The Passport

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

This is a very sad play of Jewish life in Russia in 1905. Part of the story is concerned with a ‘yellow ticket’ but there is no violence or brutality indicated in the synopsis (as there is in the English play of that name) and no immorality of any sort happens. The story is slight. Mark Berman, a Jew, is taken for the army in the war with Japan. He has a son, Sasha, and one Alexandrof, a student in love with Lily, Mark’s sister, is his instructor. Mark is killed in the war. Golde, his wife gets poorer and poorer and Sasha is ill for want of nourishment. Then a government order comes for Golde to leave Kiev, as a Jewess without a husband. Lily advises her to do as she has done and get a ‘passport’ as a public woman. She explains that it need not mean anything to a virtuous woman, but in spite of this Alexandrof is enraged by her action and being given to drink ‘drinks more heavily than ever’. Ultimately Golde does apply for the passport but in vain; ‘in her absence Sasha has expired’. Very depressing, in the true Russian way, but I see no harm whatever in it. Recommended for license. G. S. Street