Russian Culture and Theatrical Performance in America, 1891-1933 (Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History)

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE HISTORY is a series devoted to the best of theatre/performance scholarship currently available, accessible, and free of jargon. It strives to include a wide range of topics, from the more traditional to those performance forms that in recent years have helped broaden the understanding of what theatre as a category might include (from variety forms as diverse as the circus and burlesque to street buskers, stage magic, and musical theatre, among many others). Although historical, critical, or analytical studies are of special interest, more theoretical projects, if not the dominant thrust of a study, but utilized as important underpinning or as a historiographical or analytical method of exploration, are also of interest. Textual studies of drama or other types of less traditional performance texts are also germane to the series if placed in their cultural, historical, social, or political and economic context. There is no geographical focus for this series and works of excellence of a diverse and international nature, including comparative studies, are sought. The editor of the series is Don B. Wilmeth (EMERITUS, Brown University), Ph.D., University of Illinois, who brings to the series over a dozen years as editor of a book series on American theatre and drama, in addition to his own extensive experience as an editor of books and journals. He is the author of several awardwinning books and has received numerous career achievement awards, including one for sustained excellence in editing from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Also in the series: Undressed for Success by Brenda Foley Theatre, Performance, and the Historical Avant-garde by Günter Berghaus Theatre, Politics, and Markets in Fin-de-Siècle Paris by Sally Charnow Ghosts of Theatre and Cinema in the Brain by Mark Pizzato Moscow Theatres for Young People by Manon van de Water Absence and Memory in Colonial American Theatre by Odai Johnson Vaudeville Wars: How the Keith-Albee and Orpheum Circuits Controlled the Big-Time and Its Performers by Arthur Frank Wertheim Performance and Femininity in Eighteenth-Century German Women’s Writing by Wendy Arons Operatic China: Staging Chinese Identity across the Pacific by Daphne P. Lei Transatlantic Stage Stars in Vaudeville and Variety: Celebrity Turns by Leigh Woods Interrogating America through Theatre and Performance edited by William W. Demastes and Iris Smith Fischer Plays in American Periodicals, 1890–1918 by Susan Harris Smith Representation and Identity from Versailles to the Present: The Performing Subject by Alan Sikes Directors and the New Musical Drama: British and American Musical Theatre in the 1980s and 90s by Miranda Lundskaer-Nielsen

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Beyond the Golden Door: Jewish-American Drama and Jewish-American Experience by Julius Novick American Puppet Modernism: Essays on the Material World in Performance by John Bell On the Uses of the Fantastic in Modern Theatre: Cocteau, Oedipus, and the Monster by Irene Eynat-Confino Staging Stigma: A Critical Examination of the American Freak Show by Michael M. Chemers, foreword by Jim Ferris Performing Magic on the Western Stage: From the Eighteenth-Century to the Present edited by Francesca Coppa, Larry Hass, and James Peck, foreword by Eugene Burger Memory in Play: From Aeschylus to Sam Shepard by Attilio Favorini Danjūrō’s Girls: Women on the Kabuki Stage by Loren Edelson Mendel’s Theatre: Heredity, Eugenics, and Early Twentieth-Century American Drama by Tamsen Wolff Theatre and Religion on Krishna’s Stage: Performing in Vrindavan by David V. Mason Rogue Performances: Staging the Underclasses in Early American Theatre Culture by Peter P. Reed Broadway and Corporate Capitalism: The Rise of the Professional-Managerial Class, 1900–1920 by Michael Schwartz Lady Macbeth in America: From the Stage to the White House by Gay Smith Performing Bodies in Pain: Medieval and Post-Modern Martyrs, Mystics, and Artists by Marla Carlson Early-Twentieth-Century Frontier Dramas on Broadway: Situating the Western Experience in Performing Arts by Richard Wattenberg Staging the People: Community and Identity in the Federal Theatre Project by Elizabeth A. Osborne Russian Culture and Theatrical Performance in America, 1891–1933 by Valleri J. Hohman

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Russian Culture and Theatrical Performance in America, 1891–1933

Valleri J. Hohman

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RUSSIAN CULTURE AND THEATRICAL PERFORMANCE IN AMERICA, 1891–1933

Copyright © Valleri J. Hohman, 2011. All rights reserved. First published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–11368–8 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hohman, Valleri J., 1972– Russian culture and theatrical performance in America, 1891–1933 / Valleri J. Hohman. p. cm.—(Palgrave studies in theatre and performance history) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978–0–230–11368–8 (hardback) 1. Theater—United States—History—19th century. 2. Theater— United States—History—20th century. 3. Russians—United States— History—19th century. 4. Russians—United States—History— 20th century. 5. United States—Civilization—Russian influences. 6. Russian Americans—Intellectual life—History—19th century. 7. Russian Americans—Intellectual life—History—20th century. I. Title. II. Series. PN2248.H56 2011 792.0947⬘0973—dc22

2011014229

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: August 2011 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

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Contents List of Illustrations

vii

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

1

Part I

Russians in America: The Early Years

11

Part II

The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre

57

Part III Revolutionary Theatre: From Russia to America

101

Conclusion

139

Appendix: Representative U.S. Performances Featuring the Work of Theatre and Dance Artists from the Russian Empire

147

Notes

169

Bibliography

191

Index

205

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Illustrations 1

2

3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

Production photograph of The Kreutzer Sonata by Jacob Gordin, featuring Bertha Kalich, 1906. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC Production photograph of The Kreutzer Sonata by Jacob Gordin, produced by Harrison Grey Fiske, 1906. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC Alla Nazimova, publicity photo c. 1908. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC Otto H. Kahn. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC Ballets Russes publicity photo of Adolph Bolm in Schéhérazade, New York 1916. White Studio. Harvard Theatre Collection Morris Gest greets Nikita Balieff. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC 1925 Chauve-Souris Program Cover, Morris Gest rides behind Balieff as Napoleon. Harvard Theatre Collection Morris Gest greets Konstantin Stanislavsky. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC Neighborhood Playhouse production of The Dybbuk, 1925. Harvard Theatre Collection Program for Artef’s production of Dostigayev by Maxim Gorky. From the Archive of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York

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34

36 46 60

71 89 93 96 120

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Acknowledgments

F

irst, I must acknowledge the constant support of Thomas Postlewait, who for many years has been my mentor and adviser. Not only did he inspire the investigation, he also guided the initial stages of the project and encouraged me to develop and refine the work. His excellence as a scholar, a teacher, and a leader in the field of theatre studies has served as an inspiration to me for over a decade. I would like to thank Don B. Wilmeth, series editor, and Samantha Hasey, associate editor, for their suggestions and assistance throughout the publication process. I must thank several institutions for providing resources that enabled me to undertake the research for this book. Most recently, the University of Illinois offered funding through various resources, including the Humanities Research Board Released Time Award and the College of Fine and Applied Arts Creative Research Award. I would like to thank Robert Graves, Dean of the College of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Illinois. As a fellow theatre historian, he offered exceptional insight and straightforward advice for my project. He also supported my research trips and research released time, which enabled me to conclude my research and finalize the project. I also wish to thank Tom Mitchell and Brant Pope, who led the Department of Theatre while I was completing the project. I also received research grants from the University of Arizona and The Ohio State University that enabled me to undertake the archival research vital to this work. I express my wholehearted gratitude to the reference librarians and staff at the libraries I visited. I thank the many archivists, librarians, and staff members working in the special collections at the New York Public Library, the Boston Library, the Harvard Theatre Collection, the Princeton Library, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and Columbia University. I offer special thanks to Irina Kyliagin at the Harvard Theatre Collection for her findings on Tamara Daykarkhanova. I also wish to thank Jonathan Eaker, who provided me with nineteen remarkable images of a1906 production of Jacob Gordin’s The Kreutzer Sonata housed in the Library of Congress Prints and

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x

Acknowledgments

Photographs Archive. Jesse Aaron Cohen, archivist at YIVO, offered kind assistance in my search for materials on Artef. I thank Stuart Hecht and the New England Theatre Journal for permission to publish a revision of my essay on Morris Gest that appeared in the journal in 2003. While in attendance at The Ohio State University, where I completed my doctoral work, I received the support and rigorous feedback of the scholars there. I wish to thank Esther Beth Sullivan for her high expectations and her generosity. She remained a source of inspiration, and she always supported me and my work. I also thank Leslie Ferris, Joe Brandesky, Maria Ignatieva, Alan Woods, and Stratos Constantinidis for their guidance. My colleagues at the University of Illinois have offered endless support and advice while I have worked on this book. Esther Kim Lee, above all, has encouraged me on this path. When the hurdles seemed insurmountable, she reminded me that it could be done. Her friendship has been a constant source of support throughout this process. I would also like to thank Kathy Perkins for her advice on publishing and her excellent example; Peter Davis for his insights and sense of humor. I also wish to thank Regina Garcia, a wonderful designer who excitedly talked with me about Diaghilev and the artists who surrounded him, and Robert Anderson, an exceptional acting instructor, for reminding me that there were Russian-influenced artists inside my own theatre complex in Champaign-Urbana. Other colleagues including Wen-hai Ma, David Warfel, J. W. Morrisette, Lisa Gaye Dixon, Henson Keys, Karen Quisenberry, and Robert Ramirez have encouraged me along the way. As artists, they have helped me think about the work of the artists considered in this book. Prior to coming to the University of Illinois, I taught for a few years at the University of Arizona, where my colleagues Jerry Dickey and Judith Sebesta encouraged my work. I thank them for this. I would also like to thank my students, especially those who took my seminar in Russian Theatre in 2009. I found their questions and feedback useful in thinking about the issues and events in the book. I am grateful to have had two wonderful graduate research assistants, Olesia Shchur and Travis Stern. Both found invaluable materials and provided thoughtful feedback to my work. I am indebted to the University of Illinois Research Board for funding for my research assistant, Olesia Shchur, and I wish to thank the Slavic Department for recommending such a talented and sophisticated researcher. I would also like to acknowledge my Russian language instructor, Natalya Khokholova, whose insights and explanations aided me in this project. For his assistance as a translator of Jacob Gordin’s play The Kreutzer Sonata from the Yiddish, I thank Kurt Jacobson.

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Acknowledgments

xi

My work builds on the scholarship of many fine scholars in the field of theatre studies and related fields, especially those who write about Russian, Yiddish, or American theatre. The excellent work of Laurence Senelick, Sharon Carnicke, Spencer Golub, Catherine Schuler, Edna Nahshon, Joel Berkowitz, Harlow Robinson, Alexei Bartoshevich, Anatoly Smeliansky, Victor Borovsky, and Alma Law and many others, led to my own interest in this field. I also wish to thank Dassia Possner, Yana Meerzon, Maria Ignatieva, Barbara Henry, and Julia Walker who provided feedback to my work at conferences and upon my request. Along the way, I have encountered educators, before those at Ohio State, who had a significant impact on my path. My most remarkable mentors have been Laura Felty, Sarah Adkins, Bill Davis, Kevin McQuade, Kathy Perkins, Loren Logsten, Sharon Zeck, Elizabeth Reitz Mullenix, and Alvin Goldfarb. I must also acknowledge the Breadline Theatre Group of Chicago, IL, which sparked my interest in Meyerhold many years ago. I also wish to thank my family. They have always supported my education and my work. First of all, I thank my mother, Sylvia Robinson, who valued education and encouraged hard work. I thank my father, Ralph Robinson, Jr., who modeled hard work and provided the music. I thank my lovely sisters, Dr. Fonda Robinson and Stephanie Rice, for steady support and encouragement. And I also thank those who helped provide the foundation: Bert Salisbury, Jay and Geneva Salisbury, Gertrude Boggs, and Doshie Robinson. To my family, I add my friend Sumiko Yoneji, who helped me so much personally during the final stages of writing this book. To my dear husband, David, you provided the scaffolding. I couldn’t have written this book without your support. I thank you, most of all. To Grace and Isabelle, helping you learn to read and write and watching you grow has been my greatest pleasure. This book is for you.

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Introduction

I

n the Almanac of Russian Artists in America (1932), a compilation of biographies of 100 prominent Russian artists working in America, the editors claimed:

Few musical programs do not include, nowadays, Russian names, whether composers, or performers, or both . . . ; Russian dancers appear on the best theatrical stages; even Russian actors have lately begun to fill parts in the legitimate drama and on the screen . . . Go to the opera or to a musical show, and you will very often notice theatrical sets and costumes designed by Russians. It is highly significant, above all, that many non-Russian artists assume “Russianized” stage names to impress the public and ensure greater success.1

The editors published the almanac in an effort to celebrate the achievements of a number of Russian émigrés in America and to acknowledge the diverse impact Russians were having on the arts in the United States then. By the 1930s, in association with the performing arts, the term “Russian” signified high skill and technical proficiency, professionalism, bold experimentation, and artistic rigor. The Russian “trade mark,” so-called by the almanac editors, evoked a number of performance styles and traditions, but was understood to indicate “high standards and good taste.”2 Even as diplomatic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union stagnated and faltered, Americans increasingly celebrated, imitated, and adapted Russian theatrical performance. At the turn of the nineteenth century, few Americans were in contact with artists from the Russian Empire, but political events in Russia and improvements in transportation began to change this. Famine and pogroms in the Russian Empire from the 1880s forced mass emigration, and many arrived in the United States. Some immigrants, notably many of RussianJewish heritage, established literary circles and dramatic organizations and began to translate Russian dramas into English and present them for the American audience. At the same time, Americans, concerned about the harsh conditions in the tsarist empire, grew increasingly interested in Russian

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art, literature, drama, and the new arrivals in their country. By the first decades of the twentieth century, it seemed there was great enough interest in Russian art (and politics) and a large enough immigrant population to support Russian touring companies in major cities in the United States. Through Russian touring performances, steady emigration of Russians, and interest in Russian politics, Americans began to sample the diversity of modern Russian theatrical performance. Russian Culture and Theatrical Performance in America, 1891–1933 aims to chart the development of America’s interest in performing artists from the Russian Empire. The movement of people from Russia to the United States coincided with the advent of modernism in the American theatre. The study will examine ways in which progressive American artists and theatre critics were introduced to various elements of modern Russian theatre and drama through the press and through performance. While it is clear that European modernism, in general, and foreign-language theatres in the United States had an impact on the development of a broadly construed modernism in the American theatre, this book seeks to explore relationships between American artists, audiences, and critics and the performing artists of the Russian Empire. By focusing exclusively on relationships with artists from the Russian Empire, the book seeks to provide an understanding of the impact that travel between the two nations had on the American performing arts and cultural relations between the United States and Russia. Developments in Russian theatre, art, and literary theory made a profound impression on the performing arts in America in the twentieth century, most notably in theatre and dance in which Russian artists became allied to the most prestigious American schools and academies. When they immigrated to America, many Russian artists helped to establish training programs in the arts or worked as instructors in established ones. One of the most documented and influential of these schools was the American Laboratory Theatre, founded by Richard Boleslavsky and Maria Ouspenskaya, which helped to teach a version of Konstantin Stanislavsky’s approach to actor training to an influential generation of American artists. Less recorded Russian artists also started productive and influential schools for performers in New York and California, including Adolph Bolm of the Ballets Russes and David Vardi and Benno Schneider, who had both trained with Evgenii Vakhtangov and the Habima Theatre of Moscow. Some artists from the Russian Empire, such as Vardi and the Polish-born Boleslavsky, taught acting to American students at the Neighborhood Playhouse, founded by Alice and Irene Lewisohn, before establishing their own schools. Others were invited to teach movement, makeup, and dance at the Playhouse and

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Introduction 3 other theatres (such as the Theatre Guild and the Civic Repertory Theatre) in the late 1910s and 1920s. Artists from the Russian Empire were invited to direct or choreograph plays for established theatre and opera companies in the 1920s. Among the most celebrated artists who accepted the invitations were Theodore Komisarjevsky, Michel Fokine, Mikhail Mordkin, Adolph Bolm, Jacob Ben-Ami, Benno Schneider, and Benjamin Zemach. Russian scene designers and artists found success designing for opera, theatre, and ballet in America including, most actively, Boris Anisfeld, Nicholas Roerich, Serge Soudeikine, Nicolai Remisoff, Boris Aronson, and Mordecai Gorelick.3 Early in the cultural exchange between Russians and Americans, Russians were cast as the teachers, and Americans, especially American actors, were viewed as students. American theatre critics often urged American theatre artists to study their craft at the productions of Russian artists in America. Even as early as 1903, critics encouraged American artists to study theatrical craftsmanship by watching a production of a play by the Russian-born Yiddish author Jacob Gordin. As we shall see, suggestions that American artists should educate themselves with a visit to this or that Russian production appeared regularly in the press in the 1920s, and were, in fact, part of a publicity approach that influenced critics and artists.4 Modern American critics—impressed by the serious approach to even comic theatrical production, the ensemble playing, the athletic physicality, the professionalism of the artists, and/or the effectiveness of the design or makeup used in Russian productions—urged American artists to attend the theatre for an education in theatrical modernism. Many American theatre artists complied, some vigorously, and revealed a desire for systematic actor training, dance, and art programs in the various methods followed by the Russians. While the Stanislavsky influence on American theatre can hardly be overestimated, Stanislavsky’s importance and value to the American theatre has been well documented.5 In fact, the popular narrative of Russian theatrical influence in the United States focuses almost exclusively on the contributions of Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre actors who immigrated to America and taught acting based on Stanislavsky’s approach.6 Accounts of those émigrés’ work in America largely centers around the ways in which they represented Stanislavsky. The history of the narrative that emphasizes Stanislavsky’s influence and largely excludes conversations of other Russian artists can be traced back to the essays and books of Oliver M. Sayler, who worked as a press agent for Morris Gest, the producer responsible for bringing the Moscow Art Theatre to America in 1923 and 1924. Although Sayler did write about other Russian artists, he emphasized Stanislavsky’s role in

