Chicken Soup with Barley

Synopsis

A landmark play in the history of post-war British theatre, Chicken Soup with Barley is a political drama based upon Wesker's own experiences of growing up in a Jewish family in the East End of London. Spanning three decades, it documents the effect of post-war social issues on Jewish families such as Wesker's. For the Kahn family the Promised Land is neither the Jerusalem of their forebears, not the basement flat they live in now. Their dreams of a better world is sustained by the vitality of the community around them, and is put to the test in the anti-fascist riots of the 1930s. History begins to take its toll as the mother's ideals and resilience contend with a father's weakness in a deeply moving portrait of the forces that drive us apart, and the ties that bind us together.

Our Review:

20 October 2005

What a creaky vessel this venerable play now seems. The first part of Arnold Wesker’s Trilogy, written in 1958 (it was followed by Roots and I’m Talking About Jerusalem) Chicken Soup with Barley draws on the writer’s own experience of growing up in a noisy, politically committed Jewish family before and after the Second World War.

There are three acts, spanning the decades from 1936 to 1956, with nine or ten-year intervals between them. The first, set on the day of the Battle of Cable Street when Mosley’s Blackshirts faced Jews and socialists in the East End, provides an introduction to the Kahn family: Sarah the long-suffering mother, Harry her feckless husband, teenage idealist Ada, her young brother Ronnie and the left-wing friends who regard their home as a rallying point.

In this production, which began life at Nottingham Playhouse, director Giles Croft cannily uses newsreel sound-track to pinpoint the historical moment ...

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Latest User Review

80.177.231.164) - 26 October 2005:

An extremely creaky play and two intervals of 15 minutes each makes it too long an evening. The message is powerful but, although the characters are drawn from Wesker's own life, they are often just stereotypes making it very diffiuclt for the actors to show true emotions. What is remarkable is that so many of the actors are so moving....

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