom’ll
freak—
LIAM: So we’ll stay in Mom’s office.
JONAH: There’s no floor space with the new
desk—
LIAM: I’ll sleep in the kitchen.
JONAH: Mom said—
LIAM: I’ll sleep on Mom and Dad’s floor.
JONAH: With Melody?
LIAM: Why not? I don’t care.
JONAH: It’s just for a night—
LIAM: I’ll sleep in the bathroom. I’ll sleep with
my head against the fucking toilet.
JONAH: You’ll survive.
LIAM: Why is that—do you hear the language
you use when you talk about her? Survival. If
her parents weren’t so completely tight-waded
stingily totally, just, cheap—because they can
absolutely afford a hotel, absolutely, but—
JONAH: Some of us have been stuck with
her for two days straight and we’ve survived.
LIAM: Is that a dig at me?
JONAH: No. I’m just saying—
LIAM: It sounded like—
JONAH: No I’m just saying like, you’ve been
here all of five minutes and…
LIAM: And what, Jonah? What?
JONAH: You should just relax, is all.
LIAM: I’m relaxed. Don’t tell me to—this isn’t
a resort don’t tell me to relax. Fuck. Just, let’s
just make some room.
The boys exit down the hall. Our attention
shifts back to the apartment. Daphna watches
the bathroom door, like a cat roused from an
afternoon nap, pretending to still be asleep while
she formulates a plan of attack, with one eye
open. Melody comes out of the bathroom just as
the boys have exited.
MELODY: You can see the river from the
bathroom!
 PLAYSCRIPT Joshua Harmon Bad Jews
This apartment is so nice.
It really—
DAPHNA: I love your hair.
MELODY: Oh. Thank you.
DAPHNA: Great barrette!
MELODY: Thank you.
DAPHNA: I wish I had straight hair.
MELODY: It’s pretty boring actually. I always
wanted hair like yours. It’s so much more
interesting—
DAPHNA: What’s that?
MELODY: What?
DAPHNA: On your leg.
MELODY: Where?
DAPHNA: Is that, like, a musical note?
MELODY: Oh, my tattoo. Yes. It’s a treble clef.
DAPHNA: That’s a music thing?
MELODY: Yes.
DAPHNA: It’s huge!
MELODY: Yeah.
Beat.
DAPHNA: Pretty!
MELODY: Thanks.
DAPHNA: Did you get it because you love
music?
MELODY: Yeah. I studied opera in college,
and when—
DAPHNA: You did?
MELODY: That was my major, yes.
DAPHNA: You majored in opera? Wow.
MELODY: Yeah.
DAPHNA: Do you perform in Chicago, or…
MELODY: No, no, I work for a non-profit.
CHS? Chicago Historical Society.
DAPHNA: I don’t…
MELODY: It’s kind of, it’s an educational
program for underprivileged local area high
school students to expose them to the city’s
architectural past. They make you memorize
that.
DAPHNA: Very cool. But so do you still sing
then, or…
MELODY: No. Not really. No.
DAPHNA: So you have a background in
architecture too, or…
MELODY: Oh, no. I don’t know anything
about architecture, actually. But I’m just an
administrator there.
DAPHNA: Oh ok. Cool.
Beat.
DAPHNA: I’m sorry, I’m confused. You studied
opera, but you’re working at—
MELODY: At CHS, I know! I don’t know, you
know? I love opera, and I love to sing, but
when I thought about trying to make a living
doing that, it was just kind of so unappealing
to me? And like, depressing? Just waiting so
a million different people can tell you you’re
not good enough. It wasn’t for me. And I tried.
I did the whole audition thing. I went on, like
three. Or two. Two auditions, maybe? It was
awful. So I decided to do something else, but
I got this tattoo, so I would always remember
70 AMERICANTHEATRE APRIL1 4
how important music is to me.
DAPHNA: Did you think otherwise you’d
forget?
MELODY: I mean, I just wanted—
DAPHNA: Cause you always have your name,
right? To remind you.
MELODY: It was really more symbolic, really,
more than anything I guess.
DAPHNA: Symbolic of what?
MELODY: Of, uhm—
DAPHNA: Yeah that’s so interesting to
me because I just have the total opposite
philosophy.
MELODY: On what?
DAPHNA: Tattoos. Or the need to like brandish
yourself.
MELODY: It really doesn’t hurt as much as you
might think it—
DAPHNA: I don’t want to think about it, I don’t
like thinking about pain.
MELODY: No but it’s fun, they have all these
designs you can—
DAPHNA: Melody. I can’t get a tattoo.
I’m Jewish?
It’s against Jewish law.
MELODY: I know a Jewish person with tattoos.
DAPHNA: Well they’re wrong.
MELODY: Oh.
DAPHNA: Yeah. Jewish law prohibits tattoos
of any kind but even if it didn’t that wouldn’t
be a problem for me because just for like me
personally, when I like step back and reflect on
all the things that had to occur in the universe
over billions of years so that I could be alive,
in my body, right now, like, we’re made of the
same things as stardust, that’s how connected
we are, to everything, so to be like, who cares
about the natural, larger-than-life mysterious
universal reasons why my body was designed
the way it is, like, screw that, I’m just gonna
permanently etch this doodle onto my body
which is composed of the same things that
are in stars?!?!
Poppy had a tattoo, but that was different,
obviously. That wasn’t by choice.
B-14312. I memorized it. I used to—when I
was little, I would trace it with my… he’d hold
out his arm and I would—while he talked to
my parents or watched…
I actually, actually, uhm, no, so, Liam. Liam,
Liam, Liam. Has Liam ever told you his
Hebrew name?
MELODY: His Hebrew…
DAPHNA: Yeah, his Hebrew name?
MELODY: I don’t think so.
DAPHNA: Oh my god, you are gonna…
Shlomo. I’m not kidding. He like freaks out if
you call him that, I’ve seen him go completely
ape-shit, but…
MELODY: Shlomo?
DAPHNA: Yeah. Liam’s named after his dad’s
like best friend from boarding school, and I
think he like killed himself or something, I
forget the whole story, but since Liam’s not a
Jewish name, they went in the total opposite
direction for his Hebrew one, so: Shlomo.
Keep that in your back pocket for a rainy day.
Daphna winks at Melody.
MELODY: In my back—
DAPHNA: So how did you and Shlomo meet?
MELODY: I mean… we met online.
DAPHNA: Online?
MELODY: Yes.
DAPHNA: What site?
MELODY: Match.
DAPHNA: Liam Haber was on Match.com?
MELODY: He doesn’t like me to tell people, he
thinks it’s embarrassing but I don’t see what’s
so embarrassing—
DAPHNA: What did his profile say?
MELODY: It was straightforward. It wasn’t
anything weird. Which was a relief, cause, you
know, there are a lot of weirdos out there—
DAPHNA: What was his profile name?
MELODY: I don’t remember.
DAPHNA: Do you remember anything specific
about his profile?
MELODY: Not re—I mean, he had a nice
picture. I liked his smile.
DAPHNA: You liked his smile.
MELODY: Yes he has a very nice smile.
DAPHNA: Hm. Liam and Melody sitting in a
tree. Right? Haha.
MELODY: I guess.
DAPHNA: Are you two just kinda, like, casually
dating, or is this more, like, serious?
MELODY: I think… I think—yes, it’s serious.
DAPHNA: How serious?
MELODY: Pretty serious, I think.
DAPHNA: Hm.
What kind of a name is Melody?
MELODY: What?
DAPHNA: What is its derivation?
MELODY: Oh, I don’t know. Caucasian?
DAPHNA: What’s your background?
MELODY: What do you mean?
DAPHNA: Where does your family come from?
MELODY: Oh. Delaware.
DAPHNA: Before that.
MELODY: Before what?
DAPHNA: Before Delaware.
MELODY: I mean, we’ve always been in
Delaware.
DAPHNA: No you haven’t.