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the cultural exchange between Russians and Americans. Gest’s press agents worked very hard to ensure Stanislavsky became the star in America. Many Russian artists themselves, looking to capitalize on the fame and association with Stanislavsky or the Moscow Art Theatre might bring, perpetuated the problem of centering the discussion of Russian theatre in America on Stanislavsky. This narrative and practice was sustained as the Group Theatre, founded in 1931, rose to prominence in artistic and academic circles. Their famous debates around acting theory in relation to Stanislavsky maintained this focus. When in the 1960s, the Moscow Art Theatre performed again in America, the postperformance lectures, not surprisingly, centered on Stanislavsky. Though it would be impossible, and ill-advised, to write about Russian theatre in America without discussing Stanislavsky, I have tried to refocus the conversations around other subjects. Stanislavsky unavoidably emerges as a touchstone, but this book is not, ultimately, about him. In his autobiography, the actor Pavel Orlenev, who brought the first Russian touring company to America, wrote about his refusal to join the Moscow Art Theatre, on the advice of Anton Chekhov. “I fear the powerful influence of Konstantin Sergeevich,” the playwright allegedly told him.7 Orlenev worried that his individuality would be absorbed by the Moscow Art Theatre and the powerful artistic genius who guided its actors. The shadow Stanislavsky cast on the émigré artists associated with him certainly supports Orlenev’s reasoning for his cautious denial of the great offer. While it is valid, this narrative of Russian theatrical influence in the United States centers on Stanislavsky at the cost of overshadowing American interest in the work of other Russian artists during this period. Though many American artists were indeed shaped by their understanding of Stanislavsky’s approaches to acting and the organization of the Moscow Art Theatre, some were primed by an interest in Russian theatre and modernism that developed in Russian-Jewish émigré communities. Other American performing artists took classes or joined dance companies run by Russian émigré dancers such as Adolph Bolm or Theodore Kosloff. Some American artists were imitating the comic antics and revue format of Stanislavsky’s predecessor to the United States, Nikita Balieff, whose wildly popular cabaret performed in America throughout the 1920s. By 1926, American artists were also beginning to attempt productions using the bold theatrical styles of Soviet experimentation, which were being imported by a new wave of Russian émigrés and touring groups. Interest in Soviet experimentation is evinced also by the regular discussion of Meyerhold’s work in Theatre Arts Monthly in the mid-late 1920s, with several extensive articles written about his work by Americans visiting the Soviet Union. In the late 1920s,

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Introduction 5 members of early workers’ theatre groups and communist organizations in the United States were perhaps the most watchful of theatrical events in Soviet Russia. They imitated their Soviet counterparts, the Blue Blouses, in an effort to shape political events in the United States. As we shall see, they even celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Russian Revolution with Soviet-style mass pageants and historical spectacles. The purpose of this book is twofold. First, the book documents and charts the most significant Russian (and Russian-influenced) theatrical performances in the United States prior to the 1930s. Second, it provides an analysis of the American reception and adaptation of these performances within the dynamic period of social, political, and cultural change. Ultimately, it offers an explanation of the manifold ways in which Russians made a significant impression on the American theatre in the early part of the twentieth century. If the Russian “trade mark” held a lofty association for American moderns, what made it so? Individual Russian artists came to America at different times, for many different reasons, worked in a variety of modes and media, and, like other artists, had varying degrees of success or failure during their careers. Nevertheless, in first decades of the twentieth century, many of those who came to America became influential in their chosen fields, partly due to their training and great talent, and partly due to the ideas associated with them as “Russian.” This book will track the birth and development of the ideas that made Russian art popular in America. The book is divided into three parts that might be viewed as phases of the early history of Russian theatrical performance in the United States. The first period, from about 1891 to 1908, is the introductory period, when Russian culture was only just beginning to be introduced to the United States. It is characterized by a growing interest in realism along with American interest in the oppressive political situation in Russia. The second period, from 1909 to 1925, might be viewed as the popular period, when Americans came to hold Russian culture and art with the highest regard, and allowed it to become dissociated from Russian politics. The final period of this early history, roughly from 1926 to 1933, can be viewed as a revolutionary period. During these years, Americans began to look to Russian culture and theatrical performance primarily for its revolutionary approach to form as well as content. The first part, “Russians in America: The Early Years,” offers an overview of Americans’ earliest interaction with Russian culture, politics, art, and performance. The Russian influence on the American theatre developed within a complex network of interwoven currents including (1) the culture of immigration, (2) the changing perceptions of Russians in America, (3) the development of Yiddish theatre, (4) the advent of modernism, and (5) the

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emergence of political radicalism. The term “Russian” in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century ranged from such contradictory characteristics as backward or progressive, mystical or rigidly materialistic, naturally introspective and intelligent or innately dull-witted. This part outlines the various meanings of “Russian” at this time as it related to the growing interest in Russian culture and politics, especially as it was complicated by the mass immigration of Russian Jews in the 1890s. The first part draws attention to the work of the playwright Jacob Gordin, who emigrated from Russia to America in 1891, established an important connection between the theatres of Russia and America, and contributed to the development of the modern American theatre. As a playwright, Gordin wrote original pieces heavily influenced by Tolstoy and Ostrovsky, and he translated Russian plays for the Yiddish theatre. His works encouraged actors and audiences to see the theatre as a place for the discussion of serious social and ethical issues rather than as a diversion. He helped to create a type of audience and group of artists who would become key to the success of Russian performance in America. “Jacob Gordin in America” examines how he navigated the boundaries imposed by language and geography to become a central figure in the transmission of Russian culture in the United States. The final section of Part I examines the reception of the earliest touring companies in the United States. An examination of the reception of the tours of Pavel Orlenev and Alla Nazimova in comparison with the 1908 tour of Vera Komissarzhevkaya demonstrates the difficulties Russian artists faced upon arriving in the United States. The performances of these groups, supported primarily by an audience of Russian-Jewish émigrés, gained critical success, but the artists lacked an understanding of the American marketplace. Without the proper management and public relations, these artists struggled to arrange suitable spaces for their performances and to pay the rent, lodging, advertising fees, travel expenses, and salaries associated with the repertories they planned to present. Even with the proper management and press, however, it is unlikely the artists would have achieved financial success. They presented plays with limited appeal for the American audiences they encountered. The second part, “The Russian Invasion,” evaluates the growing popularity of Russian performance through the 1910s and 1920s, beginning first with ballet and opera and continuing with dramatic, foreign-language productions. The central focus of this section is the work of the major contributors to the acceptance and commodification of Russian performance: the arts patron, Otto H. Kahn, and his later ally, the lesser-known impresario, Morris Gest. Kahn, the wealthy financier, aided many developments

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Introduction 7 in modern American theatre and performance by helping to finance such groups as the Washington Square Players, the Provincetown Players, and the Civic Repertory Theatre, and individual artists such as Paul Robeson, Isadora Duncan, and Robert Edmond Jones. As chairman of the board for the Metropolitan Opera, Kahn encouraged interaction with international stars including Anna Pavlova, Fedor Chaliapin, and Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. His personal support of Anna Pavlova and the Ballets Russes assured their success in the United States. His advocacy for the Russians paved the way for the celebrity status of many Russian artists in America. Morris Gest, the Russian-Jewish impresario, moved to the United States in the 1890s. He was largely responsible for popularizing Russian theatre in America in the 1920s. Supported by Kahn, he produced and managed the early tours of Michel Fokine, Nikita Balieff ’s Chauve-Souris, the Moscow Art Theatre, and the Moscow Art Theatre Musical Studio. His grandiose publicity methods had an impact on the American elite as well as mainstream theatregoers. Oliver Sayler, who worked as Gest’s press manager, also played an important role in establishing Americans’ interest in the art of the Russians in the 1920s. Looking at the management of high-profile Russian tours, Part II explores the ways in which both Kahn and Gest helped create Russian art as “high art” in the United States. The third part of the book, “Revolutionary Theatre: From Russia to America,” examines how Americans became familiar with the experimental techniques of the Russians after the Revolution, from the expressionist-constructivist methods of Tairov, Vakhtangov, and Meyerhold to the agitprop of the workers’ theatres. There were four major routes through which Soviet techniques became widely available: (1) through the writings of American travelers to the United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), (2) through the American tour of the Habima Theatre of Moscow and European tours and publicity of the Moscow State Yiddish theatre (GOSET), (3) through the emigration of artists from the USSR., especially the Habima performers and the designer Boris Aronson, and (4) through communist organizations and the workers’ theatre movement in the United States. This part of the book will analyze these routes and demonstrate the ways in which these methods were adapted by artists in the United States. Throughout the book, a key thread will be the influence of Jewish artists and producers from the Russian Empire, who played an important role in the transmission of Russian culture to the United States. In the 1890s, the Russian Empire included much of Ukraine and Lithuania, and parts of Poland, Romania, and Latvia, which were subject to Russian laws. Many artists working in the Yiddish theatre came to America from the

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Russian Empire’s Pale of Settlement (the Jewish Settlement in the Western part of the Russian Empire), and several key figures played a role in adapting Russian drama and/or theatrical techniques and staging modern theatre in America. It can be argued that the Yiddish theatre had a profound influence on developments in American theatre (and in many ways this book supports such an argument); however, this book focuses on the artists in the Yiddish theatre who participated in Russian theatre or can be viewed as mediators between Russian and American theatre. That is not to say that the primary roles they played were as intermediaries, of course, but that it is one aspect of their work that I wish to examine. Although many Yiddish theatre artists arrived from the Russian Empire, those who figure prominently in this study identified themselves as Russian, spoke Russian, and/ or maintained contact with the dominant and emerging Russian cultural practices and politics (though they may also have identified themselves as Jewish, Ukrainian, etc.). The focus here is on the reception of the work by English-language theatre critics and artists, as it relates to the transmission of Russian culture and performance to the United States. It should also be emphasized that many significant and diverse artists, critics, and literary figures from Russia (and the Russian Empire) and the United States helped to transmit Russian culture to the United States for a variety of reasons, but primarily for diplomatic, financial, missionary, and cultural ones. While there were strong networks for the transmission of information between Jewish artists and journalists in America and in Russia, there were other strong networks, including religious ones such as the Eastern Orthodox, Presbyterian, and Southern Baptist associations.8 Diverse political organizations also played a role in the transmission of culture and information. Anti-tsarist, anti-Bolshevist, socialist and, later, communist groups encouraged and enabled the transmission of information on Russian culture and performance. These many different paths will be taken up in the study, in order to examine the contexts of the motives for and the reception of Russian performance in the United States prior to the American recognition of the Soviet Union and the initiation of Stalin’s Second Five Year Plan in 1933. I have ended the study in 1933 because policies enacted then limited the kinds of exchange that had been available prior to this period. Emigration decreased because of United States and Soviet laws, and in spite of the efforts of impresarios, Russian companies no longer toured in the United States in the 1930s. The new Soviet policy of socialist realism in the arts was solidified, and though some American workers’ theatres produced Soviet plays, and some Americans went to the Soviet Union for inspiration after 1933,

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Introduction 9 the era of Russian influence began to wane. Workers’ theatres continued to produce agitprop plays (even after the Soviets had stopped) and Americans still sought to understand the methods of Stanislavsky, Vakhtangov, and Meyerhold, but all of these had been introduced prior to the increasing isolation of the USSR from the West.9 In 1926, Hallie Flanagan travelled to Europe on a Guggenheim Fellowship to study theatre across Europe. She spent most of her time in Russia and dedicated a significant part of her book, Shifting Scenes of the Modern European Theatre, to Russia. In one chapter of her book, she described travelling “hard,” or third class, in a Russian train. The compartment was spare, cramped, and lacked luxuries or services. The train unexpectedly stopped for hours due to some technical problem, and Flanagan became restless, indignant, and finally relaxed into an acceptance of her situation. Eventually, the problem was corrected, and the train continued, though Flanagan remained uncertain of the reliability of the train. The journeys of the Russian artists who came to America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries paralleled Flanagan’s train ride in some ways. Rarely did they travel luxuriously (only the most successful among them could do so) or with any certainty of what awaited them. The conditions in which they worked were trying: ballet stars performed among circus acts; aging designs and costumes were packed into inappropriately sized theatres; journalists distorted or misrepresented their intentions.10 Few Russian artists could speak English, so they relied on intermediaries and translators, who may or may not have represented their best interests. Yet they came with a sense of hope. Leodid Leonidov, an actor of the Moscow Art Theatre, perhaps best expressed this in his notion that America offered a new artistic market for new work opportunities and new influences.11 He saw this venture as the company’s “conquest of the new world.”12 Though there was indeed money to be made, few Russian touring companies found this new market as accommodating as they had hoped. Many artists returned to Russia with little more than they had when they arrived. Others were broke. Some remained to continue “the conquest” or simply because they couldn’t imagine going back. A few, such as the actress Alla Nazimova, the actor Jacob Ben-Ami, the designers Serge Soudeikine and Nicolai Remisoff, the director Benno Schneider, and the choreographers Adolph Bolm, Mikhail Mordkin, and the Fokines succeeded in becoming quite famous and influential in their fields. Others managed to maintain an existence in the arts, though without lasting glamor or great success.13 Many, such as Bolm, Fokine, Mordkin, Schneider, Tamara Daykarkhanova (of the Chauve-Souris), Boleslavsky, Ouspenskaya, Leo and Barbara Bulgakov

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(of the Moscow Art Theatre), Komisarjevsky, Boris Anisfeld and Nicholas Roerich supplemented or sustained their incomes by teaching, coaching, and/or lecturing while they remained in America. Those who emigrated from Russia hoped to find prosperity, or, at least, a release from the hardships that they faced under the authoritarianism of a tsarist, or later, a Bolshevik government. Though they may have been relieved of the immediate dangers they faced in Russia, their various paths in the United States were not uncomplicated. Nor were they singular. The aim here, though, is not to follow the paths of many individual artists, but to examine significant events, productions, and beliefs that led to their introduction to the American stage. Thereby, I hope to reveal the multiple lines of influence of Russian performance in the United States.

A NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION Transliteration of Russian in the text usually follows the Library of Congress system without diacritical marks; however, there are several exceptions. Familiar or reader-friendly spellings of Russian names and places will be maintained (Meyerhold, Stanislavsky, Tolstoy, Komissarzhevskaya, etc.). Additionally, in reference to émigrés, I have used the most common English spellings of their names which they used after immigration (Theodore Komisarjevsky, Nicholas Roerich, Nikita Balieff, Nicolai Remisoff, Serge Soudeikine, etc.). For character names in Yiddish plays, I have maintained the spellings used in the translations or adaptations I discuss.

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Part I Russians in America: The Early Years

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n February 2, 1941, an advertisement for a performance was posted in the New York Times. It read:

A festival in honor of the late Jacob Gordin, Yiddish playwright, will be held Wednesday afternoon at the Second Avenue Theatre. The “Adler Family,” consisting of Luther, Stella, and Celia Adler, will appear together in an act of Gordin’s “The Wild Man.” Frances Farmer and Sylvia Sidney also are scheduled to appear in the performance which is being sponsored by Harold Clurman, Clifford Odets, Ossip Dymow, Herman Yablokoff, Samuel Goldenburg [sic], and Sam Jaffe.

This festival may have appeared to be a minor moment for the theatre artists, many of whom were associated with the Group Theatre, for it was overshadowed by the fact that the group was disbanded the same year this performance took place. But the event was significant for the important American theatre artists, who meant to pay homage to a major Yiddish playwright who had indelibly influenced their own paths. Gordin, a native Russian who emigrated to New York in 1891, modernized the Yiddish theatre in collaboration with Jacob Adler. The performance in 1941 was a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the presentation of Gordin’s first play to be produced in America, Siberia, a serious work about the Russian exile system. Why were these theatre artists, known for their indebtedness to Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre, performing a memorial to an artist the mainstream American theatre had hardly heard of? Without a doubt, these artists, most of whom had been immersed in Yiddish theatre from childhood, understood the important role that this Russian émigré had played in the development of the American theatre.

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Long before Stanislavsky’s ideas took root in the United States or Eugene O’Neill wrote his first plays, Jacob Gordin was helping to develop a modern theatre in America. The seeds were being sewn on New York’s Lower East Side, where a large population of Russian and Eastern European Jewish intellectuals began to see the theatre as a place for important exchange of ideas, which many of them had begun to debate while still on Russian soil: women’s freedom and education, realism in literature, socialism, and the oppressive nature of traditional practices and views. Modern theatre flourished on the American Yiddish stages through the translations, adaptations, and new works by Jacob Gordin and his successors, who largely identified with Russian realism and socialism. Performing characters in Gordin’s plays brought distinction to numerous Yiddish actors, most notably Jacob and Sara Adler, David Kessler, and Bertha Kalich, who attracted audiences from outside of the Yiddish-speaking communities. Early in the twentieth century, American journalists, artists, and intellectuals recognized the developments in the Yiddish theatre, and began to encourage American actors and playwrights to visit the Yiddish theatres for a glimpse of the modern European theatrical and literary trends. This part examines America’s earliest intersections with Russians and Russian culture and theatrical performance, especially as it came through a large wave of emigration from Russia to America and through early Russian touring artists hoping to increase their international reputation and financial status in the United States.

