Joan Ross Sorkin

Something’s rotten in the borough of Brooklyn. Hamlet in Bensonhurst is a re-imagining of Shakespeare’s classic tale of Prince Hamlet, set in a Jewish family in Bensonhurst in 1969 in the shadow of the war in Vietnam. It is the story of a young man’s struggle with loss and his need for revenge in a time of war when nerves are frayed and hearts are easily broken. Harry Schotenfeld, a 23-year-old Vietnam War reporter, returns home to find his mother is sitting shiva for his father and his uncle has moved in and is now part of the furniture. Harry must not only cope with his grief over his father’s death, but also with his uncle's betrayal and his mother’s unthinkable affair. When Harry’s mentally-challenged younger brother, the spitting image of their father, claims that their uncle poisoned their father at the family-owned deli, Harry’s melancholy turns to rage and a thirst for revenge. Harry locks horns with his uncle to force him to admit his guilt, and at the same time presses his mother to end her affair. On top of the crush of his uncle and mother’s betrayal, Harry is racked by his own guilt for not preventing his father's death and careens between impulsiveness and indecision. Harry turns to his Jewish upbringing to try to make sense of what is happening around him with questions about mercy and justice, yet his sanity is constantly questioned. As Harry becomes more and more obsessed with proving his uncle’s murderous deed, Harry’s quest turns inward as he ponders the imponderables of life and death with memories of the horrors of ‘Nam coloring his thoughts and actions. Throughout his journey, Harry’s two high school buddies, his druggie girlfriend and her busybody mother and nerdy brother become players as well as pawns in Harry’s increasingly self-absorbed search for both the truth about his father and the meaning of life in a world turned upside-down. At the end of the play, in one last desperate effort to avenge his father’s death, Harry meets a tragic end. And although his death makes his life all the more noble, it also makes clear that Harry, like Everyman, was driven by an overwhelming need for love and approval from his family and from those whom he loved.

Fear of the unknown. Life and death decisions. COVID is here…

This is Serious is a two-part, four-character play, set in New Rochelle, the first epicenter of the virus on the east coast. The play is the story of the Granville family and how they make sense out of life as the pandemic unfolds and their liberal-minded values regarding race, social justice and charity collide with the exigencies of keeping safe.
In Part I (“Between a Rock and Hard Place”) Maggie and Richard have quarantined, but their lives are turned upside-down even more when their son Petey comes home from college with an unexpected guest.

In Part II (“Double Whammy”) the Granvilles are still coping with the pandemic when George Floyd is murdered, and matters of race touch their lives.

Each part has a running time of approximately one hour, and they may be presented together or separately since each part stands alone as a separate play.

The script is Zoom-ready, and the play can be read as a modern radio play, Zoom play, or performed fully staged, live.