Frederick Feirstein: Poet, Playwright, Psychoanalyst
Biographical Note
Frederick Feirstein is a playwright with a dozen New York productions. His first play SIMON AND THE SHOESHINE BOY was first produced at the Chelsea Theater Center. His second play THE FAMILY CIRCLE, was first produced at the Provincetown Playhouse (New York), and subsequently published in the Modern Classics Series in London (Davis-Poynter/Harper Collins). He has written the book and lyrics for three musical dramas: THE CHILDREN ’ S REVOLT, (which he directed starring Willem Dafoe), MASQUERADE which won an Audrey Wood Playwriting Award, and HEROISM (music by William Harper) first staged at the Raw Space (New York) by Chicago’s ARTCO in 2001.
He also writes film and television. He wrote TWO FOR ONE and STREET MUSIC for David Da Silva films (FAME), G.I. DIARY for CBS, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE with Philip Magdaleny, and daytime with Doris Frankel and Doug Marland.
Frederick Feirstein has had eight books of poetry published. His first, SURVIVORS, was selected as one of the two Outstanding Books of the year by the American Library Association. His second MANHATTAN CARNIVAL: A DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and performed on stage in New York, Cambridge, and Los Angeles. His fourth and sixth books, FAMILY HISTORY, and ENDING THE TWENTIETH CENTURY won the QUARTERLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE ’ S international prizes. His fifth, CITY LIFE, was a Pulitzer nominee. His seventh NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, was published in 1998. His eighth FALLOUT was published in 2009.
Among his literary awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, the Poetry Society of America’s John Masefield Award, England’s Arvon Prize for Poetry, and the Rockefeller Foundation’s OADR Award For Playwriting.
He was co-founder of the Expansive Poetry movement and originated the Barnes & Noble reading series.
His biography is in the Dictionary of Literary Biography and his autobiography In the Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series.
HEROISM A Musical Drama Book & Lyrics by Frederick Feirstein Music by William Harper SYNOPSIS: Music From Heroism
Heroism is a story of love between Wanda, a Polish girl, and Willie, a Jewish boy during the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. It’s about the many forms that heroism and love take in the face of mass destruction. The play opens with a celebration in Willie’s father Morris’ clothing factory, a year before the outbreak of World War II. Morris is welcoming his friends, workers and family to his sunny new factory loft, one that promises great success. They are singing the song Drink To Life.
Wanda and Willie are singers who write their own songs and will entertain the crowd with their new Tango. (CD #1). It’s clear from the way Willie and Wanda interact that they’re in love. By the end of the Tango, they announce their engagement. Willie’s father Morris and his brother Joe are happy about the engagement. So are Wanda’s mother Mary, and her brother Mark. But Willie’s mother Mollie is wary, realistic about their facing anti-Semitism which we see hints of in Wanda’s brother Eugene who opposes the engagement. Eugene is furious that Morris has just made Jerry, a rugged Jewish worker, factory foreman instead of Eugene’s father Henry who is Morris’ top salesman and oldest friend. But Henry is a gambler and, as we’ll find out in the next scene, not entirely trustworthy.
A year later, just before the Nazi invasion. Morris discovers that Henry has been embezzling to feed his gambling habit, and worse, has made a deal through one of his friends to sell clothing to the German army. Henry protests his innocence and contends the deal with the Nazis will keep Morris in business during the coming war. Morris fires him and the sounds of the bombing begin.
In the next scene Wanda shows Willie her arm injured by an enraged Henry who insists she keep away from Willie. They sing the duet You Found a Bird to comfort her. Then Morris comes upon Henry working as a foreman to build the ghetto wall. Morris, forgiving Henry, offers to take him back. Henry, locked in resentment, tells Morris he can’t come back; that because he is unemployed he’s been made a slave. Morris protests he didn’t have a clue this would happen. Henry tells him worse is about to happen. Jews are being herded behind the walls from all over Poland. The refugees enter and sing The Refugee Chorus. This song segues into Willie’s Dream (CD #2) where Willie, sleeping among the refugees his mother has taken in, wakes abruptly with a premonition of a disaster worse than any pogrom.