“RUSSIAN” IN AMERICA Although interest in the ideas and culture of Russia merely trickled into the United States in the 1890s, by the 1920s Russian drama and theatre, dance, music, and opera flooded the American marketplace. This was largely due to the movement of people between Russia and the United States, the advent of modernism in the American arts, and the growing interest in Russian politics. The way Americans viewed and understood Russian performance was connected to the way they understood “Russian,” which was a very complicated term with a variety of associations for American audiences. It took on new meanings depending on the quickly shifting contexts during these years, and the intermediaries between Russian performance and American audiences were often literally and figuratively caught in the line of fire between shifting views and allegiances. The earliest and most steadfast mediators of cultural exchange in the United States were Russian Jewish immigrants, who found a way to live between two worlds in the

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Yiddish theatre, which eventually found its way into the English-speaking American theatre. During the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth century, the concept of “Russian” came to connote a variety of ethnicities and ideas in America. This was particularly due to confusion about the identities of Eastern European immigrants in America. Of the estimated three million Eastern European immigrants who came to the United States from 1880 to 1924, perhaps only 300,000 were Russian by nationality, yet the Czechs, Poles, Gypsies, Hungarians, Serbians, Croatians, and Romanians were often vaguely categorized as Russian.1 The United States Census Bureau in 1910 and 1920 included immigrants from the Russian territories—Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland—in their count of Russians living in America. One author in 1922, trying to clarify the term, stated that, “By Russian, as used here is meant the Great Russian, inhabiting Central Russia; the White Russian, living between Poland and Russia; and the Little Russian, from what was formerly South Russia. It does not include the Jews.”2 However, many Jewish intellectuals from Russia concealed their Jewish identity, making it impossible for historians to make that distinction. Furthermore, authors of immigration reports made no distinctions between Russian Slavs and Russian Jews. Adding to the confusion, early official documentation made clarification among immigrants from Eastern Europe difficult because immigration papers listed the country of departure rather than nationality or religion. In addition to denoting a region of origin during these years, for Americans the term “Russian” also referred to a variety of liberal ideologies and their adherents. Following the Bolshevik Revolution, during the first period of the Red Scare in the United States, leftists and radicals, regardless of their birth, were associated with Russia by the conservative public. For instance, in New York in 1919, Alderman Arnon L. Squiers, in reference to the Socialist party, declared, “If they don’t like it here, let them go back to Russia.”3 Such a statement reflected the conflation of Russians and leftists in the American imagination. This is partly because of the fact that many individuals of Russian origin were openly involved in socialist and communist organizations and/or labor unions, though others were mistakenly identified with such groups. However, the tag “Russian” came to denote more than a nationality or leftist ideology. In the early part of the twentieth century, the term might refer to such contradictory characteristics as backward or progressive, mystical or rigidly materialistic, and introspective and intelligent or illiterate. Like all American stereotypical inventions, the image of the Russian was ambivalent; Americans were fascinated by what

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they viewed as the exotic qualities and the culture of the Russians, but ultimately feared and distrusted their difference. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the American public had little reason to contemplate Russia, its history, and its many cultures. Then, in the 1860s, several major events brought Russia into American consciousness. First, Alexander II’s supposed support of the Union during the American Civil War influenced, in some measure, its outcome. According to a speech by General Nathaniel P. Banks in 1868, just as France and England were ready to recognize the confederacy, two Russian fleets arrived in United States harbors (one in San Francisco and the other in New York). The arrival of these fleets “shocked the world,” and very soon after France and England both withdrew their support of the Confederacy.4 Piotr Tverskoi, a Russian writer who lived in the United States from 1881 to 1893, wrote that the “remarkable sympathy with which the American people regard the Russians” seemed to be connected to this event, though the event could have been interpreted in a variety of ways.5 The second major event that put Russia in the American press in the 1860s was the U.S. purchase of Russian territories in North America. Secretary of State John Seward negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000 (about two cents per acre) in 1867. Following an extensive propaganda campaign by Seward and Baron Eduard de Stoeckl, the Russian foreign minister to the United States, the U.S. Congress ratified the treaty for the purchase by an overwhelming majority. The national press lampooned Seward for the purchase, referring to Alaska as “Seward’s Icebox” or “Seward’s Folly.” In addition to focusing American attention on Russia again, this event established an early generation of Russian Americans.6 The treaty enabled nonnative inhabitants of Alaska either to return to Russia within three years or become American citizens. Russia again caught the Americans’ attention on a large scale when the tsarist pogroms and economic policies of the early 1880s initiated a wave of immigration into the United States from Eastern Europe. The quickly growing Jewish population in America spoke out against the despotism of the Russian Tsar, Nicholas II. American opposition to the tsar increased, especially when the Russian famine of 1891, which took an estimated 400,000 lives from starvation and typhus and doubled the number of Eastern Europeans pouring into the United States. The famine in Russia gained international attention when the Russian government sought relief from abroad. Although the U.S. government did not organize a relief effort, American philanthropists, led by the Red Cross’s Clara Barton, provided the greatest international support to end the famine.7 This famine promoted a

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notion of Russia as a primitive agricultural and political country, thus creating a sense of the Russian, especially the Russian peasant, as backward and even childlike. An effort to strengthen Russia’s reputation in the world came in 1893 with Russia’s exhibit in the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. A remarkable showing of Russian life, the exhibit contained over 1,000 entries depicting Russian education, agriculture, engineering, transportation, medicine, manufacturing (with a special emphasis on the manufacture of musical instruments), art, music and opera, and dance and drama. A significant portion of the exhibit was dedicated to women’s education and domestic work, and it included numerous samples of children’s art projects and needlework. A special catalogue of the exhibit made available in English was intended to promote greater understanding of Russian life. Several hundred Russian citizens attended the exhibition, many of whom no doubt made important trade and cultural connections. Only a few years earlier, in 1891, the Society of American Friends of Russian Freedom brought national attention to the oppression of the Russian peasantry and Jews and organized anti-tsarist sentiment in the United States. The reported object of the organization was “to aid, by all moral and legal means, the Russian patriots in their efforts to obtain for their country Political Freedom and Self-government.”8 Among the founding members of this group of philanthropists, writers, and church leaders was Mark Twain, who wrote in support of a Russian revolution in The American Claimant (1892) and “The Czar’s Soliloquy” (1905). Through lectures, a monthly newspaper called Free Russia, short stories, and newspaper editorials, this group presented its views on the inhumanity of the Siberian exile system, the severe economic and religious restrictions placed on Russian Jews, the economic hardships of the Russian peasantry, and the growing revolutionary fervor in Russia. A decline in activities of the group in the late 1890s suggests a decreased interest in Russian politics in America, but it reemerged with greater numbers during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. According to David S. Fogelsong, the new Friends of Russian Freedom, led by settlement house activists like George Kennan, Jane Addams, and Lillian Wald, primarily championed the anti-tsarist position because they believed the Russians wished to emulate American democracy; the members advocated freedom of the press and religious freedom in Russia.9 Through political cartoons, speeches, and their writings, the group popularized the image of Russia as a vast prison.10 The society contributed significantly to Americans’ awareness of revolutionary efforts in Russia, which, in turn, helped to promote socialist ideology in America. In 1904, for example, the group helped

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finance the fundraising tour of the Russian revolutionary activist Ekaterina Breshko-Breshkovskaya who lectured in a number of eastern U.S. cities.11 In addition to raising support for Russian revolutionaries, the group promoted widespread interest in Russian life and culture. Not all Americans, however, supported the efforts of the Russian revolutionaries. American conservatives, such as the U.S. ambassador to Russia, George von Lengerke Meyer, saw them as “dangerously radical and wholly unrealistic” and warned against supporting any anti-tsarist efforts.12 Both positions held steady in the American public opinion until the Red Scare of 1919 strengthened the conservative position and popularized the view of Russians as deranged, violent anarchists. The seemingly endless stream of Eastern European immigrants from the 1890s into the 1920s complicated these perspectives on Russians. The few progressive American intellectuals who had read Turgenev and Tolstoy were bewildered by the daily flow of dirty, poor, uneducated, and unhealthy Eastern Europeans by the hundreds into Ellis Island during the late decades of the nineteenth century. These new people, a largely impoverished, heterogeneous multitude, included, for example, Catholic Croats and Slovenes, Muslims from Bosnia, Greek Orthodox Serbians, Russian Orthodox Russians and Ukrainians, Ruthenians, who practiced an amalgam of Roman Catholicism and Greek Orthodox, and constituting the greatest number, Jews from throughout Eastern Europe. Despite the fact that their language, customs, and dress distinguished them from each other, all of these people were identified as a single group because of the common assumption that they spoke variants of the same language and came from a common, though vast, region of the world. Most of these people were considered “Russians” in America. The actual number of Russian nationals who immigrated to the United States remained quite small between 1880 and 1917. A census of 1910 revealed only an estimated 47,000 foreign-born, non-Jewish Russians living in the United States, and this number, as stated earlier, also contains nationals of the Baltic states and Finland. Thus, the largest number of Russians in America were Russian Jews who did not necessarily identify themselves as Russian. In a 1949 study for the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, L.J. Levinger argued: The Jew in Germany felt he was a German, in America he was an American, but the Jew in Russia was a Jew and not a Russian at all. He has his own courts, his own local community organizations, with its own Jewish heads. He lived in

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a Jewish neighborhood of the city, or even in a Jewish village . . . The Jew on the whole was never at home in Russia . . . he never became Russian.13

While this statement ignores the Russian Jewish intelligentsia who indeed felt “Russian,” certainly the majority of Jews felt alienated from Russian culture. The imperialist Russian government cast the Jews as outsiders and limited their participation in numerous economic, educational, and cultural opportunities. Of course, even the Jews who considered themselves Russian despised the authority of the tsar. Contributing to the anti-tsarist sentiment in America, these more affluent and educated Russian Jews largely supported revolutionary activities in Russia, held leadership positions in the various socialist groups and labor unions in the United States, and kept Americans informed about events in Russia in numerous foreignlanguage and English-language newspapers. The stereotypes of the Russian Jews that emerged in the United States resulted from their massive numbers, their poverty, the religious practices, and their political affiliations that seemed extreme or exotic to most Americans. In The Ambivalent Image, Louise Mayo traces the American perception of the Eastern European Jews in novels, drama, and the media. She finds that the stereotypes were tied to “images of a lack of cleanliness, basic inability to accept American law, dishonesty, and permanent alienation resulting from a fanatic religion . . .”14 Unlike the easily assimilated, middleclass German Jew, the exotically dressed, poor Eastern European Jew was characterized as barbaric and uncouth in nineteenth-century America and anarchistic and dangerous in the early twentieth century. The stereotypes of Eastern European Jews bled into and from notions of Russians, too. Note that in Hutchins Hapgood’s 1902 description of Russian Jews, the dangerous part lies in their Russianness: In their restless and feverish eyes shines the intense idealism of the combined Jew and Russian—the moral earnestness of the Hebrew united with the passionate, rebellious, mental activity of the modern Muscovite.15

This blending of qualities makes it difficult to establish any clear sense of what Americans thought about Russians and Russian culture that do not overlap with images of and interactions with Russian Jews, which is why it is essential to understand the history of Russian culture and performance in America as associated with the Russian Jews in America. Distinctions between Russians, Russian Jews, and Eastern European Jews, and radicals increasingly blur in American writing in the early part of

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18 Russian Culture and Theatrical Performance in America the twentieth century, and stereotypes overlap as enemies of liberal ideology sought to create a distinct and cohesive enemy. Even though they would contradict previous ideas about Russians and Jews, immigration officials in 1919 invented statistics to prove that both Russians and Jews were among the least intelligent ethnicities and also the least likely to be assimilated into American culture.16 An effort to block Russians and Jews from immigrating to the United States proved successful in 1924, when new immigration laws made it very difficult for members of either group to become U.S. citizens. Prior to this blockade, however, Russian Jews who immigrated to the United States prepared the paths through which Russian culture and politics became available and appreciated in the United States. Many of the early translators of Russian literature and political writings, the most significant impresarios who brought Russian music, opera, theatre, and dance, and the earliest and most committed audiences for Russian performances in the United States were first and second-generation RussianJewish-Americans. Although much smaller in number, the most influential Russian Jews were intellectuals who spoke Russian, had access to a Russian or Russianstyle education, and had learned their politics in the Russian revolutionary movement. These intellectuals, unlike their less-educated counterparts considered themselves “Russian, first, and Jewish second, or not at all.”17 When they first came to America in the 1880s, the Russian Jewish intelligentsia organized through publications, community centers, and labor unions. Soon, the performing arts would play a large role in organizing and educating the community, fundraising for the various organizations, and connecting Jews in America to culture and current events in Russia. The Russian Jewish intelligentsia worked toward two causes: to help free the Russian people of tsarist authority and to aid and educate the Jewish workers in America. Members of this intelligentsia included such famous political and artistic leaders as Philip Krantz, editor and publisher; Morris Hillquit, leader of the Socialist Party in America; Jacob Gordin, Yiddish playwright; Abraham Cahan, editor of the Jewish Daily Forward; and the famous anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. These and other Jewish intellectuals represented a range of political and cultural views, but they had been schooled in the Russian leftist doctrines of the 1860s, and they brought their ideas with them to the United States. The American writer Hutchins Hapgood, who wrote The Spirit of the Ghetto: Studies of the Jewish Quarter of New York, first published in 1902, reveals an outsider’s perspective on

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the Russian Jewish intelligentsia. Writing about women on the East Side, he states: As we ascend in the scale of education in the ghetto, we find women who derive their culture and ideas from a double source—from socialism and from advanced Russian ideals of literature and life. They have lost faith completely in the Orthodox religion, have substituted no other, know Russian better than Yiddish, read Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Chekhov, and often put into practice the most radical theories of the new woman.18

Certainly, the educated Russian Jewish leaders in New York City brought Americans into contact with many aspects of Russian culture and helped to generate understandings about Russian life and politics. A program of cultural exchange between Russia and the United States took root in the late 1880s and early 1890s, usually tied in some way to groups interested in the Russian struggle for social and economic freedom. Russian music and literature show up variously in American culture at large, followed by art, opera, dance, and theatre. From leisurely literary clubs on the West Coast, where small Russian settlements had sprung up, to elitist musical societies and leftist political organizations in the east, the work of Russian writers and artists became increasingly popular commodities. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, a few Russian artists had found fame in America, a story that would repeat and multiply into the 1920s and 1930s. In music, Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky toured throughout the United States in 1891 following his engagement as conductor at the opening of Carnegie Hall (then called the Music Hall).19 Tchaikovsky was amazed to learn that his compositions were frequently performed in America and that he was already well-known in America. Reviews of his work as conductor were overwhelmingly positive, in spite of the fact that he was generally viewed as a weak conductor elsewhere. In 1906, the Russian Symphonic Orchestra was founded in New York City, under the sponsorship of U.S. philanthropists including Margaret Wilson, the daughter of Woodrow Wilson. In art, the American Art Gallery in New York City exhibited the work of the Russian realist painter Vasily Vereshchagin in 1888. His works depicting the brutality of war were considered by sophisticated Americans to share the same qualities as the great Russian writers. Vereshchagin’s works were widely celebrated in Europe and the United States. His works toured the United States again in 1901 and 1902. As mentioned earlier, the Columbian Exposition of 1893 had also garnered early attention to Russian art and culture.

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Adding to these early cross-cultural contacts with Russian culture, the very popular American actor, Richard Mansfield, presented greatly streamlined adaptations of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment in 1895 and Alexei Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan the Terrible in 1904. The latter remained popular enough to remain in Mansfield’s repertory until 1906, during a period when American interest in Russian culture peaked due to the Russo-Japanese War and the failed revolution of 1905. It no doubt fed an American appetite to grasp an imperialist Russia, as sensationalist and inaccurate as the portrayals may have been. This version of Russia would reach an American audience that may not have come in contact with Russian literature through more traditional means. American interest in Russian literature and art could be found on a small scale in the activities of amateur literary, music, and dramatic clubs. In 1899, the Russian writer and businessman, Piotr Tverskoi, noted his surprise when he found that the Women’s Friday Morning Club in Los Angeles had discovered Pushkin and Turgenev. One woman from the club expressed her delight that she had found such a remarkable writer as Turgenev in so “barbaric a country as Russia.”20 The women in the club had developed and maintained friendships with women in Russia who sent the Americans copies of works by Russian writers. When the literary club learned about the Pushkin Centenary Celebrations in Russia, they compiled a few English translations of his work, and held their own Pushkin celebration. While most Americans found little of interest in Pushkin, the activities of this women’s group illustrates that even small pockets of interest in things Russian existed prior to the turn of the century. Early in the artistic exchange between Russians and Americans, Russian literature and art met cultural roadblocks. Unfamiliar Russian literary styles, idioms, and subjects encountered an American readership raised on European aesthetics. The British critic W. L. Courtney gives a glimpse of how difficult the cultural gap may have been for American as well as English readers. In 1904 he wrote in a study published in New York and in London: We can understand Turgenieff, mainly because he was not wholly representative of Russia, but the product, rather of European civilization. Tolstoi is a more difficult task. Dostoieffski is frankly impossible. We talk superficially about Gorkii . . .”21

Courtney’s frustration with the Russian authors demonstrates the difficulties even educated non-Russians faced when reading these authors in a

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period in which no sufficient interaction with Russian culture existed to appreciate its literature. Courtney viewed the authors as an entirely different race, with a strange and unfamiliar temperament with which “we have little in common.”22 Although these writers initially seemed strange and exotic, Americans were increasingly drawn to this new other. This attraction was largely promoted by left-wing political groups. Both Jewish and non-Jewish intellectual leftists in the United States at the turn of the century found inspiration in the works of Russian realism. For the politically radical, Russian realism exemplified the artist’s duty to show the truth of society while teaching progressive ideas. For those who supported the Russian revolutionary movement, Russian realism depicted the oppressive conditions of the imperialist regime and strengthened their support for the dissidents. Frequently, translated works by Chekhov, Gorky, and especially Tolstoy showed up in the American radical presses of the 1890s. Writers viewed as political victims gained increased readership in the United States because of the added publicity they received. Just as Tolstoy’s readership increased after he was excommunicated in 1901, Gorky’s popularity skyrocketed in the United States after his imprisonment in 1905. The publisher of the biweekly Liberty, Benjamin Tucker (1854–1939), serves as a significant example of an American native who made the works of Russian revolutionary writers and other realists available in English. Of the many articles in Liberty on Russian writers, Tucker’s translation and publication of Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s What Is to Be Done? (“Chto delat”?) and his critical writings in the late 1880s are most telling. Chernyshevsky, a radical utopian socialist, outlined a program of literary criticism that shaped Russian revolutionary approaches to literature, emphasizing the responsibility of the artist to depict reality objectively, with careful observation. Tucker’s translations of Chernyshevsky’s novel and literary criticism reveal his astute awareness of this key theorist of Russian revolutionary thought. Tucker, like his fellow American radicals who made Russian literature available to Americans, placed a special emphasis on Russian realism. Literary realism, understood as an attention to truthfulness and historical detail combined with a didactic or moral intent, became for many Americans an essential feature of Russian art and literature. In addition to this didactic aspect of Russian realism, Americans also seemed to identify Russian literature (including drama) as particularly gloomy and depressing. Therefore, left-wing Americans also imagined Russians themselves as gloomy and depressed and always politically inclined, which colored their readings of the Russian writers.

