Chapter XV: The Jewish Theatre

In the beginning of the eighteenth century two plays written in Judeo-German appeared in print, 'The Sale of Joseph' and the 'Ahasuerus-play.'[111] They were intended for scenic representation on the feast of Purim, which even before that time had been given to mimic performances. These mysteries, together with another written at about the same time, 'David and Goliath,' have held uninterrupted sway up to our own time wherever the Jargon has been spoken. Schudt has left us in his 'Jüdische Merkwürdigkeiten'[112] a detailed account of the popularity of one of these plays from the start, of the manner of its performance at the house of the Rabbi of Mannheim, of the formation of the first travelling company for the execution of the drama at other towns, and many other interesting facts connected with it. These mysteries differ little from the coarse comedies and burlesques current at the time among the Gentiles, from whom, no doubt, many of the details were borrowed. Soon many imitations of the original 'Ahasuerus-play'[113] and 'The Sale of Joseph' came to rival the older plays in popularity. Of the first a form is known to me in which the Leckerläufer is substituted for the original Pickleherring, the grotesque harlequin, while of the second I possess at least two widely different versions, not to speak of Zunser's large drama of the same subject. Altogether, this matter has not, as far as I know, been properly investigated, so that little can be said with certainty about the relations that they bear to each other. 'The Sale of Joseph,' or 'The Greatness of Joseph,' as it is frequently called, was translated at the end of the last or the beginning of this century into Judeo-German by Elieser Pawier from the original Hebrew under the title 'Milchomo be-Scholom.' It is a much more serious production than the older work, and this, rather than the one printed in 1710, has lain at the foundation of future adaptations. At least one, the versified drama under the name of 'Geschichte vun Mechiras Jōssef u-Gdulas Jōssef,' published in 1876 in Jusefov, distinctly claims to be a translation from the same Hebrew source. How many such plays have been actually performed it is not possible to determine now without a more careful inquiry among older men in various parts of Russia. There have just come to light a number of mysteries once popular in the Government of Kowno, while some have been printed within our own days. Such, for example, is 'The Book of the Wisdom of Solomon,' which is based on the Biblical story of Solomon's life, but which contains also Talmudical commentaries on certain facts connected with his reign. The latest, and by far the best, drama on the 'Sale of Joseph' comes from the pen of Zunser, who not only has given it a literary finish, but has perused all the sources that throw any light on several difficult points connected with the play, and has furnished in some perplexing problems solutions of his own, so as to make the whole uniform and historically correct. In his introduction he mentions a few important facts about the popularity of the subject, and the manner of its performance, or recitation. He says: "No other story from our Holy Scripture has made such an impression or has become so known to the masses of the Jews as the 'Sale of Joseph.' ... As far back as we can remember it has been played among us by beggar-students, or by the old-fashioned badchens at weddings."

It is not uncommon to see a performance of this play given at the present time in some small town. The actors are generally the beggar-students who have to play both the male and female parts, as no women are allowed to perform together with the men. Some large unoccupied room is furnished with benches on which the sexes are generally seated separately. The stage is of the most primitive character, without decorations of any kind; and the actors like to parade in fantastic clothes which have nothing in common with the historical truth. Either the whole of the play, or at least certain passages are sung according to traditional tunes. In the 'Sale of Joseph' it is always the monologue of Joseph before his mother's grave upon which the greatest care is bestowed, as it is the most pathetic part of the drama. It is probably the prototype of M. Gordon's ballad of 'The Stepmother' and similar popular versions, for in them, as in Gordon's version, Joseph's mother sends up her consoling words to her son from her grave. An excellent description of such a performance is given in Dienesohn's 'Herschele,'[114] where the hero of the novel plays the part of Joseph.