MELODY: Actually yes we’ve always—
DAPHNA: Actually no you haven’t always been
in Delaware the only people who have always
been in Delaware are Indigenous Delawareans
but even they didn’t start there even they
crossed over the Bering Strait land bridge
during the last ice age but if you look around
Delaware if you actually opened your eyes and
looked you probably wouldn’t see too many of
them right and why is that why is that well I’ll
tell you why that is the reason why that is and
the reason why families like the one you come
JOAN MARCUS
Tracee Chimo (Daphna) and Molly Ranson (Melody) in the Roundabout Underground production.
from can even live in Delaware is because all
those native peoples were SLAUGHTERED
so people who look like you and pray like
you and reproduce like you could grow up
in peaceful suburban housing developments
with bookshelves filled with the King James
Bible and Nicholas Sparks novels and Eat Pray
Love which is probably your favorite book but
no Howard Zinn (am I right or am I right)
so if your family has always been in Delaware
then actually the truth of the matter which we
have to face unfortunately hard as it may be is
that your family was more than likely major
contributors and perhaps even leaders of the
most atrocious genocide in American history
which means you have the blood of genociders
coursing through your veins right this very
second but even if they did that they still had
to come from somewhere so what I’m asking is
where did your family come from before they
moved to Delaware to perpetrate genocide?
MELODY: I don’t want to have an argument.
DAPHNA: This isn’t an argument, what are—
we’re talking.
MELODY: It doesn’t feel like talking.
DAPHNA: We’re talking. I’m just getting to
know you, where you come from. I find it
interesting. Really. Tell me.
MELODY: My mom, I think my mom is like,
Dutch-Irish, maybe, and my dad’s side is
German. And there’s a little Scottish or Welsh
in there too, I think.
APRIL14 AMERICANTHEATRE 71
DAPHNA: You think?
MELODY: But my family’s—we’re just
American.
DAPHNA: Just American. Ok.
MELODY: But I really don’t see why any of
it matters, you know? Where people come
from? People are just people.
DAPHNA: People are just people?
MELODY: Yes. People are people. It doesn’t
matter that you’re Jewish or I’m—
DAPHNA: It doesn’t matter that I’m Jewish?
MELODY: No.
DAPHNA: It doesn’t matter?
MELODY: No.
DAPHNA: Well it matters to me.
MELODY: Ok.
DAPHNA: It matters to me very much.
MELODY: Right, but—
DAPHNA: And it’s mattered to hundreds of
generations of my family.
MELODY: I know—
DAPHNA: But to you: meaningless.
MELODY: I wasn’t—
DAPHNA: Five thousand–plus years of
mattering, but not to you!
MELODY: That’s not what I—
DAPHNA: And it really mattered to Poppy.
I don’t know what Liam told you, but it
mattered to Poppy. A lot. He was—
MELODY: Can I—I’m thirsty. Is there, can I
have something to drink?
DAPHNA: There’s water.
MELODY: Ok.
Melody starts to move to the kitchen.
DAPHNA: No, sit. I got it.
Daphna goes to the kitchen area. Melody takes out
her cell phone. Daphna returns with two glasses
of water and hands one to Melody.
MELODY: Thank you. I just have a voicemail
I have to, should—
DAPHNA: Of course. Go ahead. You’re lucky
your phone survived the ski lift.
Melody goes to the kitchen and pretends to listen
to a voicemail, turned away from Daphna, who
sips her water, slightly amused. After a moment,
the boys appear in the hall. Jonah’s about to open
the door…
LIAM: Wait.
JONAH: What?
LIAM: I just need a second more to not be
in there.
Don’t look at me like that.
JONAH: I’m not looking at you like any—
LIAM: Like, I told you so.
JONAH: Well, I did.
LIAM: Whatever. It was worth a shot. How
Mom could ever think putting me in the same
room with Diana would even remotely—
JONAH: There really isn’t another option—
LIAM: Can you not, like, jump to everyone
else’s defense over me whenever I say
anything? It’s really annoying.
Beat.
JONAH: She was asking about Poppy’s chai.
 PLAYSCRIPT Joshua Harmon Bad Jews
LIAM: What?
JONAH: Daphna asked me about it.
LIAM: Don’t call her that.
JONAH: She asked me about it.
LIAM: When?
JONAH: Before you got here.
LIAM: Fuck. She’s gonna make this a thing,
isn’t she?
JONAH: I don’t know.
LIAM: What’d she say? Fuck.
JONAH: She wants it.
A moment, while Liam allows himself to feel the
weight of this future fight.
LIAM: What’d she say?
JONAH: She wants it.
LIAM: Does she know I have it?
JONAH: No.
LIAM: So Mom didn’t say anything?
JONAH: No.
LIAM: And you didn’t tell her he gave it to me?
JONAH: He didn’t give it to you, really—
LIAM: He gave it to me, Jonah. Poppy gave
it to me.
JONAH: Mom gave it to you.
LIAM: Because Poppy said I could have it.
Because he wanted me to have it. Because he
gave it to me. Because he said I could have it.
JONAH: He didn’t know what he was saying
at that point—
LIAM: No. I’m not going to—no. Poppy always
said I could have it. Since I was—since always.
Everyone knows that. Everyone heard—Poppy
has always said—it’s not even—when Grandma
died, she gave that, whatever, that jewelry
thing to Diana. That necklace. Which is
worth a whole lot more than this. Which is,
you know, what matters to the cheapskates.
And no one complained. But Poppy’s a man,
so his things, which are men’s things, go to
men, that’s just—I don’t even know why I’m
getting worked up about this. It’s mine. I have
it. It belongs to me.
JONAH: Ok.
LIAM: Ok.
Beat.
LIAM: What’d she say, though, like, did she
even make a case for about why she thinks
she’s even—
JONAH: Because it’s a religious item—
LIAM: Are you kidding? It’s so much more
than—
JONAH: Please don’t get mad at me, I am
not the—
LIAM: That’s like saying anything made of gold
is a religious item because gold has religious
significance to Incas.
JONAH: Uhm…
LIAM: It’s an example. It’s—whatever. Poppy’s
chai—like, if it were any chai, just like, any
chai you bought at a store or whatever I could
understand that argument, it’s just a religious
item, but for Poppy, everyone knows, for
Poppy, it was so much more, it mattered to
72 AMERICANTHEATRE APRIL1 4
him on like a whole host of different levels—
JONAH: I know—
LIAM: I know you know but it’s like, I’m
proposing to Melody.
JONAH: Oh.
LIAM: Yeah.
JONAH: You are?
LIAM: Yeah. I was gonna propose tonight.
JONAH: Oh.
LIAM: Yeah. I was supposed to—that’s why
we went to Aspen.
JONAH: Oh.
LIAM: You didn’t put that together?
JONAH: Uhm…
LIAM: You didn’t put it together that the
reason Poppy gave me the chai was because
I was proposing?
JONAH: No.
LIAM: You’re legitimately not intelligent.
This really hurts Jonah, because he’s not as smart
as Liam, and he knows it.
JONAH: But…
LIAM: But what?
JONAH: But Poppy was sick.
LIAM: I made the plans before he got—I’m
not—I made the plans before he was sick,
Jonah!
JONAH: Ok.
LIAM: Yeah, I made reservations for dinner
at this really cool restaurant at the top of a
mountain and I was gonna tell her the story
of Poppy’s chai but then—I should have done
it already. Can you imagine Diana’s face if
Melody had walked in with the chai around
her neck?
JONAH: Um, no I can’t actually.
LIAM: I know, but—
JONAH: Wait: You were gonna use Poppy’s
chai to propose?
LIAM: That’s why I had it.
JONAH: Like…
LIAM: What, Jonah?
JONAH: Like, do you also have a ring?
LIAM: No.
JONAH: But you weren’t… you weren’t going
to give Poppy’s chai to Melody?
LIAM: That’s why I needed it. I’m going to
propose to her with—have you been listening
to me at all?
JONAH: Yeah, no, it’s just…
LIAM: Just what, Jonah?
JONAH: Nothing. It’s just, that’s kind of like
a family thing.
LIAM: What do you think Melody is if I
marry her?
JONAH: Yeah, no, ok.
LIAM: If I marry her, she’s part of our family.