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JACOB GORDIN IN AMERICA The politically charged Russian writers found counterparts in the Russian Jewish writers who arrived in the United States at end of the century. Writers such as Jacob Gordin, who became an important Yiddish playwright and community leader, demonstrated the influence of Russian revolutionary literary criticism in their writing. Like many later Jewish intellectual playwrights who were infected with what some referred to as the “Russian Flu,” he brought his politics into his writing and found that the stage could serve as a platform for educating and exploring contemporary problems. While his plays may not always achieve the ideals of Russian realism, many of them attempt to depict the everyday struggles of Russian and American Jews. The best of his dramas, and his translations and adaptations of Russian literature, attracted progressive audiences from uptown as well as from the Lower East Side. Gordin is often viewed as the initiator of serious drama in the Yiddish theatre, but he also fought hard to increase the standards of the Yiddish stage in general. He was especially interested in training actors in a more realistic style to suit his plays and those he translated, and, later in his career, even attempted to create a company that performed in an ensemble style in the fashion of the Moscow Art Theatre. Raised in a home in Mirgorod, Ukraine, that encouraged assimilation, Gordin had received a Russian-style education at home, reading all the major Russian authors and European philosophers in his youth. Russian was the language used in his home, though he also learned German, Hebrew, and Ukrainian. As a boy, Gordin attended the theatre in Elizavetgrad and other Russian cities, when he traveled with his father, a merchant and lawyer. Before coming to the United States, he earned his living as a journalist for Russian and Ukrainian presses, at one time becoming the drama critic for The Odessa News (Odesskie Novosti). He also founded a separatist socialist group called the Spiritual Biblical Brotherhood, an organization based on the teachings of Tolstoy and the Bible, which encouraged members to sustain themselves through farming and other productive activities rather than through commerce.23 The group also agitated for rights for women and Russian peasants. He had difficulty establishing an agricultural commune in Russia and because his group was often under attack for its views, he soon left for the United States. Gordin had hoped to organize agricultural communes for Jews in the United States, but once he learned of earlier failures in that pursuit, he settled in New York City, improved his ability to write in Yiddish, and worked as a journalist for Yiddish and Russian language presses.24

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At the urging of editor of various socialist, Yiddish newspapers, Philip Krantz, Gordin soon began to write plays for the Yiddish stage in New York, an effort to support his wife and eight children. By his death in 1909, he had written or translated into Yiddish an estimated 60 plays and adaptations. Although he was criticized by the more traditional Yiddish playwrights for his realism and by a younger generation for lack of it, Gordin established a place on the Yiddish stage for contemporary problem plays and catapulted many Yiddish actors to stardom, even on mainstream American stages. Yiddish theatre scholars mark Jacob Gordin’s entry into the theatre as a significant moment in the development of Yiddish theatre, but it may also be viewed as a significant moment in the American theatre, in general. Gordin, and his greatest collaborator, Jacob Adler, can be viewed as essential intermediaries between the American theatre and European, especially Russian, modern drama and theatre. His serious approach to the theatre in addition to his high status as a public intellectual in the Jewish community influenced a generation of people that would go to on to become some of the leading figures in the American theatre of the 1920s and 1930s, including major producers, actors, and writers. Like the uptown theatres in New York at the turn of the century, the Yiddish theatres provided a variety of theatrical entertainments: vaudeville, musicals, comedies, melodrama, Shakespeare, and a handful of socalled problem plays. But when Gordin came onto the scene, operetta and outlandish melodrama dominated the stage. The first professional Yiddish theatrical production in New York, organized by the young Boris Thomashefsky, had taken place in 1882. The first professional attempt was a great success, revealing the interest and possibilities for Yiddishlanguage theatre. Stimulated by an immigrant population’s psychological and emotional needs in its transition to and assimilation in America, the Yiddish theatre at the turn of the century served as a communal meeting place where Jewish immigrants could address the issues and needs brought on by their displacement. The theatres recreated familiar, if sentimentalized, versions of life in the old country and depicted romanticized or comedic representations of life in the new country. For the uneducated, Yiddish-speaking masses, the theatre provided them with a fanciful escape from the lives they spent in sweatshops or in tenements. It also gave them a sense of community. Theatregoing had been a great pastime among Jews living near some towns such as Odessa, where the managers of the City Theatre and the Marinsky relied on their patronage.25 They carried this tradition with them to New York; for others, professional theatre was a new pleasure.

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Many of the educated and politically charged Yiddish patrons and writers found the frivolity and sentimentality of the popular stage deplorable. Like the early modernists elsewhere in Europe and America, they believed the theatre, like art and literature, should be more elevating for the patrons and hoped to raise the level of artistic merit. Gordin’s drama, and his adaptations of Shakespeare and modern European drama, appealed to the Jewish intellectuals as well as the less-educated masses, and ushered in a new era for the Yiddish stage. The Yiddish stage became a springboard for debating literary as well as political ideas relevant to the Russian-Jewish immigrants in America. Debates prompted by the theatre would be continued in cafes, lecture halls, and Yiddish newspapers. Gordin’s success and popularity was largely due to the support he found in another Russian-Jewish exile, the star actor Jacob Adler. From his early days in the theatre, Adler had dreamed of increasing the professionalism of the Yiddish stage to equal the professional Russian productions he had seen in Odessa. When an edict in 1882 placed a ban on Yiddish theatrical productions in Russia, Adler headed to London and eventually to New York. In 1891 Adler formed a company in New York and took over the management of the Union Theatre. Adler was not as good a singer as his major competitors, Boris Thomashefsky and David Kessler, both Yiddish star actors from Russia, and he was interested in more serious drama, so he turned away from the operettas and comedies more suitable for his rivals. As he was looking for plays he felt would elevate the Yiddish stage and his own acting, Adler was introduced to Gordin by Philip Krantz. In a section of his autobiography entitled, “My Great Moment Comes—I Meet Jacob Gordin,” Adler writes, “Like everyone else, I had heard of Jacob Gordin. I knew he was a socialist, a follower of Tolstoy, and a writer whose stories of Jewish life under the tsarist terror were making a stir in our literary circles.”26 Attracted to the possibilities of working on plays by such an author, Adler asked Gordin to write a play for him. The result was a play entitled, Siberia, about a man who is betrayed by a rival and sentenced to Siberian exile for a crime he did not commit. The play attempts to depict the harsh realities of life in Russia as well as the destructiveness of commercial competition and rivalry. It did not contain the degree of sentimentality, the heightened language, the speeches, or the songs a Yiddish audience normally would expect. Adler’s company listened to the play without enthusiasm and later argued that the audience would never accept the play. They pleaded for songs and comic bits, but Adler defended the play and staged it as it was written, in spite of their complaints. The audiences, expecting the usual entertainment, responded as the actors had predicted. According to

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a cast member Leon Blank, the opening night audience giggled and talked throughout the first two acts until Adler addressed the crowd, saying, “I stand before you ashamed and humiliated, my head bowed with shame, that you, my friends are unable to understand a masterpiece by the famous Russian writer, Jacob Mihaelovich Gordin. Friends, friends, if only you understood what a great work we are playing for you today, you wouldn’t laugh, you wouldn’t jeer.”27 Allegedly, the speech worked, and the audience allowed the performance to continue and remained attentive until the end. Undoubtedly, the audience applauded the melodramatic speech of a favorite actor more than the new play, which ran for only a few nights, though it received positive reviews in the Yiddish newspapers. Nevertheless, the production introduced Yiddish audiences to some of the tenets of Russian realism via Gordin that would appear increasingly on their stages. In a letter to the producer Lincoln Wagenhals in 1904, Gordin outlined his views on drama. He wrote: Shakespeare taught us that the Drama should be the mirror of real life and human nature. The drama is not for amusement, merely, but for instruction as well. The greatest Educational Institution of the world is theatre. The theatre socializes great ideas, and brings men of widely different social ranks to one intellectual level . . . The Realism of a literary work is analytic in portrayal of characters and types of society. In ideas is vested (sic) the synthetic power of a work of art. Therefore, drama must be realistic in portrayal and synthetic in ideas. A drama without realistic features and definite ideas, no matter how clever, is merely a doll, attractively dressed to amuse children . . . Cheap melodramas and horse plays have often great success, but this only indicates how much more of real solid work the serious drama has yet to accomplish.28

The list reveals a sensibility at odds with the theatre atmosphere the playwright had entered into, and it took strong efforts from his collaborators and a few successes to win over performers and audience members to the new style he promoted. The first successful production came on Gordin’s third try. In 1892 Gordin presented Adler’s company with a free adaptation entitled The Jewish King Lear, a play that was as much an adaptation of Ivan Turgenev’s

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novella King Lear of the Steppes (1870) as it was of Shakespeare.29 Following his own sense of drama as instructional and realistic, Gordin sets his adaptation of Shakespeare in modern Vilna (which was part of Russia at that time), and the language is contemporary Yiddish. The Lear character is Dovidl Moysheles, a wealthy Jewish scholar, who has decided to divide up his property and devote his life to God. The major conflict between Dovidl and the Cordelia character, Taybele, is her desire to go to St. Petersburg and study to be a doctor. Dovidl views this as a breach of tradition and a severe act of defiance. Predictably, he disowns his favorite daughter only to be treated harshly by others. In the end, Taybele has become a doctor, has married Yaffe, and together they cure Dovidl of blindness. Gordin’s modern themes are clear in Dovidl’s speech as the play resolves happily. He cries, Today I see that the person who thinks for himself, who thinks the whole world exists for him alone is blind, as blind as I was not long ago. I was against Science! But look what a wonder science has performed. I thought that a woman had to be dependent on her husband. But look what a useful person Taybele is.30

Gordin’s modern, progressive views included replacing traditional religious beliefs with scientific beliefs, advocating socialism, and improving women’s access to education and independence. His socialist-feminist views are clear in a number of his plays that seek to criticize the constraints placed on women in traditional households. His plays generally critique the view of women as subservient to their fathers and then their husbands, advocating instead for women’s rights to education, the professions, and choice in marriage. Again Adler’s actors pleaded with the star not to produce the play with such controversial themes. They also urged Adler not to play a role dressed as “an ordinary Jew.”31 Some major actors even left his company, and Adler had to recruit new performers, but the production was a success both critically and commercially and remained in the repertoire for decades. Adler’s performance as Dovidl Moysheles brought him fame and fortune that enabled him to expand his company and move to a larger house. The success of the play meant that Gordin would remain a significant figure in the Yiddish theatre and the community at large. His particular dramaturgical approach (setting the play in a contemporary, identifiable location; using ordinary language; minimizing unmotivated singing or clowning; and, of course, incorporating contemporary social criticism) ushered in a new era of realism on the Yiddish stages.

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For Gordin, it was not enough only to promote the modern ideals of science and feminism, and to challenge traditional social and religious conventions, but he also argued ardently for a modern Jewish theatre. He created an opportunity to present a discussion on the theatre itself in Act I of The Jewish King Lear. The act is set during Purim, and a group of actors arrive to present a Purim play. After their brief play, all cheer except Yaffe, the German Jewish scholar who has accompanied Taybele to dinner. He erupts with the following speech: Pfui! A disgrace! Is this what you call Jewish theatre? This is a play for the people? “Gram, strom.” All of this doesn’t matter to me, but are these rhymes what you call wild horses, do you think that is dancing? Obscene language and coarseness are what you consider witty. Is that the kind of wit that makes a people’s theatre? And that’s what pleases you! . . .”32

Dovidl responds, “. . . What is theatre and acting? A piece of foolishness. . . .” To which Yaffe retaliates, “. . . But the theatre, the most important art in the world—this, you say, is foolishness.” The moment is interrupted when dinner is served, and Dovidl announces his plan to divide his property among his three daughters. Seeing the theatre as the best place to have an impact, he first needed to convince the actors and the audience that the theatre was an appropriate venue for serious discussions. He wanted to guide the actors away from acting in broad strokes for effect, and retrain both the performers and the audience to accept a more natural, less affected style. Slowly, his audiences began to accept his approach to drama, and Gordin saved his theories of drama for discussions that came after the performances. In 1903, Gordin was invited to give a lecture on December 20 for the Workman’s Circle, Branch no. 23. The secretary of the organization, Mr. Levy, citing, “our appreciation for the noble work you have accomplished in uplifting the standard of the Jewish drama,” suggested the subject of Gordin’s lecture to be “The History and Development of the Drama.”33 Devoted teacher that he was, Gordin gave many similar lectures, in which he advocated serious drama dealing with modern social themes and encouraging a performance style that allowed the playwright to shape such material. Gordin, working primarily though not exclusively with Adler, gained some recognition for his work outside the Yiddish community by the turn of the century. In 1901, the progressive drama critic Norman Hapgood, elder brother of Hutchins, wrote, “My trips to the ghetto give me more to

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think about and less reason to regret time ill spent than most of my theatre evenings on Broadway.”34 Hutchins Hapgood introduced many non-Yiddish speaking intellectuals to Gordin in his The Spirit of the Ghetto (1902), which was serialized in The Commercial Advertiser in the early 1900s. Gordin began to attract a good deal of recognition in 1903, when his play God, Man, and Devil (1900), a contemporary version of the Faust legend, began to attract a growing number of non-Yiddish-speaking patrons. As a special benefit performance, the play was performed at the Thalia Theatre and starred David Kessler in the leading role. One reviewer commented, “Every manager and every actor concerned with that hybrid institution, the American stage, might have with profit have been there. The honesty and unanimity of spirit that prevail on this Yiddish stage are just what the Broadway stage needs . . .”35 The same reviewer praised the realism of the play and the ensemble acting of the cast. Writing for The Morning Express, another reviewer called the play, “realism in the superlative,” and compared it to work by Gorky, especially in terms of its “cold gloom and settled melancholy.”36 The reviewer for The Morning Telegraph ended his review with a quote he overheard, “. . . it wouldn’t do some players with noted names any harm to come over here and see some of their Yiddish confreres of the stage.”37 The reviewer, like the others, noted the ensemble acting and the playwright’s dramatic skill, and suggested that Broadway audiences would soon be familiar with the great Yiddish playwright. Because the performance of this revival was so widely reviewed in English-language presses, it reveals a concerted effort on Gordin’s part, and probably also Wagenhals and Collin Kemper, who planned Gordin’s English-language debut, to seek an audience outside of the Bowery. Gordin was certainly interested in expanding his audience base to the non-Yiddish audience, and he began to take steps toward this goal. That same year, Gordin was urged in a letter from Simeon Strunsky, a Jewish writer in New York, to write a play that might appeal to a Broadway audience and offered to translate the play into English. Strunsky wrote, “I regard you as one of the most excellent of contemporary writers for the stage, with a mastery of the craft that I have seen only equaled in Pinero’s plays and those of the Germans . . . I have sincerely believed that, were it in any way possible for the extra-ghetto world to see your art embodied in a medium entirely comprehensible to them, you could not fail to rank as America’s leading dramatist.”38 Gordin had certainly been thinking about expanding his audience; he was already in negotiations with a young Clayton Hamilton, (who would later become a major drama critic), to translate his recent success, The Kreutzer Sonata, into English.39 Once the

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work was translated, Gordin sent it to various producers in Chicago and New York, seeking a prominent English-language production of the work. Of his plays, it was the most likely to appeal to an audience of Jews and non-Jews, for the play was set in New York, rather than in Russia, and its themes were more universal in appeal than most of his previous works. He sent the play to the major Broadway producers, thus revealing his desire to expand his audience. In April 1904, Gordin received a letter from David Frohman, the Broadway producer, and brother of Charles Frohman of the famous Theatrical Syndicate (which was only this year being seriously challenged by Belasco, Harrison Fiske, and the Shuberts). Because the letter reveals several important ideas for contextualizing Gordin’s work in his time, I quote it at length: As a dramatic work, your play is a powerful and well-ordered work, intense, compact and strong: but the subject is one which drags forward so much moral ugliness, so much unhappiness, dealing so much with sordid traits, and vicious qualities, that I fear it would not prove a financial success with my audience . . . If the play, despite this sad experience [Miriam’s suffering], had a happier, or more animated plot, free from a gloom which the sad story imposes, it would have a better chance with an English audience; or if the part of Hattie [Miriam, in Mitchell’s version] were more important in its acting variety, it would undoubtedly go in English, through the desire of an audience to witness the work, which an important actress could put into the part; but the role is cast in a somber and unvaried key . . . It is a play, which like many of Ibsen’s dramas, would find favor unquestionably with special audiences, at special performances, but not for continuous presentation; and while I admire your workmanship very much indeed, and realize the excellence of your dramatic skill, I regret to be compelled to decline the play for the reasons I name . . . 40

Frohman calls for greater emotion and a heightening of the melodramatic elements of the play. American actresses, with the careful management of male managers, became stars in roles such as the leading role in Gordin’s play, so Frohman was right to suggest this play could be a star vehicle, with the appropriate happy ending and addition of emotional outbursts. Frohman’s letter demonstrates the type of drama producers desired in America at the turn of the century. Clearly, Frohman admired Gordin’s craftsmanship, but he simply would not take a risk on a play, which like Ibsen’s, that might offend his audience. It is interesting to note that Gordin

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30 Russian Culture and Theatrical Performance in America knew how he could make a popular success on Broadway, and it is evident that he had the talent to craft the sort of plays Broadway managers would buy, yet he did not turn in this direction, in spite of the growing need of his large family. Other producers did see the potential the play had as a star vehicle for an actress. Although Frohman found the play unsuitable for a popular audience, the following year, Gordin’s play, which had been successful for two years in David Kessler’s repertory at the Thalia, was presented in English in Chicago by the Broadway producers, Wagenhals and Kemper, starring the actress Blanche Walsh. Wagenhals and Kemper, who had produced a very successful adaptation of Tolstoy’s Resurrection, featuring Walsh, on Broadway in 1903, were clearly hoping to repeat the success Walsh had in her tragic role of Maslova. The role of Miriam in Gordin’s play offered Walsh the opportunity to play a similar type of character, and the association with Tolstoy would likely draw audiences. The producers wrote to Gordin after opening night, “Dear Mr. Gordin—Play looks like an enormous success . . . 8 calls after performance and yelling ‘Bravo.’ . . . ”41 It took two more years, though, due to legal battles surrounding ownership of the play, for the production to appear in New York. Gordin apparently sold the English rights to Wagenhals and Kemper and the Yiddish rights to David Kessler, who sold its English rights to Fiske. The courts decided in favor of Fiske, and both versions of the play were presented within a few months of each other in 1906. The two productions of the play (as well as the controversy surrounding rights to the play) garnered Gordin, the play, and the performers widespread recognition, supportive as well as outraged. By and large, critics admired and recognized Gordin’s skilfulness but largely disapproved of the play’s subject. The competing productions also brought on analyses and comparisons of the acting styles of the performers. Much like Ibsen, Gordin gave actresses the opportunities to develop complex, psychological portrayals in key roles. A study of The Kreutzer Sonata and its performances reveals Gordin’s skill as a dramatist, his thematic concerns, the style of performance encouraged by his writing, and the complexity of mainstream America’s response to Gordin’s work. Gordin based his play very loosely on a revenge theme of Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata, a novella about a husband who kills his wife in a jealous rage. Gordin uses Tolstoy’s play as a touchstone for his own, for at three key moments in the play, the novella, which is being read by one of the characters, helps to advance the plot. Gordin retains the act of a jealous murder, though in his play, it is the wife who is driven to the act. Though her act is

