Action Against Sol Schumann

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THE STORY: As told by the Chicago Tribune: Jeffrey Sweet's deeply felt and profoundly moving new play confronts its characters, and its audience, with a complex moral dilemma. Sol Schumann, a devout American Jew and beloved father of two grown sons, in 1985 is accused of unspeakable crimes he allegedly had committed many years earlier. That is all the story you need to know or should know, for part of the strength of Sweet's drama is the surprising twists and turns it takes in its plot, character, psychological and moral development. Like his earlier drama The Value of Names this is a tale, loosely based on a real case, of children and parents. It tells of the bond that links them and of the gulf that separates them. And though Sol Schumann is the title character, the two central forces of the drama are his sons, who in the course of tracking through the maze of legal, moral and personal issues on the sins of their father, also must come to terms with their relationships with him as their father's children. An unusually thoughtful and provocative script, rich in drama (and melodrama). This is a play to remember.