What belongs to our family will belong to
her. And the chai would be the bedrock of two
marriages of two generations of people in our
family. Grandma wasn’t part of Poppy’s family
when he gave her the chai. It’s the same thing.
Jonah.
JONAH: What?
LIAM: Do you not see how it’s the same thing?
JONAH: I really don’t want to be involved in—
LIAM: Tough shit, you are involved.
JONAH: I just don’t want to be in the middle
of—
LIAM: There’s nothing to be in the middle
of. Poppy gave the chai to me, to propose to
my future wife just like he used it to propose
to his wife and that’s what’s gonna happen so
there’s nothing to discuss. I was just hoping,
as my brother that I’d have your support, but
I see that I don’t.
JONAH: It’s not a—
LIAM: No, it’s fine. It’s fine.
JONAH: Don’t be like that.
LIAM: I’m not being like anything.
JONAH: Yeah you are so stop.
LIAM: Ok fine it’s just, Diana better not make
a thing about this, because I haven’t proposed
yet, obviously, I haven’t told Melody the story
of Poppy’s chai, and I want it to come from me,
I don’t want her to hear about it from Diana.
That’d be the opposite of romantic. That’d
be like the antithesis of romance, so just, like,
if Diana brings it up, which, I really hope she
fu… but if she does, can you just help me just
quash that conversation?
JONAH: Oh. Oh, I—
LIAM: Jonah! Can you just help me in that one
area, please? If it comes up?
JONAH: Yeah ok.
LIAM: Ok. Thanks.
Thanks.
JONAH: You’re welcome.
You really… (Unsaid: are gonna propose to
Melody?)
LIAM: What?
JONAH: Uhm. Nothing.
Jonah opens the door. Liam follows. Daphna’s
casually been brushing her hair. Melody runs
to Liam.
DAPHNA: Did you girls have fun out there?
LIAM: There really isn’t room in the
apartment, so…
MELODY: Really?
LIAM: Yeah. There’s stuff everywhere, my
mom is kind of a—
MELODY: Oh.
Liam puts his arm around Melody.
DAPHNA: Aww. This is like an ad for Match.
com.
LIAM: What?
DAPHNA: I never knew you were an online
dater.
LIAM: I— What?
DAPHNA: I would love to see your profile.
LIAM: I deactivated it.
DAPHNA: Awww. He must really like you.
LIAM (To Melody): I wish you hadn’t—
MELODY: A lot of people do it. It’s not
something to feel embarrassed about. It’s
very normal now.
DAPHNA: It definitely is. I mean, I didn’t meet
Gilad online, that’s my boyfriend, he lives
in Israel, but like, he’s in the army, but if I
wasn’t dating him, I would have no problem
going online I do everything else online, why
not date?
LIAM (On “lives in Israel”): Do we have to
Gilad right now?
DAPHNA: It’s very cute, Jonah, Melody says
what first earned Liam a place in her heart
was his winning smile—
LIAM: What did you tell her?
MELODY: Nothing, just how we—
DAPHNA: Don’t worry Liam. It was all very
PG. Well, PG-ish. I mean, she didn’t air any
of your dirty laundry. Well, not much of it,
right Mellow?
LIAM: Her name’s Melody. Not Mellow.
Melody.
DAPHNA: Uhm, I’m pretty sure if Melody
has a problem with me calling her Mellow,
she can speak for herself—
LIAM: And can you not brush your hair all
over everyone’s stuff?
DAPHNA: What?
LIAM: Your hair is going everywhere. It’s
really disgusting.
DAPHNA: Uhm…
LIAM: Go in the bathroom if you want to do
that? It’s rude.
DAPHNA: It’s rude to brush my hair?
LIAM: Yeah. In the room where we all have
to sleep, it’s rude. Public grooming is rude.
DAPHNA: What are you, like a public
grooming zealot?
Beat.
DAPHNA: Ohhhhhkay. Excuse me while I
go in the bathroom to brush my hair. Slicha.
Daphna exits to the bathroom. When the door
closes, Liam flies off the handle.
LIAM: She is a fucking cunt.
MELODY: Liam!
JONAH (Simultaneous): Whoa.
LIAM: Fuck!
JONAH: Liam, relax.
LIAM: Stop telling me to relax. You keep telling
me to relax like we’re suddenly in Shangri-La.
Nothing about this is— (To Melody) And stop
telling her—I specifically asked you not to tell
her things about us, so please don’t—
MELODY: I—
LIAM: Just please Melody. Please. You don’t
know her, so just trust me, don’t tell her things,
you can’t—you can’t give her one detail about
even the least significant thing because she’ll
take that one microscopic insignificant tiny
little morsel of a detail and find a way to spin
it in her little web and spit it back at you with
so much venom you won’t even know what
hit you, and now whatever you—
JONAH: Liam.
LIAM: Jonah.
JONAH: You’re being…
APRIL14 AMERICANTHEATRE 73
LIAM: What, Jonah? I’m being what, honest?
You have a problem with honesty now? This
is absurd.
MELODY: What’s absurd?
LIAM: Everything! Your def—and—this
situation! Look at us! Look at this room!
This room is like my worst nightmare, we’re
on top of each other like—
JONAH: We’re not on top of each other.
LIAM: Yes we are. Yes we fucking are! You can’t
even move without tripping over a—
Liam purposely trips over his suitcase.
LIAM: See?
MELODY: You did that on purpose.
LIAM: That’s not the point. And I am choking
on her hair. Is anybody else choking on her
hair?
MELODY: No.
LIAM: You can see the strands just like, hanging
in the air like pollution. She’s like a dog. It
seriously, it’s like having a dog in the house.
JONAH: Can you keep your—
LIAM: Daphna? You’re shedding again!
Fucking “Daphna.” Can we just—her name is
Diana. Diana. I know she wishes she were this
like barbed wire hopping, Uzi-toting Israeli
warlock superhero: Daphna; but actually,
Diana Feygenbaum grew up in Schnecksville,
Pennsylvania, in an armpit town doing swim
team badly and hysterically sobbing when
she didn’t get picked to be cheerleader, in
her closet, with the door closed—that’s a
true story, by the way, and her screen name,
when we were younger, her like AIM screen
name, ok, was PrincessDiana88. She’s as
Israeli as Martin Van fucking Buren, but
she thinks because our grandfather survived
the Holocaust and because her disgustingly
hideous hair probably grows the same as it did
for all the other women in the history of our
family who actually suffered, that somehow
means she’s suffered too, but the truth is,
PrincessDiana88 has suffered about as much
as, as, as this fucking, this pillow.
MELODY: Are you done?
LIAM: No! I’m not done. Why is everyone—
I’m not saying anything that isn’t true. Why
is everyone pretending like Daphna is like,
this like, lovely, gorgeous, big-hearted girl?
Uhm, she’s not. You want to play pretend,
you play pretend, but I’m done. I am fucking
done fucking pretending, because the truth is,
I am horrified. She is horrifying. Just listen to
her, every other word that comes out of her
mouth is some unbelievably offensive insult
that we’re supposed to pretend not to hear?
I’m not deaf. And the most offensive thing of
all, do you want to know the most—
JONAH: Not really.
LIAM: The most astonishingly offensive thing
of all is the fact that she actually believes, in
her heart of hearts, she is the only one Poppy
meant something to. Because she’s like, Super
Jew. But you know what? Jonah and I lost our
grandfather too. Our grandfather. But to her,
she can’t even fathom that I have things too
that I remember? That I did with Poppy?
That I remember? That…
Beat (sincere emotion; breath; back to business).