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tied to jealousy, it is really disorientation and identity loss that compel her to murder her husband and his lover. Gordin’s The Kreutzer Sonata, more an adaptation of Shakespeare (Lear again) thanTolstoy, tracks the path of a Jewish family that leaves Russia and struggles for coherence amid the loss of clear traditions and social conventions. The following description is based on the English-language version by the playwright Langdon Mitchell, whose version was presented by the famous actress Bertha Kalich at the Belasco Theatre under the management of Harrison Grey Fiske in 1906. Mitchell retained the plot development, though he downplayed some of the strong feminism of Gordin’s text and changed some of the character names and exaggerated the comic nature of one character. In the first act of the play, Raphael Friedlander sends away his favorite daughter, Miriam (Eti in Gordin’s text, Hattie in the Hamilton adaptation), who is pregnant with the child of her lover, a Russian soldier who committed suicide when his parents denied him the right to marry Miriam. Raphael forces Miriam to marry a Jewish violinist, Gregor, who is leaving soon for America. Gregor marries her for the money Raphael offers, even though she confesses that she is pregnant. He uses this knowledge to exploit Miriam, and he later treats both her and the child harshly. The following acts play out in New York, where the entire family has relocated. The play centers on the suffering of Raphael, whose dreams of running a farm are slowly demolished as first his children, then his wife, abandon him. His favorite daughter also suffers, largely because of an affair between her husband and her sister Celia. Gregor’s father, Ephroym, with Raphael’s support, has established a Music School in the city, and he and his son have become quite prosperous. Ephroym, Gregor, and Celia all teach in the school. The affair between Gregor and Celia culminates in the birth of a child that Celia abandons in Chicago. When Miriam discovers the extent of the affair, she quite unexpectedly turns violent, threatening to scar her sister’s face with carbolic acid, and finally killing both Gregor and Celia with the gun her father has purchased for his farm. Although the play clearly relies on some melodramatic plotting (such as the revelation of Celia’s secret and a timely discovery of an important letter), and traditional Yiddish drama (such as the use of music and comic relief ), the play also breaks with some characteristic features of these forms. Gordin spends a great deal of time establishing character with specific reference to time, place, and demeanor. He establishes a realistic setting, using the food, songs, and clothing of holidays and specific events to establish the atmosphere and to motivate character actions. Breaking with popular forms of Yiddish theatre, any singing in the play is an extension of character and

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situation and is directly motivated. Though at times used for comic effect, the characters speak with speech characteristics that indicate their level of education, class, as well as geographic origin. Characters’ speech patterns even change over the course of the play, especially as they become more assimilated to New York life. In fact, the materialism and other corrupting features of New York life explain the behavior of the least redeeming characters, Gregor, Celia, and Raphael’s wife, Rebecca, who are not presented as innately villainous; they are simply trapped in an environment with no clear social traditions and values. Like his predecessors in writing realistic plays, Gordin openly represented traditionally taboo subject matter with the very direct references to sex, adultery, and unplanned pregnancies, arguing that strict moral policies often invite catastrophes, rather than the acts themselves. And, most importantly, the melodramatic sense of justice is subverted, for here the climactic ending is ruinous rather than redemptive, which seems to have been Frohman’s key objection. Several themes are at play in the drama. Gordin is particularly interested in the idea of what he called “racial tradition” in a letter written to Wagenhals, the first manager to produce the play in English, in 1904. He wrote, “The racial traditions, the family pride, and the social conventions, which are, apparently, the safeguards of family honor, sometimes augment rather than check the development of a deep tragedy and bring the destruction of the family.”42 All that happens in the play stems from Raphael’s opposition to his daughter’s marriage to a Christian. Ironically, in the play, Raphael becomes most attached to the offspring of the pair. David, the boy, is the epitome of all of Gordin’s own values: he’s honest, hardworking, sensitive, and unpretentious. His goodness contrasts with Gregor’s harshness, pretention, and greed. Other than Miriam, the most loyal character in the play is Natasha, the Russian servant of the family, whom Raphael gives a beautiful crucifix in Act III, set at Christmas. Gordin’s assimilationist views are clear, but cautious. Assimilating to the American (or at least the American city’s) value systems may lead to the erosion of family, social responsibility, and morality. In Act II, Raphael’s son, Samuel offers the following advice to the play’s most recent immigrants: What you want to learn is the American commandments: first, fathers, respect your sons. And the second one is, everybody do what he pleases. And the third is, whatever you learned in Russia ain’t so.43

Like Chekhov’s three sisters, Raphael and Miriam dream of a return from exile. They spend their time clinging to Russia through music, literature,

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food, clothing, photographs, and customs. However, unlike the sisters, Raphael comes to accept his displacement and liminal existence. In Act III, in response to his grandson’s request, “let’s you and I go to Russia,” Raphael responds, Ah, ah, my boy if I could but take your hand, and go with you to Russia, to find my buried happiness! You lost your father there and I lost my children. But, David, my son, we should find there only graves covered with snow—no loving heart there—and none here, none here!44

After the speech Raphael sobs and covers his face. However extreme his pain and loss, it is Miriam who experiences the most devastating impact of her displacement. In the final moments of the play, when she confronts her husband and sister, she rapidly descends into madness and blindness. After killing Gregor and Celia, whom she shoots several times, Miriam loses all recognition of those around her, shouting, “Nania, nania, nania,” in a frenzy. An important feature of Gordin’s play, which is missing in the Mitchell version, is Miriam’s sense of indignation at being treated as sexual property by her husband. Though she endures extreme humiliation for the sake of her father and son, she finally erupts in a speech attacking Gregor for his sexual demands on her in spite of his total disregard for her otherwise.45 There is a hint of this indignation in Mitchell’s version, in which Miriam cries, “I have suffered silently while you scorned me, reviled me, sapped my blood—yes, for the sake of my child.”46 Such references to men’s sexual exploitation and physical abuse of women run throughout Gordin’s body of works. They encourage an enlightened approach to the treatment of women, which includes offering them education and skills development for economic sustainability, choice in marriage, and more legal rights. Several of his plays, as we see in The Kreutzer Sonata, also work to reduce the shame of unmarried motherhood. Gordin’s feminism, often critiqued by Orthodox Jews, found support among young immigrant women and socialists. Actresses also admired Gordin’s writing, and he often wrote for specific actresses (including Sara Adler, Keni Lipzin, and Bertha Kalich). The Kreutzer Sonata was written for Kalich, which she performed in Yiddish to great success. After her introduction to the English-speaking stage by H. G. Fiske in 1905 in the plays Fedora and Monna Vanna by Maeterlinck, she elected to perform her famous role in The Kreutzer Sonata in English. However, the decision immediately sparked controversy as Wagenhals and Kemper, the producers who planned

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34 Russian Culture and Theatrical Performance in America to present the play in English in New York with Blanche Walsh as the star, claimed the rights of ownership on the play. As stated earlier, the courts decided in favor of Fiske, and both versions of the play were presented. By all accounts, Kalich was the superior performer and the production made her a star of the English-speaking stage.

1 Production photograph of The Kreutzer Sonata by Jacob Gordin, featuring Bertha Kalich, 1906. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC.

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Several factors played into Kalich’s success in the role. The style of the play completely suited her style of acting, for she had worked on numerous works by Gordin, and as noted above, he had written the play specifically for her. She may have been involved in developing the piece, for Gordin’s personal letters suggest that he received ideas from collaborators when he was writing a piece. Kalich played the part for years, so she had the opportunity to develop its nuances. Also, her accent worked for her rather than against her, as it had in the Maeterlinck pieces. Though Blanche Walsh was considered a very fine actress, who had excelled in the roles of Trilby (the title character in an adaptation of George du Maurier’s novel) and Maslova (the leading character in an adaptation of L. Tolstoy’s Resurrection), reviewers found her bland in Gordin’s play.47 In fact, it was only after seeing Kalich in the role that one reviewer understood why the two women had competed for the right to play Miriam in the first place.48 With Walsh in the role, the reviewer found it flat and predictable. In 1904, a reviewer of the Chicago production predicted, “Played by an actress of broader sympathy and a finer, more pliable technical equipment than Miss Blanche Walsh possesses, and the part of [Miriam] would become one of tremendous power.”49 Walsh played the role with characteristic reserve and noble suffering, in a largely “somber mood” until the final outburst, whereas Kalich’s Miriam revealed a range of the character’s temperament and personality. The character was not only a downtrodden woman, but she was also a loving mother, a romantic dreamer, a spirited interlocutor. Kalich also revealed the character’s fragile and nervous state at key moments throughout the play, rather than waiting for the end as Walsh played the role. Kalich saw the opportunities Gordin built in to reveal the character’s interior state. Knowing the original, she was not limited by translations that stifled the character or a reading of the play as melodramatic. Kalich’s performance of Miriam did for Gordin what almost 20 years later the Moscow Art Theatre’s American productions did for Chekhov. It lightened the darkness: revealed the brightness as well as the gloom. Critics almost invariably attacked the subject of the play, but increasingly expressed admiration for Gordin’s intelligence and craftsmanship. After warning that the content deals with “the breaking of the seventh commandment and . . . the smashing of the sixth,” a reviewer in 1904 called Gordin, “an author of consequence and one whose work is worthy of analysis . . .”50 Another critic in 1904 said that the play possessed more “true dramatic power” and “real tragic value than we are used to in our sensational melodramas.”51 In 1906, a critic wrote, “The play is notable chiefly as the work of a singularly gifted playwright, and as a type of school of drama,

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2 Production photograph of The Kreutzer Sonata by Jacob Gordin, produced by Harrison Grey Fiske, 1906. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC.

with which, as yet, the American public is almost totally unacquainted.”52 Gordin’s brand of realism shocked some critics and audiences, but gained him recognition as a significant author in the theatre. Though this did not prove to be a break out for Gordin, in terms of getting his work presented on English-language stages, it did increase his visibility and reputation in the American theatre. The English-languages presses frequently referred to Gordin’s work in the Yiddish theatre until his death in 1909. While it would not become the dominant form on Lower East Side stages, realism grew in popularity as more intellectuals and politically active Jews encouraged its development. The critic and journalist Hutchins Hapgood, who would later play a key role in establishing the Provincetown Playhouse, noted in 1902 that the “very up-to-date element of the ghetto . . . was dominated by the spirit of Russian realism. It is the demand of these fierce realists that of late years has produced a supply of theatrical productions attempting to present a faithful picture of actual conditions of life.”53 Preferring the romanticism and melodrama of the popular theatre, a leading Yiddish

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playwright, Moishe Hurwitz, in an interview with Hapgood, blamed realism for the “deplorable conditions of the Yiddish stage.”54 Professor Hurwitz condemned the “young writers from Russia with their heads filled with senseless realism” who had been attacking the early generation of Yiddish authors in public and in the press.55 Hurwitz undoubtedly saw Gordin as a leading force in this new interest in realism. Gordin’s own works as well as his translations and adaptations of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Enemy of the People, Strindberg’s The Father, and Gorky’s Lower Depths helped popularize realism in the Jewish community in New York. Controversies over the merits of the popular forms of theatre and realism occurred early in the development of the Yiddish theatre in the United States, and continued for decades. Between 1903 and1905, for example, a fierce debate between advocates of romanticism and those of realism played out in the pages of The Forward. Later, a younger generation of Yiddish playwrights, including David Pinksy, Sholem Asch, and Sholem Aleichem, argued about the merits and limitations of realism and other modern literary styles. Although Yiddish theatres continued to offer a range of popular fare and politically charged drama well into the 1930s, realism remained an important staple of the Yiddish art theatres. In addition to developing his own dramas inspired by Russian realism, Gordin, along with Adler and other left-wing theatre artists, imported Russian plays in Yiddish translations and adaptations. By 1905, Yiddish stages had produced Alexander Ostrovsky’s Belugin’s Wedding, Gorky’s Children of the Sun (Gordin), a version of Gogol’s The Inspector General (Gordin) and Tolstoy’s The Awakening and The Power of Darkness (Adler and Gordin, separate versions), and an adaptation of Tolstoy’s novel, Resurrection (Gordin). Gordin’s work as an adaptor of Russian literature and theatrical production influenced his colleagues’ approach to production. It was Adler’s 1903 production of The Power of Darkness that invited new acclaim for his theatre. A critic for Theatre Magazine wrote: Would that some of our managers—and actors, too, for that matter—make a pilgrimage downtown to receive lessons from this gifted actor who is unquestionably one of the great players of our time. If Adler could perform in English in a Broadway theatre he would be idolized.56

Again in 1911, Adler was observed by the mainstream press because of his approach to producing Tolstoy. Adler garnered attention when several New York newspapers reported that he received the first American rights to Tolstoy’s posthumously published play, The Living Corpse. In November

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of that year, English translations of the play appeared in the Sunday issue of the New York Times and in the theatrical magazine The Call. Adler premiered the play in Yiddish two days after the translation appeared in the Times, thereby enabling English-speaking audiences to come prepared for the production. Reviews in the several New York papers claimed success for the production that occurred before audiences of Jews and non-Jews, intellectuals and factory workers, and Yiddish-speaking and non-Yiddishspeaking theatre artists. According to Lulla Rosenfeld, the production attracted major stars of the Broadway theatre, making it a highlight of the theatrical season for a broad-spectrum of the New York theatre-going public.57 No other major productions of Tolstoy would occur on New York stages until 1918 when Arthur Hopkins, John Barrymore, and Robert Edmond Jones produced Redemption in English at the Plymouth Theatre. Certainly, Yiddish theatre imports of Russian drama aided the acceptance and the anticipated style of Russian performance on American stages. Acting on the Yiddish art stages approached realism unlike anywhere else on American stages. In 1904, Gordin became the director of the Thalia Theatre, and although he was not successful in the management of the theatre, he tried to create a high-quality ensemble of actors. As reported in Current Literature in 1906, Mr. Gordin at one time organized a stock company of Thalia actors, the players being of almost uniform excellence and skill. Nowhere else in New York at that period was the stage so altruistic in the creation and assignment of parts. No one could complain of being subordinated and the result was especially good responsive acting and ensemble playing.58

Adler and others noted Gordin’s serious approach to work with actors and his rigid expectations that an actor perform his plays without improvisation or embellishment. Gordin also wrote plays that required a certain amount of restraint, by the day’s standard, and an ability to speak and move naturally on stage. Adler’s career as an actor really took off when he began performing plays written for him by Gordin. Time and again, English-language critics urged American actors to go see plays in Yiddish theatres. Often this occurred in relation to an actor’s performance of a Gordin play. Undoubtedly, Gordin and Adler’s interest in creating a performance style more suitable for realistic plays had an impact on the great interest among second-generation Russian-Jewish Americans such as Stella Adler and other members of the Group Theatre in Stanislavsky’s approach to acting and

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the work of the Moscow Art Theatre. The group’s tribute to Gordin in the presentation of selections from his plays in 1941 points to his contributions to the development of the American theatre and his important role of connecting the Russian and American theatres. But Gordin was also connected with a larger progressive public through the attention he received from the progressive and well-connected Hapgoods, whose family promoted the modern American theatre. Norman Hapgood’s first wife, Emily Bigelow Hapgood, led the Stage Society, and his second, Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood, became the famous translator for Stanislavsky. Hutchins Hapgood married Neith Boyce, and together they worked with Susan Glaspell and George Cram Cook in developing the noncommercial theatre group, the Provincetown Players. Gordin was also connected through translators such as Clayton Hamilton and Langdon Mitchell to the modern American stage. Both authors had a hand in introducing Gordin to a larger American public, and both men had enduring, professional careers in the American theatre. What seems clear is that many interested in moving the American theatre away from the Syndicate-run commercialism of the nineteenth century had the opportunity to observe an alternative in the Yiddish theatres, through the work of the Russian émigré Jacob Gordin and his collaborators.

THE FIRST RUSSIAN TOURING ARTISTS IN AMERICA Russian touring companies and individual artists began to arrive in the United States in the first decade of the twentieth century. Russian companies had toured successfully in Western Europe, and because German, French, and Italian artists had been successful on American stages, it seemed reasonable to assume that Russian artists might also enjoy financial and artistic success. A successful tour in America would secure artists an international reputation that would bolster their success at home or lay the groundwork for their success as artists in America, should they choose to stay. As it turned out, American audiences generally lacked the necessary response mechanisms to connect with the Russian performers and the material they presented: they knew little about Russia and did not widely celebrate the types of modern plays the companies presented. The Russian artists themselves lacked an understanding of the American theatrical marketplace and took great risks without the benefit of contracts that might offer some protection. The earliest artists arrived without the advance press that would raise interest in the individual artists and provide

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a broad context for audience members. They performed little-known plays without providing translations, and, in addition to speaking an unknown language, the artists were immersed in the language of theatrical modernism that most American respondents did not understand. The artists did draw the attention of the press and managed to have their productions reviewed in the most influential American presses, but small houses and mounting debt made it impossible for the Russian artists to remain long in mainstream American theatres. There was, however, an audience in America that was prepared for these performers. Yiddish theatre artists and audiences contributed to the influx of Russian theatre and performance in America by supporting Russian touring artists when they arrived in the United States. In his autobiography, Impresario, Sol Hurok, a Russian Jew who came to the United States in 1906 and became one of the most significant producers of Russian dance and music in America from the 1920s to 1970s, wrote about the various strategies he used to get audiences from the East Side to performances he organized in the city. What came to be known as the Hurok audience was made up largely of Russian Jewish immigrants and their families, who could purchase tickets to events in shoe stores, bakeries, cafes, and elsewhere in the community. Yiddish-language newspapers advertised performances and gave explicit directions to the various makeshift box offices and theatres where Russian performers would appear. In the first third of the twentieth century, the relative financial success or failure of early Russian artists in America depended on their appeal to Eastern European Jewish theatre audiences, how well they had been publicized in the Yiddish-language papers, how strongly the leading intellectuals supported their efforts, and how accessible the theatre was for these audiences. The first Russian theatre company to tour the United States in 1905– 1906 evinces the importance of Jewish audiences and Yiddish theatres in the early history of Russian theatrical performance in America. Pavel Orlenev’s St. Petersburg Dramatic Company arrived in the winter of 1905, carrying letters of introduction from Piotr Kropotkin, the famous Russian anarchist, and Henry Irving, the famous British actor, but little else. According to Orlenev, the company stopped at a hotel with a Russian restaurant, presented the letter from Kropotkin, and received an invitation to appear at a gathering of Kropotkin followers at the apartment of a Dr. Zolotarev on the Lower East Side.59 Zolotarev’s group encouraged Orlenev to develop a press plan, which he said he argued against, hoping that his art would stand for itself. He, with the help of his leading actress Alla Nazimova, convinced the managers of the uptown Herald Square Theatre to offer the theatre

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for a single performance of Evgenii Chirikov’s Evrei (The Jews) under the title of The Chosen People, in March 1905. The leading critics, journalists, and intellectuals were invited to the performance free of charge. Orlenev claimed that this performance resulted in immediate critical acclaim and the offer of many theatre managers, especially those with theatres on the Lower East Side. In spite of Orlenev’s claim to present his work without the aid of a press agent or marketing strategy, one soon emerged that would appeal to the greatest number of supporters for Russian freedom in the United States. Orlenev, who understood very little about the American theatrical market he was entering, must have known that the unpopular Russo-Japanese war and the pogroms in Russia had reinvigorated the Friends of Russian Freedom (FRF) in both London and New York, where he took his company. The play he chose for the premiere suggests this. And, later, guided by the Kropotkin supporters, the entire marketing plan that emerged centered on the key elements that motivated the FRF in support of anti-tsarist organizations: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and religious freedom. In early April 1905, an article appeared in the New York Times that emphasized these themes as Orlenev’s motivation to perform outside of Russia. In the article, Orlenev, speaking through an interpreter, told an interviewer that his plays had been banned in Russia, so he had to present them abroad. Time and again in interviews, Orlenev, who claimed to despise organizing the press, emphasized the role censorship played in his decision to perform abroad. Orlenev is quoted as saying, “My great idea is that Russia will build a theatre for the people, educate them, sing them a song of freedom.”60 Additionally, because FRF groups in England and in the United States directly opposed Russian anti-Semitism and because Jewish émigrés were most likely to be the greatest supporters of the Russian company, The Chosen People (instead of Ibsen’s Ghosts, a favorite of the group, also in the repertory) turned out to be a good choice that brought the intended results. The American press promoted the group, largely for the anti-tsarism associated with this play, until Orlenev’s unprincipled business practices left him with few supporters. On more than one occasion, Orlenev claimed that Gorky had told him to take Chirikov’s banned play to the rest of the world.61 While it is quite likely that at this time Gorky, who worked to gain international financial and diplomatic support for a Russian Revolution, would encourage international production of the play, Orlenev did not seem to share the revolutionary fervor of his supporters.62 His aims seemed more financially and artistically motivated, though Chirikov’s play would gain him an audience.