We now see the disaster beginning to unfold. We hear Morris and his workers being commanded to make the armbands the Jews must wear. Morris resists. Jerry tells them they must cooperate for now but that he, Jerry, has become one of the leaders of the Jewish Resistance and wants Morris to help finance it. Henry, panicked that his daughter’s moved into Willie’s family’s apartment, tries to bring her out of the ghetto. He sings Henry’s Song, but Wanda refuses to go. Henry slaps Morris’ face for not supporting him, and Wanda defiantly puts on the armband, making herself a Jew. In the meantime, Wanda’s Mother Mary tries to stop her eldest son Eugene from taking his brother Mark with him to join The Polish Resistance in the forest. She sings Mary’s Prayer, vowing that if her three children die, so will she.
Back in Willie’s family’s apartment, Willie tells Wanda that her father is right and that she must leave to protect herself. In their duet Some Birds (CD #3), Willie urges her to go but she refuses. Jerry enters in the makeshift uniform of the Jewish Resistance. He’s there to collect a bag of jewels that Morris has for him to buy guns. He enlists Willie to be his propagandist. Abruptly, Willie’s brother Joe enters in the long coat of the Jewish police, infuriating Jerry and angering Willie. But Joe comedically surprises them by presenting them and the starving refugees with a smorgasbord of food he’s smuggled in his coat. The family and chorus sing the rousing Overcoat (CD #4), followed by Willie’s three, newly composed stanzas urging them all to join the resistance.
Pleased by what Willie can do, Jerry exits. Morris, lost in the celebration and having forgotten to hand Jerry the jewels, runs out after him. It’s past curfew and, alarmed, the family and Wanda watch out the window as Nazis take Morris away. Willie and Joe run out to look for Morris and to try to rescue him. A distraught Mollie sings We Met In Spring. Mollie, now realizing Wanda is pregnant, forms a strong mother and daughter bond with her while they wait for Willie and Joe.
ACT TWO opens two weeks later. Willie and Joe are exhausted from searching for Morris. Willie sees lights on in Morris’ factory and head toward it. Then Wanda, trying to convince herself Willie will return alive, sings He’s Gone (CD #5 – lyric revised).
Willie and Joe find Morris, a shadow of himself; a worker in his own factory which is now run by Henry who’s been awarded it by the Nazis. Henry claims he’s saved Morris by making him his slave. Willie and Joe try to take Morris out but Henry, fearing the Nazis will kill him if they find Morris gone, tries to stop them. Morris gathers his strength to go but Henry shoves him against a table. Morris hits his head hard. Joe, seeing Morris is dying, fights Henry who rips off a manikin’s arm and beats Joe unconscious. Willie in turmoil goes for Henry but he whacks Willie aside. Morris urges Willie to run for his gun in his office. Henry scornfully tells Willie he won’t harm Wanda’s father. But when Henry seems to be killing a recovered and determined Joe, Willie fires to save his brother. As Henry dies he asks Willie to protect his daughter.
Jerry enters with the ghetto fighters and they transform the factory into the Wild Ghetto, the Resistance’s military outpost. Joe, recovering from the fight, urges Willie to go get Mollie and Wanda and bring them to the factory for safety as the Nazis are rounding up everyone and loading them in boxcars bound for the death camps. When Willie gets outside, the Nazis on loudspeakers are barking for Jews tocome to the town square for deportation and when he gets to the apartment both Mollie and Wanda have disappeared. Willie sings the powerful song, Willie’s Prayer (CD #6).