LIAM: But watch tomorrow, when she’s
parading around shiva like this little rabbi
in the making, you watch, any time there’s
a prayer or praying or prayer-like anything,
she’ll get this look on her face, like, I’m
above all of you, like, I’m on this spiritual
enlightenment plane way above everyone
else, like Poppy’s death hits me more or hurts
me more or means more to me because I’m
reading some shit in Hebrew which I would
put money on the fact that she doesn’t even
know what half that shit means but as soon
as I come around or Jonah comes around,
her little talmudic personality grows in two
seconds like those sponges you put in water,
and she becomes this little uber-Jew who like
lords her newfound and—dare I say it? Yes,
I dare—temporary and potentially passing
religious fanaticism over everyone, like after
her trip to Israel last summer, all we heard
about at Thanksgiving was this fucking Army
boyfriend she had now from some town where
you have to say “cccccchh” to pronounce it, so
she pronounced it like sixteen hundred times,
this guy who is so Jewish and so great and he
wants to marry her and she’s going to make
aliyah and live in Jerusalem shoving shofars in
her hideous unused vagina until the whatever
arrives and it’s like, I bet this guy fucked her
once, when he was drunk, by accident, and
woke up the next morning and was like, uhhhh
MISTAKE, but she woke up and thought,
BOYFRIEND! and because he’s Israeli, and
Jewish, that somehow makes him superior
even though the dude probably doesn’t even
know her name and I’d bet money he never
did and it’s so fucking pathetic it makes my
skin crawl, not even crawl, like, it makes my
skin slide completely off me, detach itself from
my body and pool up in a slimy slithering
puddle at my feet and I just want to grab her
by the back of her hideous fucking Jew hair
and smash her face into a puddle of my molten
dead skin and let her breathe that in for an
hour or two. The fucking bitch.
Beat.
Daphna returns from the bathroom. The room
is quiet. Everyone is cautious. Watching her.
Waiting.
DAPHNA: Excuse me.
She inches past Melody to put her hairbrush in
her cosmetics bag. Liam tries to engage Melody in
a silent conversation. She ignores him. Daphna
turns around and sees everyone watching her.
DAPHNA: How’s school?
LIAM: What?
DAPHNA: My mom said you’re almost done.
 PLAYSCRIPT Joshua Harmon Bad Jews
LIAM: Uhm, with the Masters. There’s still
the Ph.D.
DAPHNA: God, that’s so much school!
LIAM: I don’t, uhm, mind it.
DAPHNA: I would hope not!
LIAM: Yeah.
DAPHNA: Yeah. And you’re studying, I’m
sorry, I know it has to do with Japanese—
LIAM: Culture. Contemporary Japanese youth
culture.
DAPHNA: Right. (To Melody) Liam’s funny that
way. He’s obsessed with Japan. I’m sure you
already know. Even though there’s absolutely
nothing Japanese about any aspect of our
family. Except his mom makes you take off
your shoes before you come inside their
house. But when Liam was ten I think, for
some reason my family was in town during
his birthday, Liam insisted on going to this
crazy Japanese restaurant, what’s it called?
LIAM: Benihana.
DAPHNA: Do you know it?
MELODY: No. I don’t.
DAPHNA: It’s this restaurant where they cook
your food in front of you on a really hot stove
top and use all sorts of scary looking knives.
Remember that?
JONAH: Yeah.
DAPHNA: Liam was in ten year old boy heaven,
but—oh my god! Do you remember that
night? I’m just—who was it, it was my family,
your family, Poppy and Grandma, nine Jews
with Jewish digestive tracts eating some pretty
intense Asian food. And—do you remember,
like, one by one, people would be eating and
all of a sudden it would hit them, like: boom.
Look at Jonah!
Jonah is already hysterical at the memory.
DAPHNA: And they would like waddle walk,
they waddle walked away from the table and
then came back like eight minutes later, but
there was only one unisex bathroom, which
Grandma refused to use so three times she
went across the street to this hotel lobby…
JONAH: And Poppy was like: (In Eastern
European accent) Vat is wrong vis dis bassroom?
When dinner was over, we couldn’t leave
because…
DAPHNA: We literally, we’d start to walk
outside and it was like, wait, Aunt Fanny’s
about to… We hailed a taxi, Poppy’s bending
down to—
JONAH: He ducks into the cab, he’s starting
to sit and then, woosh, he pops out like—
LIAM: I never saw Poppy run like that—
JONAH: Like the Road Runner.
DAPHNA: The hostess looked at us like we
were actual Jewish aliens.
LIAM: And Poppy comes out of the restaurant
twenty minutes later, and he’s like, he says…
Daphna is so hysterical, she can’t breathe. So
is Jonah.
MELODY: What does he say?
74 AMERICANTHEATRE APRIL1 4
But now Liam is too hysterical. Whenever
someone gains their composure, they see one of the
others and explode with laughter all over again.
MELODY: What did he say?
No one responds to Melody, they’re laughing too
hard. She takes out her phone and texts. Finally
the laughter subsides. Jonah’s happy.
DAPHNA: Ohhh boy.
LIAM: I forgot about…
JONAH: Wow. Amazing. Amazing.
A long moment of catching their breath. Liam
sees Melody staring at him: This is the fucking
bitch you were railing against? Really?
LIAM: Are you tired?
Melody nods.
LIAM: Yeah. I’m like ready to pass out. You
ready for bed?
Melody nods. Liam goes to his suitcase.
LIAM: Let me just brush my teeth, then we’ll…
DAPHNA: Uhm, hey, uhm, before we… there’s
something I wanted to… Jonah and I talked
before and we’re on the same page—
JONAH: Wait, Daphna. Let’s not—
DAPHNA: It’ll just take a second.
JONAH: No, let’s not do this tonight maybe—
DAPHNA: Jonah. Let me—
JONAH: Daphna. Another—
DAPHNA: Poppy’s chai.
Quick beat.
LIAM: Jonah’s right let’s go to bed.
DAPHNA: I just wanna make sure we’re all on
the same page—
LIAM: Yeah we are let’s go to bed—
DAPHNA: So it’s cool then for me to have it—
JONAH: Daphna, not now.
LIAM: I really want to go to bed now.
DAPHNA: Ok but I don’t know when we’ll have
another time to talk it’ll only take a second
and I just think Poppy’s chai is—
LIAM: NOT. NOW.
MELODY: Liam people are allowed to talk—
JONAH: Daphna just—
DAPHNA: Poppy’s chai is—
LIAM: YOU NEED TO SHUT THE FUCK
UP. NOW.
DAPHNA: Poppy’s chai—
LIAM:
NOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW.
His scream is scary and intense. Daphna is
shaken. Melody goes to comfort her.
DAPHNA: What is wrong with him?
MELODY: I don’t know.
DAPHNA: He’s been picking on me and picking
on me since from the second he got here.
MELODY: Do you want some tea? Jonah, do
you guys have tea?
DAPHNA: Tea?
MELODY: Yes, tea. To calm you down. When
my nerves are frayed, I always—
DAPHNA: I don’t drink tea it makes me gag.
MELODY: Oh.
DAPHNA: I just need to be, like, still for a
minute.
MELODY: All right.
DAPHNA: I just need to block out that scream.
Daphna is still for like ten seconds.
DAPHNA: Maybe you could sing something?
MELODY: Oh, I don’t—
DAPHNA: That would be really—
LIAM: No. We’re not—
Melody holds up a finger to silence Liam.
DAPHNA: A song is what would actually really
calm me down. If you would even consider
just like, humming something, or…
MELODY: Of co—if that will—of course. Are
you… Do you have a particular song you
want to hear? Well… in college, when I was
studying, I—no. I know. Do you know Porgy
and Bess?
DAPHNA: Who are they?
MELODY: No, it’s a… You’ll know this. Ahh. I
haven’t sung in a while actually, but—
LIAM: You do not have to sing.
Melody almost responds to Liam.
DAPHNA: It will soothe me.
Melody begins to sing “Summertime.” It is the
whitest white girl rendition of the song ever sung.
There is no attempt to mimic a black singer, or
even Janis Joplin’s edge. It is perfectly enunciated,
mildly operatic and utterly devoid of emotion.
The only place where this performance wouldn’t
be totally humiliating is in a nursing home.
Everyone is embarrassed and uncomfortable.
Except Melody. Who is unaware of what she
sounds like.
When the song ends, Melody clears her throat.
No one talks for a long time.
Like, a really long time.
It’s beyond awkward.
Liam goes to Melody and puts his arm around her.
MELODY: What are you doing?
