Broken Hearts

Benjamin is a man defined by the dangerous power of his own words. In the suffocating atmosphere of Czarist Russia, his 'objectionable' writings make him a target of the state, forcing a desperate flight to America. He leaves behind his wife, the anchor of his old life, and disappears into the teeming, chaotic sprawl of New York City’s Lower East Side. When a friend delivers the crushing news that his wife has died in the old country, Benjamin’s spirit breaks. In an attempt to find some semblance of stability, he enters into a cold, joyless marriage with the daughter of a temple cantor—a woman who views him with nothing but disdain. The tragedy deepens into absurdity when he discovers the report of his first wife’s death was a lie; she is alive, still in Russia, and suddenly Benjamin is a man trapped between two worlds and two lives. It is a story of exile, the fallacy of the American Dream, and the ghosts that follow us across oceans.