by Barbara Kahn
The Spring and Fall of Eve Adams, directed by the author, premiered at Theater for the New City, New York City, Executive Director Crystal Field. April 10-May 2, 2010
The play was inspired by an extraordinary woman who was a victim of homophobia and anti-immigrant hysteria that ultimately led to her death. In 1926 Eve Adams, a Jewish lesbian from Poland, was proprietor of Eve’s Hangout, a tearoom at 129 MacDougal St., where local poets, musicians, and actors congregated and shared their work in salon evenings. Eve’s haven of artistic and sexual freedom was soon threatened by religious and governmental authorities, leading to her arrest, imprisonment, and deportation. The play not only portrays a long-forgotten moment in New York history but sheds light on current threats by holding a mirror to the past.
Characters in the excerpts are Eve*; Mika, a young Polish immigrant who works in the tearoom; Rene, a regular customer who has a crush on Eve; Alice, a young woman who has left the drudgery of her life in New Jersey and has fallen for Mika; and Margaret*, an undercover policewoman. *Real life characters. Others are fictional based on research.
Scene Five
The tearoom. Shortly before opening for the evening. Eve is sitting at a table, writing. Rene is seated alone at another table. Mika is setting empty tables. Alice enters. She is dressed in a new set of men’s clothing.
Alice
Mika!
Eve
Look at you.
Alice
I have a job, Eve. A real job.
Eve
That’s wonderful.
Alice
Mrs. Kalogerakis said I should talk to the boarder in Room 33.
Mika
Who?
Alice
Mr. Lambert. In Room 33.
Mika
No, the other one.
Alice
Mrs. Kalogerakis? That’s my landlady’s name. I went to see Mr. Lambert right away, and I have a job. I get paid to read. Can you imagine that? I love to read, I read all the time, but now I get paid to do it.
Rene
Who pays someone to read?
Alice
Mr. Lambert will give me books, and I’ll read them and write a report like in school, only they have guidelines on what I should report. They have forms to fill out for each book. I came here right away to tell you, but it was early and no one was here. So I went back to Bedford Street.
Eve
Mika is sorry she missed you. (to Mika ) Aren’t you?
Mika
(reluctantly) Yes.
Alice
I decided to explore before I came back here. My skirt and blouse were terribly wrinkled, so I kept on my brother’s clothes, and I walked all the way down Broadway. Do you know what happened?
Eve
Tell us…
Alice
Nothing happened. I was free. I could go anywhere alone, no one to bother me. If I wanted to turn right, I could turn right. If I wanted to turn left, I could turn left. If I wanted to keep going straight, I could do that, too. I was so happy, I had to fight to keep from grinning like a fool. Down where they’re constructing a courthouse, it looked like a courthouse, one of the workmen looked up when I passed and called out, “Hey, buddy.” I said, “Hey to you, too.” Just like that. On my way back to the Village, I turned onto a street of shops with clothes on racks outside of each one. Racks and racks of clothes. (to Mika) Do you know it?
Mika
Orchard Street.
Alice
That’s it. That’s the street. It was like traveling to another country without leaving New York. People were speaking a language I didn’t know. I saw a store with men’s pants and jackets out front. I was just going to look at them, that’s all. Then a clerk came outside and asked, “So, nu? What can I do for you, young man?” I heard myself say, “A new pair of pants and maybe a jacket, I don’t have much money.” He said, “Did I ask if you were a rich man? Come inside.” To make a long story short, I got a new pair of pants and this jacket and they threw in the suspenders for free.
Alice models her new outfit, strutting around.
Eve
Very handsome. You had quite an adventure.
Rene
A real Valentino.
Alice
There’s more.
Mika
What else did you do?
Alice
I passed a tavern on Bond Street. It has a sign. “Men Only.” I walked in and right up to the bar. “A seltzer, please.” The bartender poured the seltzer, “Two cents plain. Kitchen opens at four.” I couldn’t wait to come here and tell you. I’m never wearing my old clothes again. I’m free and I’m staying free. I have my freedom, and I’m never giving it back. Not to anyone.
Mika
It’s against the law to dress against your sex.
Alice
I don’t care. You could take my arm, Mika, and we could go anywhere. Nobody would bother us.
Eve
Mika enjoys long walks. She tells me that all the time. Now, you must excuse me. Rene?
Eve goes back to the table where she writes in her manuscript. Rene, frustrated, exits.
