The Last Night of Ballyhoo

The Last Night of Ballyhoo (1996) is a comedy/drama play by American screenwriter and playwright Alfred Uhry. First performed in Atlanta, Georgia, it is set in the city’s past; specifically, in December 1939 at the onset of World War II. The story begins as Hitler overtakes Poland, depicting a wealthy assimilated Jewish family that remains naively unaware of the atrocity facing the Jewish people. As they anticipate Ballyhoo, a cotillion ball being thrown at their country club, Sunny, a college-aged member of the Freitag-Levy family, gradually becomes aware of the divisive rhetoric wearing away at Jewish identity, and of Hitler’s capacity to weaponize this division for his political and ideological ends. The play’s themes include intra-ethnic bias, the undermining of institutions such as marriage, and the harsh coming-of-age experienced by young Jews, both religious and secular, during this time.

The play takes place in Atlanta’s German-Jewish community, remote from the worst of Hitler’s mounting campaign to exterminate the Jewish race. In their relative security, the Freitag-Levy family—proprietors of the successful Dixie Bedding Company—pass easily as wealthy Christians. They have a Christmas tree in their front room and belong to an elite country club. The family consists of Adolph, the patriarch; his sister, Boo, sister-in-law, Reba Levy, and Reba’s children, Lala and Sunny. The play’s first act opens with tension between Boo and Lala after Boo expresses worry that Lala has no date for Ballyhoo and has few prospects for marriage. Reba tells Boo that Sunny also has no date for the ball. Adolph enters, announcing that he has invited his new employee, a Jew named Joe Farkas, over for dinner. When Joe arrives, Lala invites him to join her at the premiere of Gone with the Wind later that evening.

After dinner, the family asks about Joe’s plans for Christmas. Joe replies that his family celebrates Passover. Though the Levys don’t regularly celebrate Jewish holidays, they know of the tradition. Lala probes into Joe’s plans, hoping to figure out whether he will be around during Ballyhoo, a party attended mostly by wealthy Jews from all around the South. She again invites him to the movie, but Joe replies that he has to board a train early in the morning. When he departs, Boo refers to Joe as a “kike” with “no manners,” demonstrating the family’s internalized anti-Semitism.



The next scene takes place five days later aboard a train. Joe finds Sunny in a train compartment, explaining that Adolph asked him to check on her. Sunny asks Joe to go to Ballyhoo with her, but he deflects the question. In the next scene, Adolph awaits Sunny at the Freitag house, while expressing dismay about Hitler’s seizure of Poland. Boo tells him to worry about his family instead, complaining that he seems to favor her brothers over her. Lala’s potential suitor, Peachy Weil, calls the house but does not invite Lala to Ballyhoo. Later, Sunny and Reba have a conversation where Reba refers to Eastern European Jews as an “other kind.”

Boo and Lala attend Gone with the Wind. Afterward, while Joe and Sunny are alone, Joe asks her if her family is really Jewish. To prove that she is Jewish, Sunny tells Joe about a time a man told her to get out of the pool at the Venetian Club because Jews are not allowed. Joe asks Sunny to go to Ballyhoo with him. Resentful of Sunny’s success, Lala asserts that she is at least going with a Louisiana Jew who belongs at Ballyhoo, while Sunny is going with a “New York Yid.” Privately, Lala worries that Peachy Weil has not formally asked her yet.

Act 2 opens the following day. Boo calls Peachy’s cook and learning that Peachy left for Atlanta with his tuxedo, concludes that he must be asking Lala to Ballyhoo. Boo and Lala shop for a dress, picking out an ugly hoop skirt. Sunny and Joe return from their date. Joe accidentally tears Lala’s dress while dancing with her; Boo and Lala leave to repair it. Adolph gives Joe tickets to Ballyhoo, which he gets for free because he was once the club’s president.



On Christmas Day, after the family opens their presents, Peachy Weil arrives and invites Lala to Ballyhoo. The next evening, while the girls await Peachy and Joe, the men speak vaguely about the war in Europe. Peachy expresses little concern about what is happening there. Joe and Peachy appear and they all depart for Ballyhoo. At the ball, Lala and Sunny convene in the ladies’ room. Peachy tells Joe that another club exists called the Progressive Club, which accepts non-German Jews. Joe feels guilty for being at a club where he is technically excluded. Angry, he leaves without telling Sunny. Later, he tells Sunny that he wishes he had not been invited to a club that discriminates against Jews. Sunny replies that she believes it would make no difference. Joe tells Sunny that she has a hatred of Jews. The doorbell rings: Lala arrives, with the ecstatic announcement that Peachy has proposed to her.

The play’s last scene opens one week after Ballyhoo. Sunny is on a train about to depart for Wilmington, Delaware, and again Joe finds her. This time, he claims to have found her only because he happened to be traveling on the same train for work, and because Sunny’s father asked him to check on her. Eventually, he admits that he desperately wanted to see her. They both apologize and share a kiss. As the train prepares to leave, Joe says goodbye, telling her that they have the whole future ahead of them. Sunny imagines lighting the Sabbath candles with her whole family around her, including Peachy, Lala, and Joe.