Willie hears his Tango which we’ve heard played joyously in the opening. He follows the music until he comes to the train yard. He spots is mother Mollie through the bars of a freight car door, and the Nazis are playing the Tango over the loudspeakers to calm their victims. Willie believes Wanda is on the train with Mollie. Willie pulls out his gun to rescue Wanda and Mollie but Mollie waves him off – it’s hopeless. Mollie gestures frantically towards the water tower above their building but Willie, uncomprehending, runs to the Wild Ghetto. There, possessed by guilt, he reveals what has happened. The fighters sing the inspiring Wild Ghetto (CD #7) until Willie comes around and joins them.
After days of fighting, Willie wakes among his group of exhausted, injured and dying resistance fighters. He has had a dream of Wanda in the water tower on his roof and suddenly connects it to his mother’s last gestures. He wants to run back through the attic route to see if he can find Wanda. Joe, thinking Willie is still dreaming, tries to stop him but Jerry gives Willie a map of the attic route and, in case he manages to survive, a map of the sewer routes.
In the next scene Willie comes to the rooftop, where Wanda is hiding as he dreamed. Lights come on in his family’s apartment and we hear the sounds of Nazis looting. Willie leads Wanda down the tower’s ladder.
It is now a week later. The Jewish Resistance fighters have won six battles but they are running out of ammunition and food. Jerry sends Joe to the forest to get guns from Mark and Eugene’s Polish Resistance.
Meanwhile, Willie has led Wanda through the sewer routes to the safety of Mary’s home outside the ghetto. Mary can’t believe Willie and Wanda have shown up there alive. They sing in reunion I Don’t Believe You’re Here.
Now we’re in the forest where Joe finds Wanda’s brother Mark who promises him both food and guns. But Wanda’s other brother, Eugene, is in command. He enters the scene and gets the support of the troops to kill the idea. He explains that they’ve had news Joe’s brother killed their father. Eugene vows to Joe that if Willie is still alive, he will kill him. Mark manages to send Joe off with wine and bread.
In the next scene Mary and Wanda are at supper saying grace. Willie is listening respectfully. Suddenly there is a loud knock on Mary’s door, and we hear two Nazis barking outside. Wanda and Mary hide Willie in a closet as the stage darkens and we hear the Nazis break in. When one of the Nazis forces Wanda into the bedroom, Willie runs in and we hear a gunshot. Willie then helps a distraught Wanda out. Then Willie rushes outside and we hear two gunshots. Willie comes back in, shot in the arm.
Unconcerned for himself he rushes to Wanda who is wild with despair. The three sing “God Is Frail.” It is now the night before the last battle in the Wild Ghetto. Led by Jerry and Joe, the decimated Jewish Resistance sings the beautiful Tomorrow (CD #8), ending with couples paring off to make love before the last dawn of their lives.
Mary leads Wanda and Willie into the forest where, with the song The Forest (CD #9), they bring Wanda out of her shocked state. Mark finds them and takes them to the camp of the Polish Resistance. There, Eugene who has sworn to kill Willie ignores the pleas of his mother and sister. He raises his gun. Mark steps up and points his gun at Eugene and threatens to kill him if he shoots Willie. Mary steps up to Eugene and gently takes his gun away. She urges Mark to take Willie and Wanda, pregnant with the future, out of the forest and hide them. She says she will stay with Eugene and fight with the Polish Resistance to the finish.
Willie, though, collapses. Mark realizes the bullet must have hit an artery. Williewakes momentarily. Seeing the snow falling as in his first dream, Willie knows he is dying. He tells Mark to take care of Wanda. Mary, at Wanda’s command, prays for Willie. Willie tells Wanda, “God is our baby.” Willie dies in Wanda’s arms. She reprises“He’s Gone.” Then, after a pause, Wanda lifts Willie into Mary’s arms and slips the gunout of Willie’s belt. Alarmed that Wanda intends to kill herself, Mark reaches to take the gun away from her. But Wanda is determined for the future to survive. She repeats Willie’s line, “God is our baby.” She tucks Willie’s gun in her pocket and then kisses himon the cheek goodbye. As the lights fade, the pregnant Wanda and her brother Mark exitthe forest.
©2007 William Harper & Frederick Feirstein
All Rights reserved
