Chicken Soup with Barley
Arnold Wesker's play charts the collapse of an East End family over 20 years as their political ideals disintegrate; from the highs of Cable Street to the lows of the Cold War.
by Arnold Wesker
Sarah Kahn ..... Debbie Chazen
Harry Kahn ..... Elliot Levey
Ronnie Kahn ..... Joshua Ginsberg
Ada Kahn ..... Imogen Front
Cissie Kahn ..... Susannah Wise
Monty /Man ..... Joel Gillman
Hymie Kossof ..... Russell Bentley
Dave Simmonds ..... Dan Wolff
Prince Silver ..... Ashley Margolis
Bessie Blatt ..... Anna Spearpoint
Directed by Sally Avens
A 麻豆社 Studios Audio production for 麻豆社 Radio 4
Wesker's semi-autobiographical state of the nation stage play from 1956: The Kahns are communists, and the play traces their relationship with the party from the high of Cable Street, when working men and women successfully forced Mosley's parading fascists into retreat, to the low of Soviet tanks rolling into Hungary. It is only Sarah Kahn, the matriarch of the family, who idealistically clings to the party she has given her life to. As the rest of her family desert her she clings to her mantra: 'you have to care or you die'.