[FULL-LENGTH] In 1904, the steamboat General Slocum catches fire in the East River of New York City, killing over 1,000 people from the tight-knit German immigrant community—including the wife and three children of Oscar Strauss. During regular visits to his East Village apartment by his neighbor Frida (a survivor of the shipwreck), Oscar debates whether to remain in his adopted home, follow his fellow countrymen uptown, or end his life—all while clinging to the futile hope that his young daughter may still be alive somewhere. Each decision Oscar makes launches the play into a new era, featuring a different resident of his former dwelling: a holocaust survivor in post-World War II America, an artist weathering the violence of the tumultuous 1970s, a native New Yorker still reeling from the 9/11 attacks.
Aided by a mysterious Prophet who skirts the boundaries of time and age, these stories begin to connect and merge, leading to Oscar’s final decision. People come; people go. A city changes and bleeds, and everything keeps moving. Life goes on, in spite of itself.