Harry Geduld

Chutzpah Sauce: an Evening of One-act Plays Harry Geduld

Chutzpah Sauce is, as its subtitle indicates, a collection of one-act plays on Jewish themes, intended to be performed in a single evening. The plays are all comedies and are set in different periods. The Converts is about what could have happened when the Khazars were converted to Judaism about a thousand years ago. He'll Be Coming Down The Mountain When He Comes concerns a group of querulous Israelites awaiting the return of Moses from Mount Sinai. Ends and Means focuses on the problem kids of a Jewish family in Long Island. There are also two interludes in which three middle-aged women regale the audience with every Jewish Mother joke known to the author. Played before the curtain, these interludes enable scene changes for the one act-plays to take place unseen by the audience. An addendum provides a fourth one-act play unconnected with the previous three. Early Symptoms is a curtain-raiser concerning a Jewish doctor and his disturbed patient. For the uninitiated there's a Glossary explaining the Yiddish and Hebrew terms that appear in the plays. The illustrations have been provided by the playwright's wife, Carolyn Geduld.