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The Chosen People centers on a group of Russian Jews living in the Russian Pale of Settlement who disagree about the proper direction for their future. The elder Leyzer, a watchmaker in whose home the play is set, follows a traditional path. An Orthodox Jew, he expects obedience and traditional behavior from his family, keeping faith in God to protect him and his family in Russia. Nachman, a central character, believes that Zionism is the best path for Russian Jews. He warns against the views of both the Orthodox and the socialist positions, held by Leyzer’s son, Baruch and his friend Berezin, a Gentile. Adding dramatic interest to the political debates, Leyzer’s daughter Lea falls in love with Berezin, to the dismay of her father. Tension and a sense of danger develop in the third act, when Nachman tells the family about the recent Kishinev pogroms. The play reaches its climax in the fourth act, when a Russian mob rushes onstage to attack the family. Lea commits suicide offstage after the mob violently attacks her father and her lover, when a man from the mob suggests that she will be raped. Baruch arrives from the town to the scene of destruction, and, sobbing, he shoots his revolver into the distance, only to be told that he is firing at Christian workers, who are on his side. The play depicted the horrors of the pogroms in Russia even as the violence continued. For an American audience, it testified to the atrocities they had been hearing about through the work of the American Friends of Russian Freedom. After its Broadway premiere, the company accepted offers to move its repertory to the Windsor Theatre on the Lower East Side, where it gave performances as “religious concerts” on Sunday mornings and evenings. There the company found initial success, for the audience knew the Chirikov play was significant and the players were talented. Orlenev recalled “suitcases full of dollars”63 after his first month in New York. In spite of interest around the Chirikov play, the company’s other offerings at the Windsor, and later the Thalia, failed to secure its finances. The company was eventually evicted from the apartment Orlenev rented for the troupe, and the actors spent the summer in tents on the beach. The radical anarchist Emma Goldman became a sort of manager, press agent, and translator for the company, though she used the pseudonym Emma G. Smith.64 At this time, Goldman was actively engaged in promoting the cause of the Russian revolutionaries in the United States, and she found The Chosen People, an ideal piece that presented the brutality of tsarist Russia. “Now that I had greater access to the American mind,” she wrote, “I determined to use whatever ability I possessed to plead the heroic cause of revolutionary Russia.”65 In her autobiography, Goldman explains that she presented her name as Smith in order to mask her anarchist identity and

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appeal to a broader public for support. (Along with the Friends of Russian Freedom, she promoted the speaking tours of Breshko-Breshkovskaya, as well as Orlenev’s company.) Goldman used her connections with the radical Jewish press to endorse the company, which began giving readings and performances in the homes of members of the East Side Committee, and helped secure financial stability for the company.66 Goldman helped raise enough money to secure a theatre for the company on East Third Street for the following season, and several Russian émigré actors were brought from Europe to join the troupe. As Laurence Senelick has argued, interest in the company lay chiefly in the popular public opinion that the Russian artists were victims and refugees of the Russian tsar’s brutality. Trying to muster support for the Russian performers, Goldman and her friends in the press presented Orlenev and Nazimova as needy refugees (which they indeed became) and valiant opponents of the tsar’s dictatorship. In reality, Goldman found the actors themselves to be devoid of political commitment.67 But as the company began a second season in a renovated little theatre on Third Street, quickly named Orleneff ’s Lyceum, an energized audience thought of the recent revolutionary events in Russia. Still unsure of the outcome of the Revolution, and in what Goldman referred to as “a delirium,” the audience of East Siders thunderously cheered for the Russian players even as the curtain first rose. Soon, according to Goldman, major American stars, writers, and producers were coming to see the performances by the Russian troupe in the little theatre on the East Side. Her list includes Ethel and John Barrymore, Minnie Maddern and Harrison Grey Fiske, Ben Greet, Margaret Anglin, Henry Miller, as well as other writers and drama critics.68 As hope for the revolution turned to fear and anger, a rumor spread that some of the Orlenev actors were members of the Black Hundreds, notorious Russian anti-Semites, and the company was forced out of the East Side. (Later, the Yiddish press helped clear up this rumor.) Goldman appealed to the Fiskes and Ben Greet, who helped support the company and helped arrange performances in New York and Chicago.69 Several benefits were held for the company. One benefit in January 1906 raised $1,000 for the group, and a more lavish event in February 1906 raised $10,000 to aid the company (by now presented as Russian exiles). The greatest support for the company came from Otto H. Kahn, the wealthy financier whose work will be discussed in Part II, with the contribution of $2,700.70 Others, including J. P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie, contributed support for the twenty-sixmember company. The company planned to perform in Boston, under the management of Daniel Frohman, but this proved to be a breach of contract

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with the newly formed, Tchirikov Circle, the organization under which Goldman supported Orlenev’s group. In addition to its appeal as a victim of an oppressive regime, the theatre company received recognition for its high quality of acting. The performances it presented included Ghosts, A Doll House, and The Master Builder by Ibsen, adaptations of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, Tsar Feodor, and The Son of Ivan the Terrible by Alexei Tolstoy, The Children of Vanyushin by V. A. Krylov, Miss Julie by August Strindberg, and Zaza by Pierre Berton and Charles Simon (among others). When he established the company on East Third Street, Orlenev moved to create a permanent repertory company in New York that would present Russian plays, modern plays, and plays “with emotional roles” for Nazimova. Some critics strongly urged American theatre artists to go see the work of the fine acting ensemble. The most ardent supporters of Orlenev and his company found that they played with a more pronounce realism than otherwise known to the American stage. One such critic, Homer Saint-Gaudins, writing about a performance of Ghosts, said, Orleneff has schooled his followers with a naturalistic curb that produces a supple, intense effect, which wholly lacks the more exaggerated methods of our theatre. Before all, an American feels grateful for the artistic sincerity which fills their climaxes with an imagination divorced from brutality of treatment.71

Saint-Gaudins qualified his support for the company, though, when he wrote that many of the plays the company presented held “skant” interest for an American audience. Nevertheless, he found Orlenev to “rank among the strongest of his profession.” Another critic, also writing about the company’s performance of Ghosts, praised Orlenev for his intelligent acting and the solid ensemble performances. He described the acting as exceptional in the study of minute detail and the impression that “they lived their parts,” submerging their own personalities into their roles.72 He wrote at length about Orlenev and decided that the performance provided “as fine a perspective on the actor’s art as one could well imagine.” He concluded that the performance of Ghosts was “one that no student of dramatic art, no enthusiast of the theatre, and no person of intelligent critical perception can afford to miss.” Nevertheless, he grumbled that the New York audience wouldn’t go because “they don’t go see anything intelligent or important.” In an article entitled, “Russian Players Teach Lesson to Americans,” W.L. Hubbard of the Chicago Daily Tribune wrote about the advantages of the Russians’ permanent repertory company to the American star system. Hubbard took

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the opportunity of the Russian performance to argue that the artists excel because of the training systems in place that produce a talented ensemble. He insisted that the American system “destroys and stunts” the talent of its greatest performers; whereas, the Russian system nurtures and develops the talent of all its artists.73 Like his fellow critics, he urged American artists to go see the Russians for a theatrical education. Writing a guide to the New York theatre scene in January 1906, one journalist suggested, “The visitor of New York who appreciates good acting should not fail to hunt up Orleneff ’s Lyceum.”74 He also gave one of the best descriptions of the audience, which he called a “mixed audience, in part composed of gentlemen in evening dress and ladies in expensive furs, who come in automobiles, and in part of Russian Jews from the New York ghetto, but all united in enthusiasm for the actors on the stage.” Though it managed to raise financial support time and again through performances and solicitations, and renewed its appeal to its Jewish base, Orlenev continuously mismanaged the group’s funds and broke contracts.75 Threatened with a third lawsuit for not paying actors and charged with grand larsony, Orlenev decided to return to Russia, though his partner, Alla Nazimova, elected to remain in the United States once she secured a contract. The company mostly appealed to radicals, socialists, and other friends of “Russian freedom,” and while many admired its art, it was what the troupe represented that appealed to the audiences and supporters. As Goldman makes clear, the company was most successful when it was viewed as an emblem of the Russian revolutionary spirit. Outside of these circles, the group was indecipherable, and the American press latched onto the artists as curiosities and promoted them as victims, the image the Orlenev played into first as a victim himself, and later as the exploitative manager. The company may have served the most progressive artists artistically and the radicals of East Side population politically, but, as Senelick has pointed out, it also fostered the prevailing stereotypes of Russians as temperamental, gloomy, and downtrodden. Although most of the critics focused their reviews on Orlenev, Nazimova gradually gained more attention. At first, the press presented her as a tireless worker who not only performed, but also helped stage manage and build the costumes for the shows. During the year and a half she spent with Orlenev in the United States, she studied English and often proclaimed the greatness of America, which suggests that she may have planned to emigrate to the United States rather early in the company’s tour. She made her English-language debut at the Princess Theatre on November 13, 1906, in Hedda Gabler, under the management of the Shuberts, with whom she

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3 Alla Nazimova, publicity photo c. 1908. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC.

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signed a five-year contract.76 On November 14, the New York Times proclaimed that “the English-language stage is richer today by one artist, Mme. Alla Nazimova, who . . . provided one of the most illuminative and varied performances our stage has seen in years.”77 In case readers were uncertain of her English abilities, the reviewer assured them, “she speaks it better than nine-tenths of the recognized leading actresses in America,” calling attention to her excellent enunciation and the richness and variety of her speech. He found that at times her poses were too mechanical, but enjoyed the way she carefully revealed the “unhealthy, morbid, depraved phases of this utterly worthless and unfruitful being.” Unlike the appraisals of Orlenev, the terms “natural” and “realistic” were not the touchstones for her performances. Mood, emotion, power, and spirit are the terms associated with her early performances. When the same reviewer responded to Nazimova’s Nora, he expressed disappointment, most of all, with the lack of “fire” in the tarantella dance.78 One critic strongly critiqued her performance of Hedda, comparing her to a “writhing serpent who hungrily devours,” and another complained that her Hedda “was a bit of feline and voluptuous Orientalism, utterly inconceivable as a product of the chill atmosphere of Christiana.”79 But most reviewers viewed this performance as an indication of her great talent and predicted her subsequent fame for these very qualities. She was described in an article that appeared shortly after her debut as Hedda in the following way: Mme. Nazimova is so utterly foreign that her mere presence carries with it an atmosphere of the Crimea. . . . She is dark with such an intense, passionate, concentrated depth of coloring as is unknown to brunettes in the Western hemisphere. Her hair is as black as jet and . . . her eyes are even blacker than her hair. . . . Power rather than gentleness; ambition, rather than introspection, and above all a mastering love of conquest . . . 80

The author added that she reminded him of the Russian countesses he had imagined while reading Russian novels. As some scholars have noted, the Shuberts capitalized on the Orientalist fantasies associated with her physical appearance, finding plays that reinforced these notions.81 Her success in roles such as the saucy, capricious title character in Comtesse Coquette by Roberto Bracco and as Oscar Wilde’s Salome solidified the types of performances Americans expected from the exotic Russian actress, the slightly accented, mysterious and dangerous woman. Nazimova established an enduring career in both New York and Hollywood, though it was characterized by periods of great success followed by periods of remarkable failure and disappointment. As Burns Mantle wrote in the 1920s when she

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appeared in Eva La Galliene’s The Cherry Orchard, Nazimova kept being “discovered” by a forgetful American public and press.82 The American press, often ignoring the artistry and talents of visiting foreign artists, regularly misrepresented Russian visitors to the American public. The desire of journalists and press agents to sensationalize (added to their inability to speak Russian) regularly generated false accounts. As early as 1893, the Russian writer Vladimir Korolenko became enraged when the American newspapers falsely reported his intended immigration to America with headlines like “Another Victim of the Czar” and “Novelist Korolenko Speaks about His Cruel Persecutions.”83 In a letter to his wife, he complained, “It will be read in Russia before long, damn it all. The paper appended my life-story complete with a variety of fantastic details.”84 The great Russian opera star, Fedor Chaliapin, experienced a similar encounter with American journalism. His first dismal tour of the United States began in 1907. Following a barrage of questions by reporters at the harbor upon his arrival, answered through an interpreter, the newspapers printed statements that shocked Chaliapin. He was called an anarchist, an atheist, a lone bear hunter, an elitist, and a refugee who would be executed if he returned to Russia. Attacks on his character, and his singing, followed his departing remark, “Frankly, where art is concerned, [Americans] were decidedly lacking in sensibility.”85 Chaliapin’s first U.S. performances were not marketed to the massive number of Eastern European Jews who might have been more accepting of his unconventional approach to operatic performance than the limited audience of elite Americans raised on Italian opera. His frustration with the American press, undoubtedly encouraged by well-intentioned press agents, Chaliapin swore he would never return to America. (Urged on by Sol Hurok, Chaliapin did reappear in America with great success before an audience of English-speaking as well as Russian- and Yiddish-speaking Americans.) Another Russian performing artist appeared in America, with remarkably poor timing, in 1908 with similar results. The press trivialized her and her art, reviewed her work with little understanding or sympathy, and put the actress on the offensive. Vera Komissarzhevskaya, one of Russia’s leading actresses, was often referred to as the Russian Duse.86 She had successfully originated the role of Nina in Chekhov’s The Seagull and had remained attached to the role, one which must have haunted her during her season in the United States.87 Komissarzhevskaya managed her own troupe, which focused on what the group called mystical-realism,88 and had been presenting works by Maurice Maeterlinck and the Russian Symbolists. When Komissarzhevskaya and her troupe arrived in America, they were

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in the midst of transition, as their primary director, Vsevelod Meyerhold, had recently been dismissed due to stylistic conflicts between the two.89 Komissarzhevskaya and others felt that the director’s focus on external style was hampering their interpretive skill and ability to emotionally connect to their roles. According to Komissarzhevskaya’s brother, Theodore Komisarjevsky, who accompanied her on the trip, she accepted the invitation to bring her troupe to the United States in order to raise some capital for her next season in St. Petersburg, which she hoped would revitalize the company and its reputation.90 The company announced an eight-week engagement at Daly’s theatre and an extensive repertoire of a modern plays, but the company lasted only a few weeks at Daly’s and performed only a portion of its repertoire before moving to the Thalia Theatre. The company presented a repertoire that included Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Gorky’s Children of the Sun, Sudermann’s The Battle of Butterflies and The Fires of St. John, and Ostrovsky’s A Child of Nature. She had announced Maeterlinck’s Sister Beatrice, as directed by Meyerhold, but a legal battle over copyright prohibited her from presenting it.91 She arrived in New York in March 1908. Komisarjevsky called the tour “a huge financial failure,” and blamed this on the Russians who had helped arrange the tour, whom he called “a pair of dimwits who knew little of the theatrical situation in America.”92 The tour was managed by the Shuberts, who placed the Russian company in the Daly Theatre, far from the Bowery, charged high prices, and did not organize a very extensive advance press campaign. The Shuberts motives are unclear. They may have been hoping to produce another Russian success story, such as Nazimova’s had become, but it is also likely that their small investment in Komissarzhevskaya would only add to Nazimova’s fame. Komissarzhevskaya herself contributed to the problem of creating a context or a desire for audiences to see her performances, as she rarely granted interviews, had no press agent, and did little to publicize her image in the papers. The American press focused on the actress’s unpronounceable name, her connection to royalty through her failed marriage to a Russian count, and her physical presence, which was slight and without the dark, exotic features that had made Nazimova a favorite. It was commonly noted in the press that Komissarzhevskaya was “not beautiful.” Americans preferred a Russian actress who met their fantasies about “Russian countesses,” which Komissarzhevskaya, though she had actually been one, did not. She was constantly compared to Nazimova, who had recently begun appearing in English in some of the same plays Komissarzhevskaya would present in Russian. Partly due to the high ticket price of $2, members of

