Jack
[Eagerly. He does not realize how far from home he has traveled in five years. For this instant he really thinks that he understands what is hurting his father—that he can explain it in a few words]. You’re right, Papa. I am the same. You did teach me to sing songs of prayer. And I sang them here for you. But when I got out on the street with the other kids, I found myself singing the same songs they sang. And they’re very much alike,—our songs—and the street songs. Well, listen—[He sings “Ain Kelohenu,” a Hebrew prayer tune. He sings four bars of it, swiftly, with feeling. And then, suddenly, to exactly the same tune and with exactly the same plaintiveness but with a new rhythm and shaking his shoulders, he sings a popular song.]
“Nothing ever hurries me,
Nothing ever worries me,
Easy come,
Easy go,
It’s all the same to me!”
I just got them mixed, Papa—See?
[This does not have quite the effect which Jack innocently had hoped for. The Cantor, shocked, has sunk into the settee. Sara, frantic in her eagerness to avert the swiftly impending disaster, is fluttering between Jack and his father. She is too excited to know what she is saying.]
Sara