Alice Will you come walking with me?
Mika I’m working. I can’t just leave.
Alice I don’t mean right this very minute. I mean sometimes we could take walks, even at night. People would look at us and think, “What a lucky young man to have such a beautiful woman on his arm.”
Mika I have my job here and school in the daytime. You have your new job. We don’t have time to walk all over town.
Alice Don’t you want to be with me?
Mika I didn’t say I didn’t.
Alice You don’t seem to want to.
Mika I’m the first person you met in New York. There will be others. Nicer than me. Give yourself time…We’re getting ready to close. I have to get back to work. (goes to kitchen)
Alice (calling out to Mika) Is it all right if I come back here tomorrow?
Mika (calling from kitchen) Of course, it is. We’re open every day.
Alice, upset at the rejection, exits. Mika begins to clear tables.
Eve Mika, that can wait.
Mika I want to finish quickly. I have to study for my class tomorrow.
Eve I’ll finish for you. Come talk to me.
Mika Co sie stalo? o czym chcesz rozmawiac?
Eve In English.
Mika Why don’t you ever want to speak Polish with me?
Eve Would you speak French in China? Or Chinese in Spain?
Mika That’s not the same thing. The language is all I have left of my homeland. I left so young that my memories have all gone.
Eve Be grateful for that. I want to know why you were so rude to Alice. You can see she likes you.
Mika I wasn’t rude.
Eve Don’t you like her? It’s all right if you don’t, but you should tell her.
Mika I like her. There, are you satisfied?
Eve Now you’re being rude to me.
Mika Why don’t you mind your own business?
Eve Where is this coming from?
Mika I’m a terrible person.
Eve You’re a wonderful person. Look what you’re doing with your life, all by yourself—an immigrant, an orphan, a Jew.
Mika Please stop.
Eve Tell me what’s wrong….Mika….
Mika I’m a terrible person.
Eve You said that before, but you didn’t say why. I know life isn’t easy for you, for either of us, but we help each other. You make me so proud that you’re my friend. Now, why are you crying?
Mika I don’t want you to hate me.
Eve Why would I hate you?
Mika Oh, Eve, I lied to you.
Eve (teasing) You lied to me? Don’t tell me you’re not Polish? Are you Greek or Indian or maybe even Armenian….Is that it? Are you Armenian? That’s fine with me. I happen to like Armenians…
Mika I am Polish, that part is true.
Eve Then I don’t understand.
Mika I’m not Jewish.
Eve (stunned) Why did you pretend such a thing?
Mika I was afraid that you would turn me away.
Eve Because you’re not Jewish? You know me better than that.
Mika I’m sorry.
Eve Why are you telling me this now?
Mika Alice asks me all kinds of questions. I can’t lie to her. It’s too hard. And you, Eve, all these months. You trusted me. I don’t deserve your trust or Alice’s. You think I’m a good person, but I’m a liar.
Eve One silly lie. We won’t speak of it again.
Mika I’m not an orphan.
Eve You’re full of surprises tonight.
Mika My mother lives on East 85th Street. I think she still does.
Eve You don’t know?
Mika She threw me out of the house. I was too ashamed to tell you.
Eve It’s your mother who should be ashamed, not you. Why did she do this terrible thing to you?
Mika When I was 14, I went to my mother for help. I had feelings I didn’t understand. I wanted her to tell me that she loved me however I am. But she took the strap from the wall and beat me over and over. When she was too tired to continue, she told me to pray for release from my demon. She warned me not to speak of it to anyone, not even in confession. Every day after that, when I came home from school, she took the strap and beat me. I cried out, “I can’t help how I feel. I tried.” At the end of the week, I came home and found my clothes in a paper sack in front of the door, with a note that said to visit my sins somewhere else. I no longer had a mother.
Eve I’m so sorry. What did you do?
Mika Mrs. Bernstein lived next door and heard all the beatings. She called me into her apartment and gave me a piece of paper. She said, “Go to this place and tell them you’re Jewish, use my maiden name, Frank. Tell them your mother died from the flu, and you have no one else in the world.” I did what she told me.
Eve Where did you go?
Mika I went to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum on Amsterdam Avenue. Whenever they asked me for papers or my old address, I would cry, and eventually they stopped asking. I lived there until I turned 18. Then I came to the Village, and last year I met you. Everything after that is true.
