Making The Mah Jongg Game
Information Producer: Ilena Ferrer Director: Greg Morris Genre: documentary Budget: $5,000 Status: Complete |
Synopsis
The Mah Jongg Game showcases actress-monologist Alison Lustbader’s one-act play of the same name, performed for the first time in two decades. Sometime in the 1970s in Newburgh, New York, Blanche (Lustbader) is hosting Mah Jongg with friends while she relates a troubling conversation she has had with her teenage daughter. Pointedly asking her mother, “What are you so afraid of?” the daughter sparks Blanche’s wide-ranging reflections on a life that may or may not have been fully lived. The Mah Jongg Game celebrates a pivotal yet unsung generation of Jewish-American women who came of age in the years immediately after World War II, examining the ways in which familial bonds, friendships, and sometimes denial have provided essential joy, refuge, meaning, and ultimately inspiration to a generation of women Featuring a panel of experts and behind the scenes interviews, the documentary is an exploration of the life themes introduced with great humor and poignancy in this one-woman show. |