LEEDS NEWS
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Brenda always thought of herself as a daddy’s girl – until he murdered her mum
THE scenario of a man killing his wife and some time later marrying the woman’s older sister is the sort of storyline one would expect to see on Eastenders.
But this bizarre state of affairs really happened to Brenda Adelman, whose show My Brooklyn Hamlet made such an impact at this year’s festival.
Brenda insists that she came from a happy family background in spite of her father killing her mother and then marrying her aunt.
And throughout the nightmare and trauma that followed the killing, which took place during the high holy days, Brenda claims the act of forgiveness was the catharsis that sustained and helped her own wounds to heal.
Actress Brenda had already left the Brooklyn family home eight months previously and made a life for herself in Los Angeles.
When she was 30, Brenda received news that changed her life. Her father had shot her mother, a photographer, in the head at point-blank range.
“I really loved both my parents and I adored my father so much, I was always ‘daddy’s little girl’ – so I was in total shock.
“My father’s lawyer was with him after the shooting, but didn’t inform the police till some eight hours after the killing, by which time my mother had been cleaned up and there were no clues.”
Brenda went into denial. Her father argued he and his wife were fighting and struggling with the gun and it went off. Brenda claims there was a cover up because the gun, the one that her father always carried around with him, simply vanished.
“The police said it wasn’t suicide because there was no gun-powder on my mother’s hands and my father claimed he did not remember who pulled the trigger,” she said.
“Nothing made sense. But I held on to that little thing of who pulled the trigger.
“My father pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was given a sentence of just two and a half years.
“He was a wealthy man so he had good lawyers who also represented the Mafia. I just wanted closure, but every time I broached the subject of what happened he would brush it aside saying the past is the past and he didn’t want to talk about it.”
Brenda said her parents always had a love-hate relationship and there was a lot of domestic violence at home.
She recalled her father holding the gun to her mother’s head on a couple of occasions when she was a teenager.
But her mother told her later it was a regular occurrence. Brenda was in her early 20s when her mother decided to leave her father but the quirky bohemian photographer was soon to return.
Brenda said: “When my mother eventually took him back I just thought she must have been lying about continually being threatened with the gun because why would she return if he did that to her?”
After the tragedy it crossed Brenda’s mind that her mother might have been killed somewhere else, not necessarily in her bedroom, because there was no sign of blood anywhere.
“When the killing occurred I kept thinking that it was my fault and that I was damaged, because if these were my parents and I loved them so much how could this have happened. I came to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with me. So I was the one who felt guilty.”
The defining moment for Brenda came when her father got out of prison and said he was going to take his daughter to court. He was going to claim one third of the money that his wife had left Brenda in her will, because he felt the money was rightfully his.
“It was then I recognised that my father was not the man I thought he was; the dad I really wanted to have back in my life.
“And I realised I needed to move out of being a victim into acceptance and start taking my life back.”
This resulted in My Brooklyn Hamlet, Brenda’s one-woman play which she describes as “very entertaining, very tragic and very New York”.
She said: “I found acting the roles of my parents and aunt on stage became cathartic and from my point of view a sort of therapy to see what they were really like.”
Her introduction to the William Shakespeare went back to childhood when her mother read the great plays to her daughter as bedtime stories.
“After the tragedy I turned to Hamlet because there I found a soul mate; someone who had experienced the same things that I had,” she said. “It was really a salvation for me and I owe that to my mother.
“As a child there was always a part of me that knew it wasn’t right that my parents were treating each other this way. I knew the difference from right and wrong and in some way that kept me sane.”
Brenda firmly believes there was a bigger picture that she couldn’t see. She knew that in witnessing her parent’s relationship there was this tumultuous love-hate issue between them and, instead of taking responsibility for their own actions, they chose to blame each other for what went wrong.
“I also realised that my parents were flawed and I tried to find out why they were such unhealthy people,” she added.
Brenda also felt the time was right for her to forgive the unforgivable, which is what her show is all about. Performing her play with the Shakespearian connection in England is, she notes, like a dream come true.
“It is gratifying to know that my show opens the hearts of those who see it and causes many people to look within at their own hurt and anger,” said the 45-year-old New Yorker.
JOHN FISHER’S VIEW: For some children having wacky parents can be a whole heap of fun.
For Brenda, it was just the norm; she claims to have had an idyllic childhood loving deeply both her mother Barbara and her father Jerry.
But it was evident from the unfolding events in Brenda’s one woman show My Brooklyn Hamlet that her family was to some extent out of the ordinary.
Not every three-year old has a daddy willing to teach his little girl to drive a Cadillac, for instance.
All credit due to him then for waiting till she was six to show her how to shoot a 38-calibre Smith and Wesson.
‘A family that shoots together stays together’ was his family motto.
And instead of Cinderella or Rapunzel, Brenda’s smoke-piping bohemian photographer mother used to read the works of Shakespeare as bedtime stories when Brenda was a toddler.
Brenda’s way of dealing with her demons was through the capacity to forgive and this is the key element in this powerful story, because only through forgiveness could Brenda find her true self.
She shares with us the privacy of her pain with disarming honesty and takes us on an incredible journey as she compares her own story to that of the Bard’s Hamlet.
Both strands contain shadowy parallels that give this quirky saga a dynamic resonance.
Already the recipient of a Hero of Forgiveness award Brenda’s decision to forgive the unforgivable makes irresistible theatre.
There is much to admire in her performance, she has undeniable charisma and the play is both engaging and deeply moving.
But beyond this there lies a sense of mystery and a mystery that will never be solved.
And because of this it is the audience that is left with a longing for closure.
© 2010 Jewish Telegraph
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