Death/Play, or the Mad Jester of the Warsaw Ghetto

The play centers on a psychological duel between two actual historical figures: Rubinstein, first-name unknown, was the “mad jester of the Warsaw ghetto” whose barbed sayings and provocative antics were everyday news in the ghetto. He is convinced that essentially no one would survive. His antagonist, Abraham Gancwaych, is a gangster who openly collaborated with the Gestapo and pursues survival at any cost. For Rubinstein, what remains in the face of inevitable doom are art and radical play—play with a vengeance. And, of course, far beyond genocidal atrocity, all of us face inevitable doom.