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50 Russian Culture and Theatrical Performance in America the press scoffed that she could not command such a fee and that she wasn’t such a great actress as Nazimova. Unlike Nazimova, who had drawn attention as a victim of the tsar and exotic foreigner, Komissarzhevskaya held little interest politically, for, much to the consternation of the interviewers, she refused to speak about politics and tried to keep the interviews focused on her art. Komissarzhevskaya, like her name, was completely indecipherable for an American audience, for she was a modernist in her thinking about the art of acting and the types of plays she presented by Ibsen, Chekhov, Maeterlinck, Andreev, Wedekind, and Gorky (who were all considered to have limited appeal to a popular American audience). Her style of subtle, subtextual acting, made little sense to her American audience who looked for acting in broad strokes. One critic, calling her performance “of only medium interest,” said that her voice was “unvaried in quality,” that her “facial play was limited and unexpressive,” and that her gestures were “monotonous.”93 Another wrote, “There is little variety in her expression,” and he thought her too controlled for Ibsen’s little lark.94 Another flippantly suggested, “To achieve quick celebrity in America, she needs more art or less name.”95 A few critics, especially Ashton Stevens, urged American audiences to “wake up” and recognize that Komissarzhevskaya was a great talent, but the American public preferred the “wide gesture and poster pose of Nazimova.”96 The audiences on Broadway were small, most of the reviews were dismissive, and Komissarzhevskaya became anxious and increasingly frustrated. The company moved to the Thalia Theatre, and there, at first, Komissarzhevkaya ran into some trouble with the unionized actors, who protested her performances there.97 Of course, she was not a member of the union, and some Yiddish actors’ contracts were not being fulfilled due to her engagement at the theatre. The controversy was resolved, and she eventually did find a regular audience at the Thalia. She was supported by an ailing Jacob Gordin, who wrote about her performance of A Doll’s House. He wrote: I am bold to say that neither Duse nor Bernhardt is in a position to create a Nora like Komisarzhevsky’s. Komisarzhevsky does not show for one moment that she is a clever player, a superior artist by means of her costumes, her intonations . . . her poses, etc. . . . Genius is simple, but the man of the street rates simplicity very cheap: he prizes more highly the complex or the complicated. And Komisarzhevsky is simple. She does not seem to “play,” she does not indulge in trickery . . . [S]he does not shout, she cuts no tragic grimaces in the second act when she dances the

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tarantella. She touches one without words. She does not speak, but one feels the great tragedy which is being enacted at that moment in the wounded soul of this awakened young woman—and one weeps. . . .98

Gordin, now as drama critic, admonishes audience members who seek more visible and traditional playing, and encourages them to see her natural skill. His support surely promoted her among Lower East Side audiences, where she did indeed become a star. Her final performance at the Thalia was so crowded and full of excitement that the performance ended early and a celebration commenced. Komissarzhevskaya was given a memorial with 10,000 names written on it, a necklace, and two truck loads of flowers.99 But it was too late, in spite of her triumph on the Lower East Side, an artistic success in its own right, the tour was a financial disaster and a failure among mainstream theatregoers. Komisarjevsky noted that she returned to Petersburg defeated and with very little money.100 Just before leaving New York, Komissarzhevskaya exploded in Theatre Magazine, “I know your drama is in a parlous state. It appears to me that the public is not blessed either with critical taste or with the least interest in serious forms of drama. Your critics are the same for the most part. It was evident they knew remarkably little about drama and less about acting. As a rule, they seem to have no better taste than your general public!”101 Of course, the press responded in kind, and decided that Komissarzhevskaya, like Chaliapin, was no artist for America. Komissarzhevskaya, though, never returned to America. She died shortly after her return to St. Petersburg. Years later, her brother Theodore was invited to direct several plays for the Theatre Guild’s 1922–23 season.102 In his Russian autobiography, he details his encounter with the American press during his visit in the 1920s in a chapter entitled, “American Interview.” He describes reading a newspaper with headlines, “Starvation in Russia. A Peasant Eats Her Children,” before being aggressively interviewed by an American reporter. The following week, reading the published interview, Komisarjevsky discovered that he was a close friend of the last tsar of Russia and of Lenin and that his mother had been a Gypsy princess.103 Like Chaliapin and Komissarzhevskaya, Maksim Gorky had fallen prey to the American press in 1906. Gorky’s mission to America, supported by the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Worker’s Party, was intended to gain America support for the revolution, to raise funds for the revolutionary movement, and to prevent the tsarist government from collecting a loan from the U.S. government.104 Gorky had become well-known in America after his arrest in Russia in 1905, which launched

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52 Russian Culture and Theatrical Performance in America a successful international “Freedom for Gorky” campaign. An organization of American journalists and writers, including Mark Twain, Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Leroy Scott, and Ernest Poole, who had supported his freedom the previous year, planned to make Gorky’s U.S. mission a success. Socialist organizations planned receptions, meetings, and lectures for Gorky in major U.S. cities. Unfortunately, as Tovah Yedlin details in Maxim Gorky: A Political Biography, when the press discovered that Gorky’s female companion, actress Maria Fedorovna Andreeva, was not his wife, the newspapers destroyed all hopes for a successful mission. On April 14, 1906, four days after his arrival, the front page of The World presented two detrimental photographs: one of Gorky with Andreeva and the other of Gorky and his estranged wife and their children. Very shortly after this revelation, many Americans who had supported Gorky and his mission cancelled meetings and withdrew their financial support. Some Gorky supporters, such as Professor Frank Giddins, who wrote an article entitled, “The Social Lynching of Gorky and Andreeva,” tried to turn American attention back to Gorky’s purpose rather than his morality. However, others knew that the American passions for morality would prevail, so they stopped publicly supporting him for fear of being caught in the crossfire. Nevertheless, Gorky was received well by Russian-Jewish intellectuals in the Bowery, where he was once seen watching a play at the Thalia Theatre, starring Alla Nazimova, reputedly seated between Jacob Adler and Jacob Gordin.105 A scandal that might rock the rest of American society could not disrupt the support and respect many Russian-Jewish immigrants held for Gorky. In his memoirs, Sol Hurok wrote about attending all of Gorky’s lectures in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, hoping to “get close enough to grasp his hand and say a word of greeting in Russian.”106 Nevertheless, Gorky’s overall purpose was doomed, and he returned to Russia without the financial support he had hoped to gain, and no greater attention as a playwright. In addition to confronting the image-making press in America, Russian artists visiting the United States in the first decade of the twentieth century faced a public largely ignorant of modernist approaches to art and performance. Added to the language and cultural barriers, artistic barriers made it difficult for groups like Orlenev’s and Komissarzhevskaya’s companies to draw large audiences. Little enthusiasm could be generated among mainstream audiences for the modern plays they performed or, especially in the case of Komissarzhevskaya, the style of performance. Fedor Chaliapin and Theodore Komisarjevsky believed that Americans lacked the artistic sensibility needed to appreciate their talents early in the century; audiences were simply oriented toward more traditional European and American

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approaches to performances. As “the modernist spirit” in art moved into American consciousness, Russian performers found greater artistic and financial success in the United States: though the most successful remained those who could appeal to a popular as well as a critically elite audience. During the first decades of the twentieth century, modern European art and thought slowly infiltrated American stage practices and dramatic techniques (where it met with traditional American practices). Leading European avant-garde artists, writers, and theorists were beginning to be consumed, imitated, and lionized by America’s leading artists and intellectuals as they searched for styles and ideas that reflected their American experiences and perspectives in the new century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the process of adaptation of European trends came slowly and sporadically, aided by the Yiddish and other foreign-language theatres. By the late 1910s, leading American stage artists, producers, and critics very actively sought inspiration from trendsetters across the Atlantic and newly arrived émigré artists. Between 1915 and 1925, theatre critics and writers such as Sheldon Cheney, Kenneth Macgowan, Oliver Sayler, and Thomas Dickinson all wrote about the European art theatres and how the American theatres could improve their standards by emulating them. Scene designers Robert Edmond Jones and Lee Simonson both toured the theatres of Europe in search of examples of the “new stagecraft” expounded by Edward Gordon Craig, whose journal The Mask became available to them in 1908, and Adolph Appia, whose work they had read about in brief. The scene designers published their impressions of the “new stagecraft,” thereby broadening the range of discourse about modernist theatre. In the mid-1910s, new companies of the Little Theatre Movement, such as the Washington Square Players and the Neighborhood Playhouse, commissioned new translations of works by Leonid Andreev, Maurice Maeterlinck, Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen, and August Strindberg for production, while progressive publications like Alfred Stieglitz’s Camera Work were making European modernist plays available to larger audiences. Booksellers like Brentano’s and Browne’s also made the works of the popular European modernist playwrights accessible to the American public. The leading artists of Europe would find their way to American stages, but in 1908, when Komissarzhevskaya toured with works by Gorky, Chekhov, Andreev, and Maeterlinck, a larger audience could not be reached. As the nineteenth-century gave way to the twentieth, Americans organized themselves into a variety of liberal humanist societies that examined individual rights and freedoms and human psychology in the modern, mechanized world. Harvard’s Socialist Club and the Men’s League for

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Women’s Suffrage challenged nineteenth century “truths” regarding class, gender, and race. These groups, and others like them, represented the emergence of a large-scale liberal consciousness among the young and elite in America. At the turn of the century, young dissidents formed groups in the major cities challenging capitalism, traditional morality, and the cultural products of the nineteenth century. Soon, the young avant-garde, consisting of artists, writers, critics, journalists, salon hosts, and producers founded art galleries such as Arthur Stieglitz’s 291 in New York, magazines like The Masses and Theatre Arts Magazine, theatres such as Maurice Browne’s Little Theatre in Chicago and Mrs. Lyman Gale’s Toy Theatre in Boston. In these various venues, artists explored the problems of modern life from multiple perspectives (armed with the writings of William James, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Marx and Engels, and others). These new institutions aimed to promote a new culture based on new philosophical, scientific, economic and social principles. Of course, how the artists approached the problems of representing human experience and consciousness varied greatly in an era excited by explorations of “the new” and rejections of “the old.” By 1908, many American theatre artists had embraced the new forms of “realism” and “naturalism,” which studies in psychology, economics, and anthropology had prompted; however, the other trends of European modernism had not yet made a significant impact on American theatre. Despite trends toward realism, American theatres still housed spectacular and romantic melodrama and vaudeville acts. As Oliver Sayler argued in Our American Theatre, and as reviews for Gordin’s The Kreutzer Sonata confirm, American theatre critics remained conservative and moralistic in their appraisal of drama.107 The critic, Walter Prichard Eaton, saw 1908 as the year in which the so-called Theatrical Syndicate showed signs of being weakened by Minnie Maddern Fiske, Harrison Grey Fiske, and David Belasco and others, but an audience for serious, modern theatre had not yet been cultivated.108 George Pierce Baker, the Harvard professor who added playwriting to the curriculum in 1905, established a Dramatic Club at the prestigious university. He had not yet established the Workshop 47, which would influence many of America’s leading modern theatre artists. Though European modernism had made little visible impact on the modern American theatre in 1908, there were signs of movement in this direction, with occasional productions, American contributions to Craig’s The Mask, and the establishment of the New Theatre in 1909. A group of wealthy financiers including Otto H. Kahn, William K. Vanderbilt, and John Jacob Astor founded the New Theatre, hoping that the theatre would

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become America’s national theatre and promote artistry in theatrical production, as they believed the national theatres of Europe did. The project, which folded in 1911, proved to have been poorly conceived and shortsighted, for even the building was inadequate for theatrical production: it had poor acoustics and the auditorium was too large to enable the intimacy needed to suit the modern plays it offered, such as John Galsworthy’s labor play, Strife, and Maeterlinck’s Sister Beatrice.109 Nevertheless, the performance company’s high standards of technical production and its efforts to achieve ensemble acting challenged the standards of the popular theatre. By 1908, modernist cultural centers were forming in Boston, Chicago, and New York. In that year, the early modernist American painters who formed The Eight held their first exhibition of art depicting the inner city at the MacBeth Gallery in New York.110 The Swedish painter, B.J.O. Nordfelt had established an artists’ colony in the Chicago warehouse district, where Susan Glaspell, George Cram Cook, Floyd Dell, Maurice Browne, Ellen von Volkenberg, Sherwood Anderson, Carl Sandberg and others would soon congregate. Also in 1908, Arthur Stieglitz’s gallery 291 held its first exhibition of European modernists, including Cezanne, Matisse, Brancusi, and Picasso. Carl Van Vechten became a leading voice for advancing modernism in arts and fashion, through his regular column in the New York Times. Thus, by 1908, an alternative culture began to challenge the existing arts culture, although it lacked the numbers and influence to make a serious impact until the mid-1910s.111 Though stars like Chaliapin and Komissarzhevskaya, had toured successfully in Europe, American audiences outside of the Lower East Side were generally disinterested in Russian performance, and the modern works they presented, until a few star dancers, some innovative and undeterred impresarios, and some wealthy patrons changed the way Americans looked at Russian performance. Audiences on the Lower East Side, as prepared by Jacob Adler and Jacob Gordin, would play no small part in the continued and growing interest in Russian performance on America’s stages.

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Part II The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre “It’s a funny thing,” remarked a manager the other day, apropos of the Russian invasion. “Arthur Hopkins produced Gorki’s Night Lodging a season or two ago, and played to about $200 a night. He produced it in English, so that everybody could understand it. Then comes along Morris Gest and produces it in Russian, so that nobody could understand it. Result: $50,000 a week. —“Heard on Broadway,” Theatre Magazine, March 1923

I

n 1927, three Americans became honorary members of the Moscow Art Theatre: David Belasco, Morris Gest, and Otto H. Kahn. Belasco received the recognition for his commitment to excellence in the American theatre, whereas, Morris Gest and Otto Kahn earned it for successfully bringing the Moscow Art Theatre to America. This venture marked only one of the many contributions that Kahn and Gest made, both individually and together, to the American theatre. Through their work in theatre and opera in New York, Gest and Kahn, a pair of unlikely collaborators, served as cultural ambassadors in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Both men repeatedly sought out foreign talent, and through sometimes difficult negotiations, one or the other had some involvement in arranging some of the most distinguished European artists and theatre companies, including Anna Pavlova, Michel Fokine, Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, Jacques Copeau, Max Reinhardt, the Habima Theatre of Moscow, the Moscow Art Theatre, Nikita Balieff’s ChauveSouris, and Le Théâtre de Firmin Gérmier, to come to the United States. These artists and their performances contributed directly to the modernist transformations of the American theatre and to American’s perceptions of European and Russian performance in the early twentieth century.

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For various reasons, which will be explored throughout this chapter, the contributions of Otto H. Kahn and Morris Gest do not fall neatly into any narratives on the advent of modernism in the American theatre, although they both played a major role in taking American theatre to modernism. Beyond funding the importation of some leading modernist foreign artists, the millionaire Kahn also provided financial support for George Pierce Baker’s Workshop 47, the Provincetown Players, the Theatre Guild, and the Civic Repertory Theatre. And in addition to his involvement in importing modernist theatre, Gest worked with and aided the careers of the designers Joseph Urban, Boris Anisfeld, and Norman Bel Geddes on a wide range of theatrical projects. However, it’s impossible to view the work of Kahn or Gest as entirely altruistic or exclusively artistically motivated. They were both capitalists who, though certainly appreciated and encouraged art, saw great profit potential in the entertainment industry, and the public influence it might have, even as they moved it toward greater respectability. Without the profit motive, a very antimodernist notion in the theatre and art, some of the most important modern developments in the American theatre, particularly those involving cultural exchange, may never have occurred. Accordingly, in this section, I will explore the commodification of Russian performance as it entered into American consciousness. The ways in which Russian art and performance were made available, marketed for, and consumed by the American public reveals much about the perceptions of Russians and how their art came to have a lasting impact on the American theatre. In addition to shaping perceptions of Russians in America, the Russian companies and artists who came to America under the aegis of Kahn and/or Gest raised questions for American performing artists and critics about the nature of theatrical performance and the possibilities for its development. By the mid-1920s, it was difficult to imagine a modernist theatre company in America without an interest in or connection to Russian theatre, and dance artists and teachers from Russia. But in order to understand this major development, we need to consider not only the influence of key artists such as Stanislavsky or Pavlova, but also the contributions of Kahn and Gest. From 1909 to 1925, many of the high-profile Russian artists in the United States were in some way associated with one or both of these men. There were, of course, other impresarios, most notably Sol Hurok, who made their “bread and butter” and, when they were lucky, their “caviar” off of Russian performers, but first it was Kahn and Gest who took the risks, made the profits, and absorbed the losses involved in bringing entire Russian companies as well as individual artists to the American public.1 In

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 59 contrast to the political American progressives who sought Russian artists to expand their comprehension of revolutionary politics, Gest and Kahn sought Russian artists who would heighten America’s appreciation of artistic performance, but who might also help the two men earn substantial profits or influence economic or diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. The partnering of Kahn and Gest can be explained, in part, by exploring what each man offered the other in their artistic and capitalistic pursuits. A wealthy banker, Otto Kahn labored to control his public image as a respected businessman even while collaborating with some of the most scandalous and disreputable bohemian artists. As a scrupulous businessman, Kahn tightly controlled his finances and the finances of the Metropolitan Opera Company. He must have believed that one way to help a city earn a reputation around the world was to offer first-rate artistic performances in world-class facilities, and he wanted to see New York City, his adoptive home, thrive in international business. For him, the theatre was a hobby and a passion, not his livelihood; he was no showman. He, therefore, tried to leave the production and press side of the theatre business to others. Kahn needed a man like Morris Gest, a flamboyant idealist whose taste for the extravagant and the highly theatrical earned him the reputation of being a colorful showman. He also had an ability to deal with the temperaments of artists. After making some profits on a few of Gest’s lavish musical extravaganzas in the late 1910s, Kahn backed Gest’s efforts to import largescale productions in the 1920s. They had both shown an interest in Russian performance and had imported Russian artists before they joined forces, but together, relying on Kahn’s money, respectability, and influence and upon Gest’s negotiating powers, showmanship, and publicity talents, they imported Nikita Balieff ’s Chauve-Souris, the Moscow Art Theatre, and the Moscow Art Theatre Music Studio. Histories of these endeavors tend to credit one man’s role in the projects more than the other’s, but actually, the efforts of both men made the ventures possible. Without Kahn’s influential and venerated presence or Gest’s dogged pursuit of publicity, it is doubtful that these projects could have made such an impression on American theatre artists and audiences.

OTTO H. KAHN: ESTABLISHING RUSSIAN PERFORMANCE IN AMERICA “Otto the Magnificent,” “Otto the Great,” “The American Maecenas”— these are various titles applied to Otto H. Kahn, the American financier whose public and financial influence aided art in America. Characterized

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4 Otto H. Kahn. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, DC.