Eve Mika. My little sister. Some of us have to make our own families. They can be better because we choose them. I think we are both very lucky to have each other.
Mika I love you, Eve.
Eve I love you, too. And now, you have Alice in your life.
Mika I don’t know.
Eve You like her, don’t you?
Mika I think I could love her.
Eve Have you told her?
Mika I’m afraid.
Eve Don’t be afraid to love. Tell her. Trust yourself. Trust her.
Mika I want to.
Eve Tell her soon. Now, go home. Spij dobrze.
Mika Good night, Eve. Thank you.
Eve There’s no need to thank me. Just go home. Dobranoc.
End of scene
Scene Six The tearoom. A short time later (after closing). Eve is alone. Margaret enters.
Eve I’m sorry. We’re closed. I should have locked the door.
Margaret I couldn’t get here sooner. I ran all the way. Could I sit for a minute?
Eve Of course.
Eve goes to a table, pulls a chair out for Margaret to sit and joins her at the table. Margaret Can I ask you a question?
Eve Go ahead.
Margaret It’s a little personal. I hope you don’t mind.
Eve I won’t know until you ask.
Margaret All right, here it is. Why do you run a business that you know will lose money?
Eve I don’t know that. Why do you ask? Why do you care?
Margaret My Pop had a tavern downtown. One week of prohibition and he closed up shop. Selling soft drinks and pretzels don’t pay the rent. Two weeks later he left us. He went as far away as he could get—all the way to Alaska.
Eve I’m sorry.
Margaret Me, too. You remind me of my Ppp a little.
Eve How is that?
Margaret Even before the country went dry, he gave away too many drinks, let people run up tabs he knew they would never pay. It didn’t matter that his wife and kids went without.
Eve I have no wife and kids.
Margaret (smiles) Neither do I. I wouldn’t mind, though, coming home to a hot meal and a warm bed. What I said about you and my pop, I didn’t mean that you’re not a caring person. I left out the part that his smile could make everything right with the world.
Eve I don’t have that power.
Margaret You underestimate yourself. (pause) I told you my story. I want to know about you.
Eve I’m nothing special.
Margaret I’ll decide that for myself. How did you get from where you were born to America, to the Village?
Eve The usual way. By boat.
Margaret Seriously, where did you come from?
Eve From Europe.
Margaret You’re gonna keep giving me a hard time, aren’t you? I deserve it, asking so many questions. I want to know you better, is all. I heard you speaking a language that I didn’t know. I can recognize Italian or German from the neighborhood.
Eve I was speaking Polish.
Margaret You’re from Poland.
Eve It depends on what year you ask me. This year it’s Poland. Next year, who knows? You stand still, and the country changes.
Margaret I was never much for geography. I know where New York is, but north of 14th Street and I’m lost. Oh, I can find Ireland on a map, of course. What’s it like where you’re from?
Eve That depends on who’s in power—Poles, Ukrainians, Germans. But if you’re Jewish, nothing changes.
Margaret You’re a Jew. I never talked this long to a Jew, a Jewish person. In the neighborhood, we have Jews, Jewish people, but everybody sticks to their own kind. Me, I’m Irish, in case you couldn’t tell from the face and hair. Jeez, you know something? I just realized that I was born here, and you talk English better than me, you being a writer and all. If I talked like you in the neighborhood, they’d have beat me up.
Eve Why would they do that?
Margaret They would say I was putting on airs. Now I wished I learned better anyway, so I wouldn’t feel embarrassed talking to you.
Eve There’s no need for that.
Margaret Just the same…
Eve You say what you think, and I understand what you say.
Margaret That’s a compliment, coming from you.
Eve Not everyone speaks their mind. I admire your honesty.
Margaret There’s nothing to admire.
Eve Everyone has good and bad points.
Margaret So far, I don’t see any of your bad points.
Eve And you don’t seem to see your own good ones.
Margaret I guess I don’t. I’ve been that way all my life, running myself down about one thing or another.
Eve You should look in the mirror more often.
Margaret Now you’ve got me blushing. I’m probably red as a beet, aren’t I?
Eve Maybe a little. I do see some, what are they called? Spots. Right across the top of your nose.
Margaret Freckles. That’s the Irish in me. No amount of makeup can cover them all.
Eve Why would you want to cover them?
Margaret I was always teased about them when I was a kid. Joey Falconelli used to say, ‘Let’s connect the dots on Margaret’s face.’