LIAM: Nothing.
Just.
Comforting you.
MELODY: Why would you comfort me?
LIAM: In case you were… uncomfortable.
MELODY: I’m not.
Melody goes into the bathroom and slams the door.
A long moment of Jonah and Daphna laughing.
LIAM: Very nice. Way to make her feel
welcome.
DAPHNA: Um, I imagine watching you
SCREAM in my FACE probably didn’t make
her feel very welcome—
LIAM: There was no reason to ask her to do
that. That was just cruel.
DAPHNA: She’s a trained opera singer! How
was I supposed to know she can’t—it’s not
cruel to ask a trained opera singer to sing.
JONAH: Come on, you guys—
LIAM: Melody has done nothing but be sweet
and lovely and supportive, she came here to
support me and to support our family but as
soon as you sniff out anyone who you think—
DAPHNA: Uh uh uh uh uh no no I don’t sniff
out anything Liam I’m not a dog—
JOAN MARCUS
Tracee Chimo (Daphna), Philip Ettinger (Jonah) and Michael Zegen (Liam) in the Roundabout production at the Laura Pels Theatre.
LIAM: Maybe you can’t handle being around
such a genuinely good person but—
DAPHNA: I can handle being around such a
genuinely good person, but thanks for looking
out, and thanks for bringing someone to
“support our family” but I’m pretty sure we
can support ourselves.
LIAM: She is—
DAPHNA: Yeah can we just: What is she doing
here? This is so weird!
LIAM: What?
DAPHNA: She never even met Poppy!
LIAM: She’s my girlfriend—
DAPHNA: Who brings some random girl no
one’s ever met to their grandfather’s funeral—
LIAM: She’s my girlfriend! She’s not a random
girl. Jonah’s met her, my—
DAPHNA: Do not—I know you Liam, I fucking
know you, you actually don’t require that
much support, do you really just get off that
much on rubbing my face in your shit?
LIAM: What are you—
DAPHNA: What are you talking about? Don’t.
LIAM: Don’t what?
DAPHNA: You know exactly—
LIAM: I have no idea what you’re talking
about—
DAPHNA: You have no idea?
LIAM: I have no idea—
DAPHNA: You have no idea?
LIAM: I have no—
DAPHNA: You just parade these totally inferior
APRIL14 AMERICANTHEATRE 75
little women through our family functions but
you have no idea—
LIAM: Inferior?
DAPHNA: Oh don’t act like you don’t know
exactly what I’m—Jonah knows what I’m
talking about.
As soon as Jonah hears his name, he starts
shaking his head.
DAPHNA: These inferior—I met Miyushi,
don’t fuck with me.
LIAM: Inferior?
DAPHNA: Yes, Liam: inferior. Do you not
know what inferior means? I met Miyushi.
JONAH: Daphna.
DAPHNA: No I’m not even—and then this
one, with the tattoo of a fucking treble clef on
her calf the size of a tumor which really does
speak volumes about the (Taps her brain) of a
person who wakes up and thinks, what should
I do today, hmm, oh I know! I’ll get an enormous
treble clef needled into my skin, that’ll be soooo
beautiful; this one, who dresses like she was
conceived and fucking live-water birthed in
a Talbots; and this one who—elephant in the
room: you heard her sing? Were her professors
deaf or just lazy? Either way, she spent god
knows how much money in college and in
private little voice lessons in Wilmington so
she could sing like that—only to go on two
auditions before dumping that dream off
like an unwanted baby in a dumpster, so you
wanna suddenly get all women’s rights with me
you can’t believe I called your precious little
girlfriends inferior, what should I call them?
Ambitious? Intelligent? Fucking brainiacs? All
I’m saying is what everyone else with eyes
and an IQ above sixty can see as plain as day
which is that while you may be an arrogant
entitled smug little fuck, you do have options.
You’re smart, you’re getting a Ph.D. from the
University of Chicago and you do come from
all this money and—and it pains me to say it,
but you’re not completely atrocious looking.
You could actually date a woman who was your
intellectual equal but instead you find these
tepid little Bambi creatures to impose this
hyper-masculine hegemenonical totalitarian
regime on even though you like to like think
you’re like this like super sensitive in touch
sensitized like dork-chic Chicago grad student
who’s like uber-liberal and totally devoted to
the preservation of these little cultural studies
because studying Japan is definitely worthy
of five years of intensive labor, but studying
Torah for all of ten minutes is only worthy
of total utter snide sniveling disdain; if you
found yourself in the middle of a rain dance
you would be soooo respectful trying to do
every movement perfectly to like honor every
Native American who ever lived, but if you
found yourself in the middle of a hora—I’ve
seen you in the middle of a hora—you look
like you want to fucking die; if someone
asks your religion you proudly state, “I’m an
 PLAYSCRIPT Joshua Harmon Bad Jews
atheist” but the second anyone starts a little
Israel-Palestine discussion, it’s like, find me
a stopwatch and let’s count to ten because
it won’t even take that long before I hear,
“As a Jew…” because then you’re a Jew, but
only when you can use it to bash all things
Jewish which somehow makes you stand
a little taller, doesn’t it, puts a little pep in
your step like you’re so fucking enlightened
even though you reek of fucking cliché; you
haven’t lit a menorah since the nineties, but
hello Facebook photos of you in a Santy Claus
hat ho-ho-hoing it up next to the Christmas
tree you put up in your apartment, and it was
kind of obvious that, for whatever reason, you
actually liked wearing that cheap fake crushed
red velvet hat with the shitty white pom-pom
on the end, or maybe it wasn’t the hat, maybe
it was just getting to stand under the mistletoe
and smooch paper-cut-lips Melody, amazing,
dynamic, smart-as-shit Melody, the icon of
your ideal woman, because we know, a woman
who’s actually trying to make something of her
life and her intellect is worthy of your harshest
criticism but a woman with zero career goals
and maybe point two brain cells and less than
no talent is a genuinely good person, you two
must be so genuinely happy, spending time
with her must be a scintillating experience,
in fact, I myself had the chance to talk with
her this evening and she really does offer up
an intellectual feast for the mind, I can only
imagine the topics you two must cover in your
daily conversation, subjects like, how cute she
looks on the bunny hill, or, how cute she looks
in her Talbots secretary outfits, or really what
it all comes down to: hhhhow nice it is to fuck
an ethnic-free bush! Yeah Shlomo, you’re
right: your girlfriends aren’t inferior. You are.
Beat.
LIAM: I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to
stay here tonight.
DAPHNA: Ah, yes, don’t respond to my truth.
Dismiss me.
LIAM: You need to find somewhere else to
sleep. I actually can’t be around you.
DAPHNA: You don’t have a choice.
LIAM: I do have a choice. This isn’t your
apartment. So get. Out.
DAPHNA: And go where?
LIAM: I don’t care where you go. Go to the
JCC. 76th and Amsterdam. See if they’ll take
you in for the night.
DAPHNA: You are such an anti-Semite.
LIAM: I don’t care where you go, but if you
stay here someone is not going to survive the
night and I will not subject Melody to anymore
of your hideous… to you, because you have
an incessant need to lash out at anyone who
makes you feel insecure—
DAPHNA: Ummm, you think Melody makes
me feel insecure?
LIAM: I don’t think that; I know it.
76 AMERICANTHEATRE APRIL1 4
DAPHNA: What does that girl possibly have
that I don’t—
LIAM: A good heart. A pretty face. An engaging
personality. A sense of compassion, not only
for those less fortunate, but for everyone. She’s
a good person. You’re not. Your righteousness
is all self-righteousness; hers is pure. There’s a
purity to her. She got a tattoo of a treble clef
because she loves music. It’s that simple. She’s
uncomplicated. She is what she is, no more,
no less. No deception, no ulterior motives.
She’s a song I can’t stop singing.
Melody has been standing in the doorframe of the
bathroom, listening to Liam talk about her. She
goes to him and kisses him. Daphna mouths, “A
song he can’t stop singing?” with her eyebrows
raised as high as they can possibly go.
LIAM: Are you ok?
Melody nods.
