It is December, 1939 in Atlanta at the home of Adolph Freitag (George Garfield). The unusual thing is that this Jewish family has a Christmas tree in the living room. The Last Night Of Ballyhoo moves along in the style of a domestic comedy of the '30s, but we will come to discover the tension signified by the display of that tree. In this city that is largely Christian, the Freitags fit into middle class Southern Society well. It takes a rough outsider, a Jew from Brooklyn, to set the family on end.
When Joe Farkas, (Larry Brenner), comes to work for Adolph at the family's bedding company, he is exposed to these non-orthodox Jews and is troubled by their seeming attempts to hide their heritage. Adolph's sister, Boo Levy (Sheila Sheffield) doesn't like Joe, calling him a Yid when he is gone, though Boo's daughter Lala (Amy Goldman) is quite interested in the eligible bachelor. But Joe has his eyes on Sunny Freitag (Heather A. Ashby), Adolph's other niece. The darker side of the play doesn't fully kick in until the end of Act I, when Joe confronts Sunny about appearing to be ashamed of her Jewish background. She tells him a poignant story from her childhood: she'd been at a community swimming pool with one of her Christian girlfriends when the supervisor came over and told her there were no Jews allowed. The feeling in Sunny's monologue is deeply conveyed by Ashby. It is followed by an explosive scene between Lala and Sunny concerning their dead fathers that is fueled by Lala's long-standing jealousy of the much prettier, better educated Sunny.
We are made keenly aware of the depth of Lala's own loneliness and pain. In a tender scene in Act II, the never married Adolph reveals to Sunny the love for a woman he saw years before on the trolley. He never spoke to her, never knew her name, but loved her from afar. Garfield puts us on that long-gone trolley ride with his character. That scene is contrasted with the arrival of bouncy, hilarious Peachy Weil (Terry Darling), a Jewish boy from a well-respected Louisiana family. Tall and lanky with red hair, Darling steals the show as Lala's date for the Ballyhoo social for young Jewish gals and guys. All the actors are good, with accents that seems genuinely Southern, and in Joe's case, New York. Their costumes convey the period. The setting for the Freitag household is attractive, and the front area below the main stage stands in with simple lighting for both a railroad car and the club where Ballyhoo takes place.
The most interesting use of staging comes after the climactic reunion with Joe and Sunny on the train. Now standing alone, she looks through a gauzy curtain to a candlelit table at the Freitag home. In dreamlike fashion, the curtain lifts and Sunny steps up to join everyone in prayerful celebration of a Jewish holiday.