Eve That’s terrible. Very cruel.
Margaret They didn’t dare to actually do it, I got four older brothers, but it hurt just the same when the kids laughed. Jeez, I haven’t thought about that in years. Here I wanted to know all about you, and instead I’m talking about myself again. You’re a good listener.
Eve You have to be, in the business I’m in.
Margaret So, you’re only doing your job. Here I thought maybe it was my fascinating personality.
Eve It is. It definitely is.
Margaret I’ll pretend you mean that. Tell me about Poland.
Eve I’m not in Poland anymore.
Margaret I guess Jews are nothing like the Irish. We talk about the potato famine in the old country all the time, like it was yesterday, not almost 100 years ago. It must have been hard for you in Poland if you came here.
Eve That’s a good guess.
Margaret Don’t tell me you don’t think about it sometimes. Jew or Irish, your roots are always back home… I really want to know. …I’m sorry. You hardly know me, and I’m asking personal questions. Maybe it’s because I felt from the beginning like there was something between us, like I knew you my whole life. I never felt like that with any woman. I got only brothers. Maybe you didn’t feel the same. I shouldn’t assume that you did. I’m sorry.
Margaret turns away. When Eve starts to talk, she sits down again.
Eve In Poland in 1880, a boy of 5 lived in a small village. He was hidden in the stove by his father, who told him to stay there. His mother said not to make a sound or the babayka will get you.
Margaret What is that?
Eve It’s like the bogeyman. They closed the door, leaving him alone. When the fear got too much, he didn’t cry, he remembered the promise he made his mother. When he was hungry, he felt in the darkness for crumbs left from the morning’s baking. It was the loneliness that finally made him open the door and step to the floor. In the kitchen were the bodies of his mother and father. In the next room were the bodies of his two sisters, naked from the waist down.
Margaret Jeez. Eve He found the lace tablecloth that his mother saved for special occasions below the ransacked drawers of the cupboard. He used it to cover his sisters’ privacy. Then he left the house and wandered into the street. A kind neighbor took him in his wagon all the way to the boy’s aunt and uncle in Lodz. It was only when the neighbor lifted him into the arms of his uncle, that the boy noticed that the man was wearing his father’s jacket—the one with the wooden buttons that looked like tiny barrels.
Margaret I hope he told his uncle.
Eve Why?
Margaret To do something.
Eve Do what? Call the police?
Margaret I don’t know. Maybe.
Eve Police were for goyim, not for Jews.
Margaret So what happened to him?
Eve Living with his aunt and uncle and cousin, there was not much food to go around. Still, with every bite, the boy willed himself to grow, to be a big man, bigger than his father had been, bigger than all the men in Lodz. And it happened. People in Lodz called him the gentle giant. The three little daughters of his cousin could sit on his lap at one time and be gathered in his loving arms. When the terror came in 1905, he sent everyone else to the hiding place. He stood in the doorway, his large frame blotting out the sun. After the attack, they found him bleeding from gunshots and stab wounds, but alive. When his wounds healed, he gathered the little girls in his arms and together, with his aunt and uncle and cousin, they left Poland and came to America.
Margaret Was that you? One of the little girls?
Eve It’s a story. I write stories.
Barbara Kahn (www.barbara-kahn.com • https://performingartslegacy.org/kahn/) is a multi-award winning playwright, director, actor, and coach. Her plays have been presented in the U.S. and Europe. She has directed in N.Y., Paris, and The National Theatre in London. Theater for the New City has been the primary NYC home for her plays since 1994. Her play The Lady Was a Gentleman was published in 2021 by Next Stage Press. Her most recent awards were a NY Acker Award and the Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award. Member: SAG-AFTRA, The Dramatists Guild, The Actors Fund Performing Arts Legacy Project, Honor Roll! Painted portrait of Barbara Kahn by Seth Ruggles Hiler.
It’s against the law to dress against your sex.
Alice
I don’t care. You could take my arm, Mika, and we could go anywhere.
You’re from Poland.
Eve
It depends on what year you ask me. This year it’s Poland. Next year, who knows? You stand still, and the country changes.
You’re a Jew. I never talked this long to a Jew, a Jewish person. In the neighborhood, we have Jews, Jewish people, but everybody sticks to their own kind. Me, I’m Irish, in case you couldn’t tell from the face and hair.