MELODY: You know you can hear everything
in the bathroom?
DAPHNA: No shit. You don’t think I heard
everything he said about—
MELODY: Please don’t talk to me like that—
LIAM: You have to stop talking to people like—
MELODY: Everyone stop. Just stop it! You can’t
talk to each other in this… (Searches hard for
a big word) Horrible way. Do you know what
it was like before, to hear your boyfriend, talk
the way you were talking? That’s not you!
DAPHNA: Uhm…
MELODY (To Liam): I don’t talk that way. I just
heard every single…
Searches hard for a big word; no luck this time.
MELODY: and I’m not about to lash back at—
because everyone in here, no matter whatever
you think of them, is a human being, and you
don’t talk to human beings that way. If I ever
did, I honestly couldn’t live with myself.
Promise me all that horribleness is over.
LIAM: I—
MELODY: Otherwise, I’ll go.
LIAM: No—Mel—I—
MELODY: I will. I’ll fly back to Chicago.
LIAM: No—you have my word.
MELODY: I’m not saying you have to be best
friends or even, but civil. Everyone.
LIAM: I promise.
MELODY: Thank you.
Now it’s been a really long day, I think
everyone’s probably really over-tired, so let’s
just maybe go to bed.
LIAM: Ok.
Liam kisses Melody on the cheek. She flinches.
He goes to open his suitcase. Melody sees Daphna.
Beat.
MELODY: But first. Before you screamed at
her, in a way I never want to hear again, I
think Deevna was trying to talk to you about
something important to her, and human
beings have the right to speak no matter
what you think of them, even if they don’t…
She’s a human being. So Deevna, what did
you want to say?
Beat.
DAPHNA: Oh. I—well it was about Poppy’s
chai—
JONAH: Hey you know what? Really and
truly, everyone’s tired, we’ve calmed down,
so what I think we should do is go to bed and
talk in the—
MELODY: No.
LIAM: Mel—
MELODY: No. She wasn’t saying anything
wrong and it sounded very important to her,
so we’re going to respect her and listen to her
because we are good people and that’s what
good people do.
LIAM: Honey, I understand you’re trying to be
helpful but you really don’t understand the—
MELODY: Liam.
LIAM: But you don’t understand—
MELODY: Liam—
LIAM: Jonah you said—
MELODY: Liam—
JONAH: I really think—
MELODY: No—
LIAM: Daphna please can we not do this now
I am—
MELODY: Liam. Let her speak.
Beat.
MELODY: Go on. No one is going to interrupt
you.
DAPHNA: Thank you. Um, all I wanted to
talk about was, and it’s really not a big deal,
it’s just, like, Poppy’s chai is…
Breath.
DAPHNA: This is the last time we’ll be together
as a family for a while since I’m moving to
Israel this summer, and your mom said you’re
not coming to my graduation cause you have
finals then or, which is fine, really, it’s just a
ceremony I don’t even care about it but since
I’m, because of how I feel about and like how
involved I am in, I mean, I think it makes the
most sense that Poppy’s chai should go to—
MELODY: What’s a…?
DAPHNA: Chai? It’s the Hebrew word for
life, it’s two letters, a chet and a yud, and it
has a numeric equivalent of eighteen which
is an important number in Judaism. It’s made
of gold, it’s not very big, and Poppy wore it
on a chain around his neck his whole life. A
lot of people, a lot of men, I should say, have
one, more so now, it was a lot less common
then actually but Poppy’s was particularly—
JONAH: Daphna—
LIAM: Please—
MELODY: No! She’s not saying anything
wrong. Let her talk.
DAPHNA: The reason Poppy’s chai was
special was because he held onto it during
the Holocaust, in this amazing way, because
obviously Jews couldn’t have gold jewelry,
but it was his father’s and when it was clear
that he and his father were going to be split
up, his father gave Poppy the chai, cause he
thought maybe he could use it later to trade
for food or, who knows what—
LIAM: Please…
MELODY: Liam.
DAPHNA: So for two years, Poppy kept his
father’s chai under his tongue, like, he kept
it in his mouth for two years while he was in
the camps.
JONAH: Daphna—
DAPHNA: I don’t know why they don’t want me
to tell you about this, it’s an incredible story.
JONAH: Daphna, don’t.
DAPHNA: Don’t what? So then after the
war, Poppy looked for the rest of his family
but they had been killed, all of them. Poppy
had three sisters, and a little brother and his
parents and his grandparents and aunts and
uncles: all gone. All killed. So then the camp
was liberated and Poppy left and came to
America and that’s where he met our grandma,
in America, who was a total bitch but that’s a
totally separate story, but Poppy didn’t have
any money when he came here and he couldn’t
buy her a ring—
LIAM: I’m begging you, Daphna, please?
DAPHNA: Um, ok, no.
MELODY: No, keep going. This is…
DAPHNA: So he couldn’t buy her a ring, but
he wanted to marry her, so he proposed with
the only piece of jewelry he had, and so she
wore his chai until he could afford to buy
her a real ring and then he wore it again, and
it’s this amazing artifact of our family and
the power of like our grandfather surviving
and he always loved putting it on me when
I was little and when you look at his three
grandchildren, I think we can all agree that
the one who is clearly, like, the one who is
without question the most connected with
what that chai represents and what it means, is
me, which we can all agree on, and so, clearly
I upset… I was out of line. I admit it. And,
I’m sorry. I apologize. Sincerely. And it’s no
excuse, but you really upset me too with what
I overheard, and that’s not what the spirit of
this whole thing is supposed to be about, so
I just wanted to say that, you know? But, by
the same token, we need to make a decision,
and I think this can just be very simple, and
Jonah said he agreed I should—
JONAH: I didn’t say that.
DAPHNA: Jonah! Yes you did.
JONAH: I said I didn’t want to get in the
middle of it so don’t put me there.
DAPHNA: Jonah!
JONAH: I said I don’t want it, so leave me out.
DAPHNA: Actually, you said—
JONAH: Leave me out.
DAPHNA: But you—
JONAH: Leave me out!
DAPHNA: Wow. Ok. Wow. Fine. Stay out.
Just—wow.
APRIL14 AMERICANTHEATRE 77
Beat.
DAPHNA: So Liam. What do you say? Is it
cool with you, if I…?
Beat.
DAPHNA: I really, it’s just the most important
thing to me, and…
Beat.
DAPHNA: Liam?
Liam?
Um, Liam?
MELODY: Liam?
DAPHNA: Hi, Liam?
MELODY: Honey?
Honey?
Liam!
LIAM: You would have to murder me.
DAPHNA: Um, what?
MELODY: Liam?
LIAM: Not just over my dead body. You would
have to make me dead. You would have to kill
me before I let you have Poppy’s chai.
Daphna doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
DAPHNA: Well I guess we have some things
to discuss then.
LIAM: Nope.
DAPHNA: Yeah, we have to figure this out—
LIAM: There’s nothing to figure out.
DAPHNA: Well I want Poppy’s chai but I’m
obviously not going to murder you for it. I
hope that’s obvious. So that means we need
to work this out like—
LIAM: There’s nothing to work out because
I have it, ok?
DAPHNA: You have it?
LIAM: I have it.
DAPHNA: How’d you get it?
LIAM: Poppy gave it to me.
DAPHNA: You’re lying. You’re lying. My
mom saw it around his neck a week ago in the
hospital. He still had it a week ago.
LIAM: What, did you send your mom in to
spy on Poppy?
DAPHNA: No but I asked her to check and
see—
LIAM: Oh my god—
DAPHNA: if he still had it on when she came
up to visit him a week ago and he did.
LIAM: Holy shit.
DAPHNA: So if you have it how did you…
how could you? You couldn’t. Your mom even
said— What, did she just give it to you now
when you stopped in the apartment tonight?
LIAM: Nope.
DAPHNA: But you haven’t been home since
last—you were skiing in Vail. Your mom was
with him more than anyone, she’s been there
every day, you’ve been in Chicago, so the
only way it could have even gotten to you is
if your mom…
Holy shit.
Holy fucking…
She didn’t…
She mailed it to you?
