Beyond the Golden Door: Jewish American Drama and Jewish American Experience (review)

Central to Julius Novick's grand discussion of American Jewish drama are the questions that every American Jewish writer, indeed every American Jew, faces: "How Jewish? How American? And what does it mean to be Jewish, to be American, anyway?" (4). By examining a large number of plays by American Jewish playwrights that are of Jewish content, Novick's Beyond the Golden Door: Jewish American Drama and Jewish American Experience traces how these playwrights have responded to these questions within the context of the world in which they are writing. The playwright is situated as a conduit of his or her people, presenting "widespread reality and not just private concern" (7).

In doing so, the American Jewish playwright is given the same status as the American Jewish novelist, a status that few have afforded American Jewish playwrights, in spite of the fact that "[t]he American theater has not lacked for dramatists who are Jewish" (1). Considering the disproportionate participation of Jews in American theater, on stage, behind the stage—and as audience members, it is somewhat ironic, somewhat expected, that a survey of American Jewish drama has rarely been classified as such.

Although the range of works discussed is vast, Beyond the Golden Door should not be taken as an all-inclusive registry of American Jewish plays; Novick "makes no claim to be encyclopedic" (7). Instead, Novick's Beyond the Golden Door considers how plays of Jewish content have dramatized American Jewish experiences as they negotiate both sides of the hyphenated identity. Although these experiences are particular to Jews, they are—just as significant—universal to all Americans. Writes Novick, "We all live in the tension between what we came from and what we have come to; we are faced with the challenge of making some accommodation between them" (5). American Jewish drama taps into these universal American experiences while staging concerns that are at their core particularly Jewish.

Novick narrates quickly through the outline of each play and the breadth of works discussed is impressive. Readers unfamiliar with the range of texts will still find themselves in deft hands: his prose is approachable, his analysis stimulating, his research thoughtful. After a short introduction, Novick's ten chapters are constructed somewhat chronologically, somewhat thematically. In his first chapter, he offers close readings of classic early twentieth-century plays such as Israel Zangwill's The Melting Pot (an important first text to discuss, albeit ironic given that its playwright was British), Aaron Hoffman's Welcome Stranger, and Samson Raphaelson's The Jazz Singer. Here, Novick identifies how generational dynamics and shifting attitudes towards Americanization have affected how Jews have constructed their identities in America.

Succeeding chapters in Beyond the Golden Door trace how these dynamics develop throughout the twentieth century in works by Elmer Rice, Gertrude Berg, Clifford Odets, Arthur Miller, Paddy Chayefsky, Neil Simon, Alfred Uhry, Wendy Wasserstein, and Tony Kushner, among others. While still paying attention to generational concerns and assimilation, he also discusses how regional experiences and/or gender dynamics have shaped Jewish experiences in America. His chapters on Arthur Miller and Neil Simon are particularly exciting because he is able to trace the changing views regarding the presentation of explicitly Jewish characters and themes throughout their lengthy careers.

Novick also includes a chapter on the musical, especially appropriate for a book on American Jewish theater, although his chapter is limited to Fiddler on the Roof, and two lesser-known musicals, Rags and Falsettos. All three musicals are unquestionably overt in their presentation of Jewish experiences, but the latter two seem somewhat arbitrary in their selection, considering the sheer enormity of musicals by Jewish writers and composers that have responded to questions of Jewishness through obvious or not-so-obvious portrayals.

While Beyond the Golden Door mostly focuses upon the plays as they appear on the page, the dynamics of their performances on the stage is largely absent in Novick's discussion. To the student of...