These mysteries are not the only form of histrionic art. On the Purim, many masqueraders may be seen passing from house to house, followed by a curious crowd of children, anxious to catch a glimpse of the strange mummery of men and impossible animals. In some places the children and even grown persons manage to enter the house either by sheer force, or under the proverbial pretext that they are the "bear's brother." The actors begin in a chanting way: "Good evening, my good people, do you know what Purim means?" after which they proceed with the explanation and the performance of some grotesque scene. Each group has its own Purim play, which is generally some unrecognizable fragment of the 'Ahasuerus-play,' but frequently also some original production which is jealously guarded from being imitated by rival boy performers. There is no merit in them, but an investigation even of this form of the Purim play might bring out some interesting points or bits of antiquity. The length of the burlesque is graded according to the expectation of the final monetary reward, to which they allude with the stereotyped phrase: "The play is out, give us a coin, and throw us out of doors!"[115]

The possibility is not excluded that in addition to this semi-religious form of the drama, there may also have been given performances of profane plays at an early date in Russia. It is not known whether any of the dramas written by Aksenfeld, Gottlober, or Ettinger have been played by amateur actors, but we have at least one well-attested case of a performance of that kind in 1855,--twenty years before the establishment of the Judeo-German theatre by Goldfaden. In that year the students of the Zhitomir Rabbinical school celebrated the coronation of Emperor Alexander II. by a play in which the life of the Jewish soldier and the kahal were depicted. This drama is said to have been written by one Kamrasch, but never to have been printed. It is also asserted that it served as the first impulse to Goldfaden to create a Jewish theatre, which, however, he realized only much later.

There existed a dramatic literature long before Goldfaden. We have had occasion to mention the works of Ettinger, Aksenfeld, Gottlober, Abramowitsch, Falkowitsch, Levinsohn, Epstein. After the popular poetry a semi-dramatic style was better calculated to impress the people with the new culture than simple prose, which at that time had not been well worked out. Nearly all of the prose style of the early days is more or less affected by the drama, and even Abramowitsch has not entirely got away from it. Nearly all of his stories are introduced by the stereotyped words: "Says Mendele Mōcher Sforim," and there are other similar dramatic effects scattered through them. This, which is an imitation of Hebrew originals, has also been the usual way of introduction with other Judeo-German writers of the early days. The drama of Ettinger is entirely constructed after the manner of a German play, has five acts, and the laws of dramaturgy are carefully carried out. It really looks as though he had intended it for the stage. In Aksenfeld the adaptation to the stage is less apparent, while the others do not seem to have had the performance of their plays in mind at all. What is surprising is that Aksenfeld and Gottlober should have introduced in their dramas a number of couplets and songs which have no meaning unless they were meant to be sung by the actors. Possibly they followed the precedent of familiar German plays even in this particular, without any other purpose before them; or it may be that they foresaw the possibility of their future representation and thought it best to imitate the Purim plays, which had always some songs intermingled with the spoken dialogue of the actors.

In 1872 Goldfaden published two of his comedies.[116] The first, 'The Two Neighbors,' is a splendid farce, in which two women are discussing the prospective marriage of their two babies playing on the floor. The children get to fighting, and one of them is hurt. This changes the tone of their mothers, and they heap curses on each other in the vilest manner. The other, 'Aunt Sosie,' is the best he has ever written. We do not find in it the rant of his later dramas, and the subject is taken strictly from Jewish life. Aunt Sosie is a woman of the type of Serkele. She is anxious to get her sister married, and maltreats her husband's niece. Her husband is under her thumb. By the aid of his friend Ispanski he manages to cheat his wife and to get his niece married to his wife's brother. Sosie is about to marry her sister to a Lithuanian Jew, a cloak-maker, who is already married to another woman. His lawful wife comes in time to prevent the bigamy of her husband. It is easy to see that the whole is a close imitation of Ettinger's comedy.

During the Turco-Russian War, in 1876 and 1877, the city of Bukarest in Roumania presented a lively spectacle. It was the seat of the Russian staff, and all the news from the field of war was carried there, and all the contracts for the commissariat were let there. The city swarmed with Jews from Russia and Galicia, who had come there to find, in one way or another, some means to earn a fortune. Bukarest became a Mecca of all those who did not succeed at home. And, indeed, as long as the war lasted most of them managed to fill their pockets. With the easily gotten gains there came also a desire to be amused, and coffee-houses were crowded by Jews who came to them to listen to the songs of some local ballad singer. It was also not uncommon for such singers to give performances of their art in private houses to assembled guests. Goldfaden had also come there in the hope of bettering his condition. It occurred to him that he might widen the activity of the balladists by uniting several of them into a company for the sake of theatrical performances. This he did at once. Bearing in mind the fact that Jews had not been used to the regular drama, but that they were fond of music, he wrote hurriedly half a dozen light burlesques, mostly imitations of French originals, in which the songs written and set to music by him were the most important thing. There is no other merit whatsoever in the plays, as their Jewish setting is merely such in name, and as otherwise the plot is too trivial.[117] But the songs have survived in the form of popular ballads. It is interesting to note that this first Roumanian troupe consisted exclusively of men, who had also to take the women's parts.