She mailed it to you?
LIAM: She didn’t mail it. She FedEx-ed it.
DAPHNA: FedEx?!? What’s the difference?
LIAM: You can track the package.
DAPHNA: I don’t believe you. I don’t believe
you. I don’t—
LIAM: Stop, I was always getting it, you know
that.
DAPHNA: What??
LIAM: Poppy always said I could have it—
DAPHNA: Poppy never said anyone—
LIAM: And I’m the oldest grandson. It was
never up—
DAPHNA: The oldest grandson?
LIAM: And plus, you got Grandma’s necklace.
DAPHNA: Grandma’s necklace? Grandma
was a bitch!
LIAM: And you got her necklace.
DAPHNA: You want her necklace? You can
have it. No one wanted any of her shit no
one liked her.
LIAM: She had nice stuff—
DAPHNA: Poppy never specified who could
have the chai, all he ever said was, this is for
the grandchildren, he never—
JONAH: Daphna. He has it.
DAPHNA: But—
JONAH: He has it.
DAPHNA: But… Jonah? Then why didn’t you
say something?
JONAH: I don’t—
DAPHNA: When I brought it up, why didn’t
you say something?
JONAH: I told you I don’t want to… be
involved, in… this.
DAPHNA: No when I asked you if you thought
Liam would be cool with me having it, why
didn’t you tell me he already did?
Jonah says nothing.
DAPHNA: That is maybe the shittiest thing
anyone has ever done to me. And I thought
we were…
You suck.
LIAM: Enough. Lay off him.
DAPHNA: Lay off him? Really Liam? What
are you now, brother of the year? Amazing
brother, amazing grandson, ama—you want
Poppy’s chai so much, you love Poppy so
much, where have you been? Jonah’s been
here, I’ve been here, we made it to the funeral.
You couldn’t even be bothered to call. I made
it down three weeks ago when he went into the
hospital. Did you? Did you? And do not pull
rights of the first born bullshit with me—we
live in a modern world that shit is dead that
shit is—because if there were rights of the
first born here, it would go to my Dad, MY
Dad, cause he’s the oldest male heir. Not you.
Not you. You don’t get to take whatever you
want without—
LIAM: He gave it to me, no one took anything,
he gave—
DAPHNA: Your mom took something and
 PLAYSCRIPT Joshua Harmon Bad Jews
didn’t tell anyone. Which is called stealing,
Liam, stealing.
LIAM: Poppy always said I could have it.
DAPHNA: Does it say that in the will?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
So what, did Aunt Fanny rip it off his neck
while he was—
LIAM: Jesus! No one ripped anything, ok? He
gave it to her. She asked him for it, I asked
him for it, and he gave it to her, and she sent
it to me.
DAPHNA: You’ve been in Aspen, were you
even there to get it? Or is Poppy’s chai in your
lobby just like on the floor—
LIAM: I got it before my trip. Chill out.
DAPHNA: Why’d you have to have it before
he died? Why couldn’t you have waited—
MELODY: Oh my god.
Melody is very, very emotional. Maybe shaking.
MELODY: Oh my god.
Liam looks at Melody. Melody looks at Liam.
They know. Daphna looks at Jonah. He knows.
It takes her a moment, but Daphna figures it
out. She is the last to know.
DAPHNA: No…
MELODY: Oh my god.
DAPHNA: Oh my god.
LIAM: I wanted to tell you the story myself. I
wanted you to hear it from me.
DAPHNA: No fucking way.
MELODY: In Aspen?
LIAM: Yes.
MELODY: How long were you planning this?
LIAM: For a while. Since December. Since
November. Since I first met you.
DAPHNA: Am I the only one who feels like
the walls are caving in?
MELODY: I can’t believe—
DAPHNA: You were going to put our
grandfather’s chai around her?
MELODY: I can’t believe…
DAPHNA: Is this like, symbolic? Did you have
a ring? Tell me you have a ring. Or were you
planning to give it to her?
Beat.
DAPHNA: You were gonna fucking give Poppy’s
chai to this fucking piece of music?
LIAM: I love you.
MELODY: Baby.
DAPHNA: Hold the horses. What the FUCK?!?
You can’t—Jonah! You can’t— You wanna talk
about dead bodies? Over my dead body is she
gonna sport my dead grandfather’s Holocaust
Hebrew chai around her Christian cunt neck.
JONAH: Daphna, don’t.
DAPHNA: Over my dead Jewish corpse is
that going on her. You wanna marry a non-
Jew? Knock yourself out. Have a great time.
Shicksa heaven. Best wishes. But Poppy’s chai
is never going around her neck. Never ever
never ever ever.
LIAM: Unfortunately, Diana, that’s not some-
thing you have a say in.
78 AMERICANTHEATRE APRIL1 4
DAPHNA: Actually, it is!
LIAM: Actually, it isn’t.
MELODY: Baby.
DAPHNA: Jonah. Jonah, is that what you want
for Poppy’s chai?
JONAH: I’m not getting involved—
DAPHNA: You’re involved Jonah. You’re
involved. This is our grandfather. This is
Poppy. You can’t not get involved because you
get freaked out. You’re involved. Do you want
Poppy’s chai to go to someone who isn’t one
of the three of us? Honestly think about that.
Do you?
Beat. (This is the longest beat in the play.)
JONAH: No.
Beat.
DAPHNA: Thank you. Thank you. You don’t
get to do this. Two to one. Go get a ring. Ok?
But you don’t get to give away things that don’t
belong to you, you don’t—
LIAM: If he didn’t want it to belong to me,
then why do I have this?
Liam takes Poppy’s chai out of his pocket. Daphna
was not prepared for this. Stunned, she watches
him move toward Melody.
LIAM (To Melody): I’m sorry. I tried. I really,
really tried and I promise I will do a better
job next time. I promise. Ok? Being with you
makes me want to try harder—I wanted to do
this in Aspen but—
DAPHNA: Wait. Wait. Just— You can’t do this.
LIAM: Watch me.
DAPHNA: Just hear me out. Please. Just—
How can you do this, when you have seen
the numbers on your own grandfather’s arm?
LIAM: Do NOT holocaust me—
DAPHNA: Don’t you know what—don’t you
see how this little object is—don’t you care?,
that if you put that around her neck, you’re
killing something.
LIAM: Killing something?
DAPHNA: Something that matters.
LIAM: It doesn’t matter.
DAPHNA: You are Poppy’s grandson. You
know it matters.
LIAM: Not to me.
DAPHNA: You’re getting a Ph.D. in cultural
studies!
LIAM: So?
DAPHNA: So culture matters! Who people
are, matters. Look at the Nobel Prizes—look
at how disproportionately Jewish people have
achieved in economics, literature, science—
LIAM: Are we really gonna do chosen people
talk? Really?
DAPHNA: Twenty-two percent! That’s the
percentage of Nobel Prize winners who are
Jewish.
LIAM: Now you’re memorizing Jewish
statistics? Fuck.
DAPHNA: Do you know what our global
population is? It’s not twenty-two percent,
not even close.
LIAM: So in the hopes of more Jews winning
Nobel Prizes I should marry a Jew? Is that
seriously your point?
DAPHNA: No my point is, play this out. You
get married, you two get married and you have
kids, so they’re half-Jewish and half-Delaware.
And that kid marries someone who is Asian,
and they have a kid, so that kid is a quarter
Jewish, a quarter Delaware, and half-Asian,
and that kid marries someone who is half-black
and half-Puerto Rican and they have a kid,
and so that kid is—
LIAM: They’re American!
DAPHNA: In a couple generations, all these kids
are running around bearing the hyphenated
names of cultures that no longer exist. It’ll
be just one giant globalized corporate world
populated by one kind of people, who all speak
one language and shop at the same store and all
look the same. That’s how it ends up unless—
MELODY: No, it’s like that John Lennon
song! It’s our country, like, succeeding. Like,
progress! No nations, no religions, no—
DAPHNA: A world without Jews is progress?
MELODY: I didn’t say—
DAPHNA: A girl with blonde hair and blue
eyes should not be telling me a world without
Jews is progress.
