The Wesker Trilogy: Chicken Soup with Barley
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by Arnold Wesker
Directed by John Dexter
First performance: 7th June 1960 (22 performances)
Sarah Kahn . . . . . . . Kathleen Michael
Harry Kahn . . . . . . . Frank Finlay
Monty Blatt . . . . . . . Alan Howard
Dave Simmonds . . . . . . . Mark Eden
Prince Silver . . . . . . . Charles Kay
Hymie Kossof . . . . . . . John Colin
Cissie Kahn . . . . . . . Cherry Morris
Ada Kahn . . . . . . . Ruth Meyers
Ronnie, As A Boy . . . . . . . Michael Phillips
Ronnie Kahn . . . . . . . David Saire
Bessie Blatt . . . . . . . Patsy Byrne
Chicken Soup with Barley was first performed at The Belgrade Coventry on the 7th of July 1957 and the following week at The Royal Court. Wesker had planned that it would be the first in a trilogy of plays. The second play Roots was also performed first at The Belgrade and then at The Court. In 1960 with I'm Talking About Jerusalem all three were performed at The Court as The Wesker Trilogy.
The play spans twenty years - 1936 to 1956 - in the life of the communist Kahn family: Sarah and Harry, and their children, Ada and Ronnie.
Beginning with the anti-fascist demonstrations in 1936 in London's East End and ending with the Hungarian uprising in 1956, the play explores the disintegration of political ideology parallel with the disintegration of a family.
It is the son, Ronnie, who is the most deeply affected and turns on his mother who insists on remaining a communist. Her reply ends the play on a note of desperate optimism.
