Espionage in High C!
A contemporary St. Joan plays Ethel’s alter ego. We see the two young girls as they were and as they might be today – the Jewish “maidel” from New York and the Catholic “maid” from Domremy.” We see them and a host of other outrageous characters.
Ethel and her engineer husband, Julius Rosenberg, were executed in 1953. McCarthyism, witch hunts, perjury by witnesses (including Ethel’s own brother), and the two Rosenberg sons’ re-emergence as champions of their parents, continue to provoke debate. After over fifty years of silence, co-defendant Morton Sobell made worldwide headlines with his admission that he and Julius spied for Russia. Sobel also emphasized Ethel’s innocence. As he noted: “What was she guilty of? Of being Julius’s wife.”
The play (by Ethel’s distant cousin), encompasses this and more. Ethel was a talented singer who yearned for stardom. Could this dream and strong identification with Joan of Arc (whom she portrayed on stage) contribute to her untimely death at 37?