After the conclusion of the war, in 1878, Goldfaden returned to Odessa, where he established a regular Jewish theatre.[118] Women were added to the personnel, and a number of writers began to write plays specially adapted for the stage. Katzenellenbogen, Lerner, Schaikewitsch, Lilienblum, and the founder of the theatre were busy increasing the repertoire. Of these, Katzenellenbogen was the most original and most literary. It does not appear that his dramas have been printed, but the songs taken out of several of them and issued by him in a volume of his poetry attest a high merit in them. Lerner was satisfied with reproducing some of the best German plays in a Jewish garb. Of these he later published, 'Uncle Moses Mendelssohn,' a one-act drama; a translation of Gutzkow's 'Uriel Acosta'; a rearrangement of Scribe's 'The Jewess'; and a historical drama, 'Chanuka,' of which the original is not mentioned by him. The dramas of the other two are quite weak, but they do not yet indicate that degree of platitude which they have reached later in America. The success of the theatre was complete. The original company divided in two, and one part began to play independently under the leadership of Lerner, while the other started on a tour through the Jewish cities of Russia, visiting Kharkov, Minsk, and even Moscow and St. Petersburg. In many towns they were received with open hands, in others the intelligent classes saw in the formation of a specifically Jewish theatre a menace to the higher intelligence which was trying to emancipate itself from the Judeo-German language and all its traditions. They went so far as to get the police's prohibition against the performances of Goldfaden's troupe.

This procedure was only just in so far as it affected the character of the plays, for there was nothing in them to recommend them as means of elevating or educating the masses. They had had their origin at a time when amusement was the only watchword, and they had had no time to evolve new phases. Seeing that in order to succeed he would have to furnish something more substantial than his farces, Goldfaden produced in succession three historical dramas: 'Doctor Almosado,' 'Sulamith,' and 'Bar-Kochba,' to which at a later time were added 'Rabbi Joselmann, or the Persecution in Alsace,' 'King Ahasuerus, or Queen Esther,' and 'The Sacrifice of Isaac,' and a fantastic opera, 'The Tenth Commandment.' None of these are, properly speaking, dramas, but operas or melodramas. They have at least the merit of being placed on a historical or Biblical basis and of following good German models. Their popularity has been very great, and the many songs which they contain, especially those from 'Sulamith' and 'Bar-Kochba,' rank among the author's best and most widely known. The latter two operas were translated into Polish, and given in a theatre in Warsaw. Just as the Jewish theatre was entering on its new course of the historical drama, the Government, by a rescript of September, 1883, closed them in Russia, and this was followed later by another prohibition of Jewish performances at Warsaw, where the first law had been obviated by giving them in the so-called German theatre.

About that time two young men, Tomaschewski and Golubok, of New York, started a theatre in New York. The troupe consisted of actors who had just arrived from London, where they found it too difficult to establish themselves. The first performance was given in the Fourth Street Turner Hall. As formerly in Russia, the Reformed Jews of the city used their utmost efforts to prevent the playing of a Jewish comedy, but in vain. It was given in spite of all remonstrances and threats. After that the theatre was permanently established in the Bowery Garden, under the name of the Oriental Theatre, which soon passed under the directorship of J. Lateiner. In 1886 another theatre, The Roumania Opera House, was opened in the old National Theatre, at 104-106 Bowery. It would not be profitable to enter into the further vicissitudes of the companies, their jealousies and ridiculous pretensions at equalling the best American troupes. Unfortunately, the authors upon whom they had to depend for their repertoires were Lateiner, Hurwitz, and other worthy followers of Schaikewitsch, who by rapid steps brought the Jewish stage down to the lowest degrees of insipidity. Not satisfied with producing dramas from a sphere they knew something about, they began to imitate, or rather corrupt, existing foreign plays, to give foolish versions of 'Mary Stuart,' 'Don Carlos,' 'Trilby,' and similar popular dramas. There were, indeed, some men who might have saved the stage from its frightful degeneration, but the theatre managers would not listen to them, preferring to pander to the low taste of the masses by giving them worthless productions that bore some distant resemblance to the performances in the lower grades of American theatres.

