{"id":434,"date":"2022-09-19T16:16:20","date_gmt":"2022-09-19T21:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/yiddish-stage\/?p=434"},"modified":"2022-09-19T16:16:20","modified_gmt":"2022-09-19T21:16:20","slug":"safo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/yiddish-stage\/safo\/","title":{"rendered":"Safo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Act I.<\/strong>\u00a0A sparsely furnished but clean room at the Fingerhuts on the eve of Sofia Fingerhut\u2019s wedding. Sofia, upon seeing her wedding gown, remarks, \u201cA wedding dress! A dress you try on joyfully, put on tearfully, and take off fearfully.\u201d Her apprehension mounts when she sees her groom, photographer Boris Stavropolsky, courting her younger sister Lise. Guests arrive, among them Cherna\u2019s brother Shtempl, a wealthy fishmonger, and his daughter Manichka. Shtempl and Fingerhut argue, then settle down to a game of cards while Sofia\u2019s girlfriends enter. The fathers fight over cards as well, so Boris takes out his guitar. Soon after he starts playing, Lise cries and runs out. Boris brings her back, and while the others try to calm Lise, Sofia declares, \u201cYou don\u2019t know why she\u2019s crying? I know. Lise is crying because she knows that tomorrow will not be my wedding day. She will not dance at my wedding.\u201d Since Boris loves Lise, Sofia says will not stand in their way. When Boris tries to appease her, she further discloses that she is pregnant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Act II.<\/strong>\u00a0Five years later, in a room in Shtempl\u2019s house, with a piano and expensive furniture, but decorated without taste. Manichka\u2019s fianc\u00e9, Apollo Sonnenschein, has just returned to Odessa after years in St. Petersburg, and the Shtempls bring him up to date on the Fingerhuts: Sofia has a daughter (whom she calls her niece), and Lise is married to Boris, who has given up photography. Though Apollo at first refuses to play for the guests, he does play when Sofia arrives, and then escorts her home. The scene changes to an Odessa street at night. Boris with Tseyner, to whom he has just lost a lot of money. Boris expresses his undiminished ardor for Sofia. They exit; Sofia and Apollo enter. Apollo tells her that he no longer loves Manichka; the best he can hope for is to elevate her to his level. Back at the Fingerhuts\u2019, Sofia refuses to answer her parents\u2019 queries. She tells Boris to take Lise away and nurse her back to health. Left alone, Sofia consults a book of ancient history to clarify a remark Apollo made comparing her to Sappho. Legend holds that Sappho, in drowning herself, declared, \u201cI give myself as an offering to the almighty Apollo, the god of beauty and poetry.\u201d Apollo Sonnenschein arrives, and as Sofia wrestles with her emotions, a child\u2019s voice summons her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Act III.<\/strong>\u00a0A hut. Apollo has married Manichka, and taken Sofia as his mistress. Fingerhut introduces Tseyner to Sofia, hoping to get rich by having them marry. When Apollo arrives, Sofia\u2019s seven year-old daughter, Zhenichka, who dislikes him, leaves. He tells Sofia of two Apollos: one who loves her recklessly, and the other who worries about his reputation. Boris arrives with the sad news that Lise has died. Manichka goes, and Apollo emerges to see Boris, Sofia, and the child comforting each other\u2014a scene that brings out his hatred toward his rivals for Sofia\u2019s affection. Fingerhut arrives, and when the Shtempls arrive to retrieve Apollo, the in-laws exchange insults. Apollo, appalled by the attention from curious neighbors, forsakes Sofia and goes home with his wife, as a brawl erupts among the remaining family members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Act IV.<\/strong>\u00a0Sofia\u2019s room, as in Act II. Sofia and Zheni pack to resettle in Sevastopol. Boris apologizes for the past, then tells Sofia he still wants to be with her to heal her wounds and help raise Zheni, but she rejects the proposal. Shtempl and Manichka enter, imploring Sofia for a way to make Apollo come back to them. She has no such power, she says, and they leave. Apollo enters, pleading to go with her, or for her to stay. But this is too little too late; she insists that he must go back to his wife and child. Zheni and Boris return, and the child reveals that she has long known the identity of her mother and father. This changes the plans; Sofia will bring Boris along to make the family officially \u201clegitimate,\u201d and devote the rest of her life to her daughter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Act I.\u00a0A sparsely furnished but clean room at the Fingerhuts on the eve of Sofia Fingerhut\u2019s wedding. Sofia, upon seeing her wedding gown, remarks, \u201cA wedding dress! A dress you try on joyfully, put on tearfully, and take off fearfully.\u201d Her apprehension mounts when she sees her groom, photographer Boris Stavropolsky, courting her younger sister […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plotting-yiddish-drama","themes-adultry","themes-birth-out-of-wedlock","themes-family","themes-gender-roles","character_types-artists","character_types-children","character_types-merchants"],"yoast_head":"\nSafo - Digital Yiddish Theatre Project<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/yiddish-stage\/safo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Safo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Act I.\u00a0A sparsely furnished but clean room at the Fingerhuts on the eve of Sofia Fingerhut\u2019s wedding. 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