Ronald Fischman

Dimitri, a child conceived in the Soviet Union and born in Philadelphia, can get whatever he wants for the asking: women, music gigs, students, even careers. It’s all too easy for him. To escape the pressures of his immigrant parents, he take the first plane out of high school to Israel for an accompanist gig. At 17, Dimitri takes the leading lady to bed after the first rehearsal.

Rafi, a child of the Kibbutz, is a talented conductor with a commanding voice, so he is chosen to conduct the rehearsals for The Dybbuk, where he befriends Dimitri. In daily kibbutz life, Rafi finds that he cannot accept the rift between what is taught in class and how the young kibbutzniks act. Tired of being thought of as a freier, a “free lunch,” Rafi yo-yos between Israel and the US. Ever the idealist, Rafi finds that the fall of the Soviet Union crushes something in his spirit.

Anna, a stunner who grew up in the shadow of the Volcan la Malinche in Puebla, Mexico, is the girl who has it all – including the hole created by her mother abandoning her when she was eight. Precocious, she finishes two undergraduate degrees and creates her own theater company while getting pregnant, married, divorced, and with a baby to care for 24/7. A turn of luck, and her business acumen, sends her on a meteoric rise through the Mexican business world. But the hole in her soul remains unfilled. She cannot drink enough beer to fill it.

Ruined, Anna heads off to the US under a student visa. If she cannot find what she is looking for, she will drink herself to death out of view of her son. She posts an online personal, to which both Dimitri and Rafi respond. Who gets the girl? Whose job is it to help Anna fill the hole that her abandonment left in her life?

3 Through History: Love in the Time of Republicans explores the question no one asks: “How did we get here?” This character-driven drama strides the upheavals of the late twentieth century and the Al-Qaeda Era, providing the back story to the seventy-two hours during which the love triangle peaks.