Only during a short period of time, early in the nineties, it looked as though things were going to be improved, for the managers accepted a number of adaptations and original plays by J. Gordin. Gordin belonged to that class of educated men who, though they had been carried across the ocean with one of the waves that bore the Jewish masses from Russia to the shores of the United States, had never stood in any relation whatsoever to their fellow-emigrants. He had been a Russian journalist, and in America he was confronted with the alternative of devoting himself to Judeo-German literature or starving. He naturally chose the first. Although he had had a good literary training, he had never before written a word in the vernacular of his people. At first he tried himself in the composition of short sketches from the life of the Russian Jews, and finding that his articles found a ready acceptance with the Judeo-German press, he attempted dramatic compositions. He has translated, adapted, or composed in all more than thirty plays, of which, however, only one has been printed. As his large variety of dramas give a good idea of the condition of the stage during its best period, they will be shortly mentioned here. Among the translations we find Ibsen's 'Nora'; among the adaptations we have Victor Hugo's 'Ruy Blas,' 'Hernani'; Lessing's 'Nathan the Wise'; Schiller's 'Kabale und Liebe,' under the name of 'Rōsele'; 'The Parnes-chōdesch,' from Gogol's 'The Inspector'; 'Elischewa' and 'Dworele,' imitations of two of Ostrovski's comedies; Grillparzer's 'Medea'; and 'Meir Esofowitsch,' on a subject taken from Mrs. Orzeszko's novel of the same name. Several of his plays display more original creative power. Of these it will suffice to mention: 'The Wild Man,' treating of the degeneration among the Jews; 'The Jewish Priest,' illustrating the struggle between the progressive Jews and the old orthodox factions; 'The Russian Jew in America,' dealing with the condition of the Russian Jews in New York; 'The Pogrom,' in which the late riots against the Jews in Russia are depicted.

Gordin and a few other men, such as Rosenfeld, Korbin, Winchevsky, might have introduced new blood and life into the Jewish drama, but the managers and the silly actors who in their pride permit their names to go down on the billboards as second Salvinis and Booths have willed otherwise. But then they are following in this the common course pursued by all dying literatures, and they are not, after all, to be blamed more than the public that permits such things, and the public in its turn is merely succumbing rapidly to the influence of American institutions, which before long will overwhelm peaceably, but none the less surely, the Jewish theatre and the Judeo-German language. Before the inevitable shall happen, they have attempted to cling to their old traditions; but it is only a very faint glimpse of their old life they are getting now, and in the very weak performances that one may still see on the Jewish stage there is already a great deal more of the reflex of their new home than the glow of their old. It is very doubtful whether the Jewish theatre can subsist in America another ten years.

Of late the theatre has been revived in Galicia and Roumania; if I am not mistaken, there exists also a Jewish theatre in Warsaw. The plays performed there are mainly the productions of Goldfaden, Lerner, and a few other writers of the older period. Occasionally a play is given there that has previously been played in New York. If the theatre is to survive in Europe, it will naturally develop quite independently from the American stage. It must remain more national if it is at all to be Jewish. And such we really find it to be. In addition to the several dramas mentioned throughout the book there might be added David Sahik's 'A Rose between Thorns' and Sanwill Frumkis's 'A Faithful Love,' which are among the best comedies produced in Judeo-German.

Excepting the peculiar development of the theatre in America, the Judeo-German drama has remained more or less a popular form of poetry. In the form of Goldfaden's farces we may see an evolution of the farcical Purim plays, while his historical dramas stand in very much the same relation to our time that the mysteries occupied two centuries ago. Similarly the theatre, even at its best, has remained of a primitive nature.