LIAM: You’re the one who sounds like a Nazi.
Keeping the race pure? You sound like a Nazi.
DAPHNA: How does your half-Jewish daughter
teach her one-quarter Jewish daughter to be
Jewish? Exactly how does that work?
LIAM: What do you want her to teach her?
Bible stories? When was the last time you
actually read the Bible, cause I’d be curious to
know which part of it speaks to you? The part
that says women were made from the ribs of
men? That lying with a man as you lie with a
woman is an abomination? Or best of all for
you, a woman who is menstruating is impure
and touching her makes you unclean? Is that
what you want to preserve? Or do you just
like the “traditions”? Is your Judaism a totally
infantilized version that gives you the warm
fuzzies cause it reminds you of Poppy and
being a little kid, some sugar-coated memories
of a childhood that wasn’t even that sweet,
because if I know you at all, I know there’s no
way you could read any of that stuff without
having to modify a thousand and one sections
and pretend not to see a thousand more until
you water it down so thoroughly to make it
palatable for your 21st century sensibilities
that it barely resembles the original at all.
I’m sorry, but I can’t get worked up about
preserving a totally watered down version of
something that wasn’t even true to begin with,
and I’m not going to allow it to dictate how
I live my life or who I choose to live my life
with so I can genetically or biologically pass
on something I don’t even believe in.
DAPHNA: Ok. So stop. You know what? Let’s
all stop. Let’s all decide, right now, we’re
going to stop being Jewish. That’s what you
want? You think you’re the first person to ever
question it? Cause I bet there were people
before us who had questions too, but they kept
practicing. They didn’t stop. None of them
did. And they didn’t exactly have it easy, but
they never stopped. And this thing that people
in our family were doing in 1900 and in 1800
and in 1500 and in 200 and in 500 BCE made
it all the way here to us. That alone has got
to at least give you pause. And so now, when
it’s easier to be Jewish than it has ever been in
the history of the world, now when it’s safest,
now we should all stop? I can’t. I can’t. And if
I know you at all, you don’t want me to stop
either. Because if I stop, if we all stop, it will
be gone. And you can’t get it back. Once it’s
gone, it’s gone.
Beat.
LIAM: You know what all this late night Vassar
dorm room Hillel Club conversation sounds
like to me?
DAPHNA: Like Nazis, I know.
LIAM: No.
DAPHNA: Like white supremacists.
LIAM: No no. It sounds to me like, you sound
like someone who’s never been in love.
DAPHNA: What?
LIAM: You sound—
DAPHNA: That’s not true. That’s not even true.
Gilad and I—if you ever took an interest in
anyone other than yourself, you would know,
Gilad and I are getting married.
Pause.
LIAM: I don’t think Gilad is real.
DAPHNA: Uhm, ok, are we getting like Plato
cave reality bullshit now? Cause I can show
you his profile on Facebook?
LIAM: If you were in love with someone, in
reality, not in your imagination, but in reality,
if anyone had ever loved you—
DAPHNA: Gilad loves me.
LIAM: If Gilad really loved you, you would
understand what Melody and I are all about.
But you don’t. Because you’ve never had that.
And you know what? I bet you never will.
DAPHNA: Wow. Thank you.
LIAM: You’re welcome.
I love this woman.
I love you.
And this obviously isn’t how I had planned
for this to go, but here we are, in this horrible
situation, and the only way I’m surviving it is…
If things had gone as planned, I would have
told you the story about how my grandfather
met a woman who made him want to live after
he’d been through the worst things a person
can go through, and obviously that hasn’t
been my experience, but when I told him I
found someone who made me feel that way—
DAPHNA: He was in a coma!
LIAM: He said, then you need to—
APRIL14 AMERICANTHEATRE 79
DAPHNA: He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t
talk!
LIAM: You ask that girl to marry you. So
Melody, will you marry me?
MELODY: Liam.
LIAM: You want me to get on my knees? I will
get on my knees. Melody: will you marry me?
MELODY: Yes.
Liam stands up. They kiss. He takes the chai and
begins to put it around Melody’s neck.
LIAM: This belongs to you now.
DAPHNA: Don’t put that…
Don’t you put that…
DON’T YOU FUCKING PUT THAT
AROUND HER NECK!
He puts the chai around Melody’s neck. She is
moved, and uncomfortable.
Daphna explodes.
DAPHNA: NO!
Daphna grabs the chai and tries to rip it off
Melody’s neck. Melody cries out in pain. Liam
grabs Daphna and tries to pull her off. Melody
is choking. Jonah tries to separate the women,
but someone grabs at his forearm in the process.
He yelps in pain and backs away.
DAPHNA: THIS. DOESN’T. BELONG.
TO. YOU.
Daphna succeeds in ripping the chain off Melody’s
neck. Melody falls to a puddle on the floor.
Daphna, breathless, holds the chai balled up in
her closed fist and paces while Liam comforts
Melody, who doesn’t move.
LIAM: Are you ok?
Honey? Are you…
Liam looks at Daphna, but says nothing.
LIAM: Do you want to—let me see your neck.
Do you want to go to the hospital?
MELODY (Still balled up): Is it bleeding?
LIAM: Not really.
MELODY: Not really?!?
Melody shoots up. She’s hysterical.
LIAM: No.
MELODY: Liam! I’m bleeding!
LIAM: Not really—
MELODY: Take me to the hospital. I want to
go to the hospital.
LIAM: Really?
MELODY: Yes! I’m bleeding! And that thing is
rusty! I could have been—
LIAM: It’s made of gold, gold doesn’t—
MELODY: It was in someone’s mouth! I could
have an infection. I want to go to the hospital.
LIAM: Really?
MELODY: Yes. Really.
LIAM: Ok.
No one moves. They don’t know what to do.
MELODY: Really, Liam!
Liam gathers their belongings.
MELODY: Don’t talk to her. Don’t even look
at her.
Liam hasn’t even looked at Daphna. But Melody
can’t stop staring at her.
MELODY: Don’t even look at her.
Beat.
LIAM: Come on.
Come on. Let’s go get a cab.
He tries to get Melody to take an interest in her
coat, but she’s still staring at Daphna.
LIAM: Let’s go.
After a beat, they exit. Jonah and Daphna are
alone.
DAPHNA: I don’t even want it. I don’t even—
JONAH: Shut up.
DAPHNA: I don’t! He pushed me, he pushed
me from the minute he got here.
Am I in trouble?
Jonah looks at her but says nothing. He starts
to turn off the lights in the room, getting ready
for bed.
DAPHNA: Do you think she’s ok?
JONAH: She’s fine.
DAPHNA: Do you think they’ll come back?
After the hospital?
JONAH: Uhm, no.
DAPHNA: Where will they go?
Jonah looks at Daphna.
DAPHNA: Do you think—
JONAH: I’m done.
DAPHNA: You’re done?
JONAH: I’m… tired.
DAPHNA: Are you mad at me?
JONAH: I want to go to bed.
DAPHNA: Why are you mad at me what did I—
JONAH: I’m done.
DAPHNA: But I was only—
JONAH: I’m done.
DAPHNA: I wish Gilad was here—
JONAH: Stop it, everyone knows—
DAPHNA: But what Liam said isn’t true—
JONAH: Everyone knows. Stop.
DAPHNA: Oh.
A long, intense moment for Daphna.
Then Jonah unbuttons his left cuff, rolling up
the sleeve to his elbow. His forearm is bandaged.
DAPHNA: Jonah. What…
Jonah looks down at his arm. He looks at Daphna.
He takes off the bandage, slowly and carefully.
It hurts.
DAPHNA: Jonah. Is that real?
He nods.
DAPHNA: Why did you do that?
Poppy’s numbers on your own arm? Jonah.
Jonah has no answer. Daphna traces the numbers
on his arm with her finger.
A moment with them, together.
Moonlight, reflected off the Hudson River, streams
through the window.
Blackout.
END OF PLAY
Copyright of American Theatre is the property of Theatre Communications Group and its
content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the
copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email
articles for individual use.