The Company of Angels
by Alan Brody

THE COMPANY OF ANGELS follows eight Holocaust survivors who form a Yiddish theater company in Poland in 1946. The story begins in Lodz, where survivors post desperate messages searching for lost family members.

Act I introduces us to Rochel Kremer (daughter of a murdered theater owner), Leib Arnovsky (a director haunted by loss), and Mordecai Solomon (a former partisan with a secret mission). Together with dancers Max Silver and Eleazer Goldstein, musician Chaim Marx, and actresses Duna Gortner and young Esther Mendel, they form "The Yiddish Musical Chamber Theater."

Their production "Yesterday and Today" combines classic Yiddish theater (Sholem Aleichem's "The Lottery Ticket") with contemporary songs and ends with the audience singing the Partisan's Song together. The company provides both entertainment and emotional healing to displaced Jews across Poland.

Beneath the theatrical mission runs a parallel story: Mordecai secretly works with the Bricha, smuggling Jewish children out of Poland to Palestine. When a ship carrying 164 children and 49 elderly people is turned away by the British and sinks, the personal becomes political.

Act II follows the company's escape to Munich, where they perform in displaced persons camps. They encounter both supporters and opponents, including a traumatized rabbi who argues that hope is blasphemy after the Holocaust. As the company gains success and American military support, tensions arise within the group.

The climactic moment comes with news that the United Nations has voted to create Israel. This joyous occasion also marks the beginning of the end for the company, as the displaced persons camps start closing and survivors begin emigrating to new homes worldwide.

The play concludes with the company's final performance: a live radio broadcast in Yiddish on German radio - the first since the Nuremberg Laws. It's both a triumph and a farewell, as each member must choose their own path forward. Some go to Israel, others to America, each carrying the memory of their brief time as "a company of angels" who used art to affirm life in the shadow of genocide.

The play explores themes of survival, artistic purpose, faith after trauma, and the tension between collective memory and individual healing. It's ultimately about how art can serve as both witness to horror and vehicle for hope.