PURIMACOLO, by playwright and NJCF fellow Ben Gassman, is a wild purimspiel in which the biblical Esther encounters Mussolini’s Jewish mistress, Margherita Sarfatti, just as racial laws are about to be passed in fascist Italy in 1938. The play wrestles with entanglements of Jewish power and Jewish fragility, and the tension between concern for community and instinctual self-preservation. It's a comedy.