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 61 as a man with a double life, a no-nonsense banker by day and impresario by night, Kahn crossed and navigated multiple borders in his personal and professional life to become one of the most recognized and influential American businessmen and philanthropists in the first three decades of the twentieth century. One writer described Kahn as “the perfect Wall Street type, he is likewise the cultured boulevardier, the artistic dilettante, the social lion, the benign benefactor, and—yes—the sugar daddy.”2 Kahn, who claimed allegiance to developing American artistic aesthetics, enabled numerous highly esteemed European dancers, singers, and actors to perform in the United States. Nevertheless, the millionaire patron of the arts, often accused of interest in foreign artists only, also helped to finance the Washington Square Players (and later the Theatre Guild), the Provincetown Players, the Civic Repertory Theatre, and individual artists such as Paul Robeson, Isadora Duncan, Robert Edmond Jones, and Norman Bel Geddes. As a Jew surrounded by Protestants, a businessman surrounded by bohemians, and a capitalist surrounded by socialists, Kahn operated within a number of seemingly contradictory contexts. A look at his activities in various public spheres in America reveals the way he shaped himself (and how others construed him) to allow himself flexibility for border crossing while maintaining the necessary image of serious-minded businessman and respectable citizen. Born to a financially secure German-Jewish family in the artistically rich city of Mannheim, Otto Kahn developed a taste for art, music, poetry, and opera as a child. His family encouraged his study of the arts even as he learned the family’s banking trade. In 1890, he moved to London where he began his career at Deutsche Bank. He maintained his interest in arts and frequently attended music recitals, operas, and theatre productions. In 1893, the American banking firm Speyer and Company lured Kahn to New York City where he would become one of the most significant patrons of arts. After leaving Speyer and Company, Kahn made his millions and reputation as a partner at Kuhn, Loeb & Company in New York. One of his responsibilities with the firm required him to tour Europe annually to maintain relations with major banking institutions in France, England, and Germany. The annual pilgrimage served a twofold purpose for him. As a board member at the Metropolitan Opera, beginning in 1903, Kahn used his European excursions to survey developments in European theatre and opera and to scout European talent that could be brought to America. He often began contract negotiations with artists immediately following impressive performances. For example, it was after seeing them dance with the Ballets Russes in Paris in 1909 that Kahn began working to bring Anna Pavlova and her

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partner Mikhail Mordkin to the United States in 1910. Thus, his professional career aided his secondary interest in art and his professed desire to “bring the best of European achievements in dramatic arts before the eyes of the public and artists of America.”3 Kahn easily justified his double life, and he effectively maintained his career in financing while becoming the largest shareholder and “watchdog” of the Metropolitan Opera Company. Kahn apparently entered the American art scene by way of the Metropolitan Opera Company with some hesitation. Many American businessmen in the early part of the twentieth century regarded art as merely trifling or a feminine endeavor. The attitude was noted by Lawrence Langner, one of the founders of the Theatre Guild, when he wrote that “we who pioneered in the theatre had to meet and overcome . . . the philistine attitude of the American public toward the arts, an attitude which was generally prevalent except for a small handful of people in the larger cities who were looked upon as cranks, eccentrics, or sissies by their fellow rugged individuals.”4 As an example, Langner tells of his friend from Ohio who, after seeing Nijinsky dance at the Met (made possible by Otto Kahn), exclaimed, “Doesn’t that guy work for a living?” Another modernist, George Cram Cook parodied that philistine attitude toward the arts in his one-act play, Change Your Style (1915). In the play, Marmaduke Marvin, a well-to-do businessman, threatens to cut off financial support to his son, a young abstract painter, unless he learns to paint in the more conservative manner and lucrative style of realistic portrait painting. Ultimately, after a failed business deal, the father concludes, “The revelation he has made of his business capacity forces me to the conclusion that I owe it to society to support him—as a defective.”5 Besides satirizing the profit-motive approach to artistic creation, the play caricatures the no-nonsense American business world in which Otto Kahn operated. When Kahn was asked to join the board of the Metropolitan Opera Company, his friends warned him that he would lose standing with “serious-minded people.”6 Kahn’s mentor, Edward Harriman, a broker and chairman of the Union Pacific Railroad, advised him to accept the position at the Met as long as he made it a serious endeavor and kept it from interfering with his work as a banker. Kahn recalled his mentor’s words as “It will do you no harm. On the contrary, it will exercise your imagination and diversify your activities. It ought to make a better businessman out of you.”7 The statement hardly sounds like Harriman, a man “who wouldn’t give you a nickel for art,”8 but, in his writings, Kahn often invoked the image of the austere businessman such as Harriman, most likely as a persuasive tactic meant to gain some respectability for his business endeavors in the arts.

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 63 Kahn endlessly encouraged business associates and other “seriousminded” members of the American public to experience the value of artistic pursuits. In numerous speeches, Kahn argued that the spiritual need for beauty, the importance of expanding the imagination, and the well-being of the social environment could be derived from a healthy artistic community. In 1924, Kahn was mocked by the press for his views when he intimated at a public meeting with the mayor that the stimulation and cultivation of an arts program in the community could effectively diminish crime.9 In contrast to many prominent figures in American business and politics, Kahn simply saw the arts as a necessity. In one speech Kahn argued, “We all, rich and poor alike, need to give our souls an airing once in a while. We need to exercise the muscles of our inner selves just as we exercise those of our bodies.”10 Throughout his life, Kahn was seriously committed to expanding Americans’ understanding and appreciation of art and culture. His patronage of the arts, while not as selfless as he made it seem, certainly aided the growth of the arts in the United States. He almost singlehandedly guided the nearly shipwrecked Metropolitan Opera Company into becoming one of the most revered institutions for artistic performance in the world. By paying Oscar Hammerstein an exorbitant fee in 1910 not to produce opera at the Manhattan Opera House for ten years, Kahn enabled the Metropolitan to thrive without competition until it could afford to entice the world’s most renowned performers, directors, and composers to present their work in America. He had hoped to build such an institution for the theatre, when he supported the construction of the ill-fated New Theatre, the huge and poorly designed theatre, which was intended to serve as a national theatre, as discussed in the Part I of this book. To his dismay, the theatre was lampooned for its millionaire sponsorship and high-price tickets. The venture failed by 1911 after very few productions had been staged. As this failure made clear to him, he had to mask his wealth and personal desires as charity and philanthropy, for Kahn had learned that the American public was often suspicious of the show of wealth. Otto Kahn wrote no autobiography in order to present himself in a pleasing light, yet he managed to fashion and control his image in the public eye. He relished publicity, and he and his staff carefully collected all clippings from major newspapers in which he was mentioned and maintained them in numerous scrapbooks marked O.H.K. His numerous lectures, which were later published individually and in a collection entitled, Of Many Things (1926), publicly presented his views on everything from economics and war to art and society. He carefully controlled his image through these public addresses and through many interviews. He understood the importance

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64 Russian Culture and Theatrical Performance in America of public relations and believed that his mentor, Edward Harriman, had only one fault: a neglect of publicity, which had led to the “wide-spread and popular misconception as to Mr. Harriman’s motives, character, and methods.”11 By contrast, Kahn knew how to make publicity work for him and the projects he sponsored; he spoke often with reporters, who usually found him personable and candid, and he responded quickly to negative press. As a negotiator in business matters, he knew the importance of diplomacy and the necessity of careful, select language required for maintaining a powerful position in the public eye. Many accounts of the Kahn and Hammerstein relationship, for example, regard Kahn’s buyout as a kind gesture to save the nearly bankrupt Hammerstein. In the eyes of the public, Kahn emerged from a longtime rivalry with Hammerstein as a gentleman rather than as a capitalist power-monger, thanks in no small measure to his careful control of the press and public relations. Kahn crafted an image of himself that enabled him to acquire tremendous wealth and influence. From this position, he served American art and theatre for nearly three decades. Publicly, after the failure of his pet project the New Theatre, Kahn explained that he offered financial support but did not make any artistic decisions regarding projects. However, this is not altogether true. He often influenced Metropolitan manager Giulio Gatti-Casazza, whom he had hired, in selecting the season and the performing artists. Also, without Kahn’s pressure, Gatti-Casazza, who was reputedly uninterested in ballet, would not likely have contacted Pavlova and Mordkin in 1910 or Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1916.12 Furthermore, Kahn sometimes stepped in to resolve conflicts or to establish relationships between important international and American artists, which often directly influenced the art. For example, after Nijinsky and Diaghilev proved incompatible during the first season of the Ballets Russes at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1916, Kahn signed Nijinsky rather than Diaghilev as the director for their second season at the Met. Diaghilev was not invited to return. Failure to include Diaghilev in leadership of the company certainly had an effect on the second, and less successful, tour. Kahn also controlled artistic decisions simply by meeting or not meeting the financial or other demands of the artists in the projects he financed. Kahn’s first involvement in the cultural exchange between Russians and Americans occurred just after he saw Anna Pavlova’s dance company and Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes perform in Paris in 1909. Immediately, Kahn wanted to bring them to the United States. Although negotiations were under way to engage Diaghilev’s company, the arrangements to bring

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 65 Pavlova’s flowed more smoothly, and her company arrived in America long before Diaghilev’s. As the first Russian ballet dancers in the United States, Pavlova, Mordkin, and their small corps paved the way for others, but they also established the standard by which later Russian dancers and other performers would be measured. Ballet in the United States before 1910 had endured a sporadic existence; some European classical touring companies occasioned the American stages, but few serious and credible schools offered ballet training in the United States. In the main, American ballet dancers, residing in vaudeville and burlesque acts, hardly achieved recognition as artists. Pavlova, among a handful of other star dancers, would initiate a change of attitude toward ballet and dance in the United States. Gatti-Casazza doubted the public’s interest in dance, so when Kahn contracted Pavlova and Mordkin to perform at the Met in 1910, the manager scheduled their first New York performance for immediately after an entire opera. Somewhere after eleven o’clock at night, according to Sol Hurok, Pavlova’s later American manager, Pavlova and Mordkin, with their small corps de ballet, made their first appearance.13 In spite of Gatti-Casazza’s hesitation regarding the appearance of Pavlova at the Met, she soon gained fame in the United States, through no small part of Kahn’s support and a massive advertising campaign. Her husband and manager, Victor Dandré, called her success in America greater than her success in Europe, and he recognized that the publicity efforts were more pervasive and grandiose in the United States than they had been in Europe. From his wife’s experiences during her first American engagement, Dandré learned the meaning of “advertising on the American scale.”14 He reported that “posters were on every step, the papers were constantly printing notices and electric signs were placed in three of the best sites in town. All this cost [the impresario] about $30,000.”15 Outside of New York, advertising included a poster depicting “a flying Pavlova about five times her natural size.”16 The dancer, who had recently been honored personally by Tsar Nicholas II for expounding Russian art to the world, had to restrain her American press agents from generating absurd stories about her for the sake of sensationalism that, in her estimation, would cheapen her artistry. Without effective press agents, as we have seen, Russian artists had little hope of building a supportive audience; nevertheless, the most modern of Russian artists found the American advertising campaigns distressing, to say the least. Although Kahn had little involvement with the Pavlova tour after it left New York, the tour managers Max Rabinoff17 and Ben Atwell kept Kahn up-to-date on the successes and failures in each town. Kahn frequently supplied funds to maintain the tour when necessary. Additionally, Kahn

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managed Pavlova’s personal finances, which he continued to do for many years after this tour. Kahn’s persistent support assured the great success of Pavlova’s first American tour, which prompted a second and more elaborate New York season, followed again by a U.S. tour in 1910–1911. Had her first experience been less successful, she may not have continued to tour the United States, as she did frequently for a decade. Nor would she have made the impact on American attitudes toward dance which her popularity prompted. The great Russian opera star, Fedor Chaliapin, it should be remembered, refused to return to the United States for over a decade following his bleak failure in 1908, and Komissarzhevskaya had no Kahn to save her own tour when she needed it that same year. Kahn could, with a stroke of his pen, give an artist a chance to make a mark on the American public. Fortunately for Pavlova, and for American dance, Kahn was keenly interested in her success, and would use his power and influence to ensure that she had proper management and necessary financing. American dance historians have noted Anna Pavlova’s influence on the development of dance in the United States. The noted manager, impresario Sol Hurok marked Pavlova’s debut as “the beginning of the ballet era in our country.”18 After her 1910 tour, Pavlova returned to American stages regularly until 1926, bringing respectability to the art of dance in the United States. Her popularity also garnered a great deal of interest in Russian dance. As we shall see, on the heels of Pavlova’s successful tour, and in concurrence with her second tour, Gertrude Hoffmann’s organization of Russian and eastern European dancers presented “La Saison Russe,” an evening of copied versions of ballets presented by Diaghilev’s company. When Diaghilev’s celebrated company finally came in 1916, Pavlova appeared in the audience. She was, by then, a star in America and the standard bearer of Russian performance. One author has suggested that “of the 3,000 members of the present world filling the Century Theatre that night, it is safe to bet that 99% had seen her.”19 A critic of the opening of the Ballets Russes wrote, “We have often seen Anna Pavlova in that sort of thing, and in that sort of thing Anna Pavlova is incomparable.”20 Though Pavlova sometimes shared the stage with circus performers and vaudevillians, as she did at the Hippodrome in 1916, she became, for many Americans, an icon of grace, fragile beauty, and advanced ballet artistry. Kahn’s next contribution to the cultural exchange between the United States and Russia occurred when he finally succeeded in bringing Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes to the Metropolitan Opera in 1916. An advertisement in 1911 suggests that plans had been made to bring the company that year to the United States under Gatti-Casazza’s management. Diaghilev had invited

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 67 important international impresarios to performances in Paris in May 1909. Among those guests were the Metropolitan Opera Company board chairman and the manager. While Kahn immediately wanted to bring Diaghilev’s group to the United States, Gatti-Casazza remained hesitant. Gatti-Casazza had doubted the public’s interest in dance, but he also worried that subscribers might become enraged if they were offered a full season of dance instead of opera. Additionally, early negotiations with Diaghilev frustrated the manager, who wired to New York in 1910, “It is not my way [to] handle business [in] such a frivolous and incoherent manner.”21 Diaghilev, notoriously difficult to work with, continually changed his mind about what performers would be engaged for the American tour, partly because he was unable to secure contracts with certain star performers. It is likely that the 1911 tour never materialized because Diaghilev refused to meet the Met’s requirement that the company’s star performers would be engaged for the tour, to offset the “incalculable risk” Gatti-Casazza predicted. Gatti-Casazza’s predictions were not altogether incorrect because when Diaghilev did arrive without stars in 1916, the New York critics quickly and consistently bemoaned these absences. Because Diaghilev had guaranteed his sponsors that he would bring Vaslav Nijinsky, who was at that time in an Austro-Hungarian internment camp, and his other star Tamara Karsavina, the publicity for the New York engagement and U.S. tour had centered on them. Early frustrations about the missing stars soon subsided, however (most Americans didn’t know them anyway) and the first New York season ultimately drew large profits and general enthusiasm. The company’s success, even without its stars, can be partially explained by the amount of publicity and commentary the company had received for almost seven years before its arrival. The New York public had long read articles about the company, particularly articles related to the numerous scandals surrounding the company and its stars. The anticipation grew greatly in 1915 due to a massive, year-long press campaign, and though it emphasized the star performers, it also lured audiences on promises of novelty, sensuality, exoticism, and authenticity. The press campaign enticed audiences with heightened descriptions of the exotic and often risqué dances, the vivid and beautiful designs of Leon Bakst and Boris Anisfeld and other lesser-known Russian painters, and the brilliant cohesion and unity of the ballets. Edward Bernays, the press agent who was hired by Kahn to direct publicity, also publicized the group “in terms of its direct impact on American life, on design and color in American products.”22 In this way, Russian designers became as central as the dancers in the discussion of the Russian ballet in the United States.

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The ads proclaimed that finally, at long last, the “DIAGHILEV Russian Ballet and that is THE Russian Ballet . . . the real Russian Ballet,” “the one and only” would perform for Americans. Earlier versions of the Ballets Russes productions in the United States presented by Gertrude Hoffmann, Morris Gest, and Theodore Kosloff, for example, prompted the special attention given to authenticity. Interestingly, though, many new dancers from Russia and Europe had been hired, taught the original choreography, and rehearsed quickly for the American tour, so in many ways, it was not as “authentic” as Americans were encouraged to believe.23 The Ballets Russes first season in New York, limited to only two weeks at the Century Theatre, sold out entirely in advance. This brief engagement served to arouse interest for the U.S. tour and for the company’s second engagement, this time at the Metropolitan Opera House, six months later. Its success apparently exceeded Kahn’s own expectations. The company performed a repertoire that included its most successful, theatrical, and scandalous ballets, L’Après-Midi d’un Faun, Schéhérazade, Firebird, Les Sylphides, Le Carnaval, and Petrouchka. The performances demonstrated the skill of the performers, the exotic and theatrical themes, the visual poetry and symbolism of the designs, and the novelty and range of choreography that had brought the company its fame. The ballets aimed to unify the dramatic action, the movement, and the scenic and costume designs through music. The dancers, even the corps de ballet, expressed emotion rather than just displaying technical proficiency. Though many of these concepts had been introduced to Americans by previous artists and theorists, the modern endeavor to create a total work of art had rarely been seen at such a high level on American stages. As expected, some of the performances raised cries of immorality, and the New York Police Department investigated the company and the ballets. The management always responded quickly, promising to adjust this or that questionable element, and the season continued. Protesters against indecency remained a fixture for the Ballets Russes throughout the tour, but these demonstrations did not seem to have an adverse financial effect, except, perhaps, in Chicago. According to Marcia Siegel, the reactions included “hostility from competing managers, jocular put-downs from nervous journalists, boycotts of its high ticket prices . . . Cultural snobs announced that Pavlova’s company presented the real ballet.”24 Despite these mixed reactions, only in Chicago did the Ballets Russes fail to attract large audiences and cause financial trouble for its backers there. The lack of financial success can be attributed to the immorality campaign, cultural snobbishness, antielitism, and simple disinterest. One smug reviewer wrote that “people

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 69 in general were either powerfully for it or powerfully bored by it.”25 In other cities, the company earned enough profits for local backers and impresarios that another, more extensive United States tour was arranged for the following year. During the first season, Kahn had been determined to bring Nijinsky despite the bitter conflict between the dancer and Diaghilev. Kahn’s determination as well as his personal influence can be measured by the lengths he went to get Nijinsky to the United States. Nijinsky had been in Vienna when the First World War erupted, and he had been interned as an enemy alien. Kahn wrote letters to the secretary of state, the ambassador to AustroHungary, and an influential Parisian countess, urging them to plea for Nijinsky’s release to the United States. Finally, the dancer was released. Shortly after his release, however, Nijinsky was seized by the Russians for military service while he was in neutral Switzerland. Again, Kahn worked with the State Department and now the Russian ambassador for Nijinsky’s release. This time, Kahn applied diplomatic pressure and argued that such an important cultural exchange would certainly open Americans to aiding Russia, who after years of famine and hardship sought relief from abroad.26 Once Nijinsky arrived in America on military leave, more problems arose. Reputedly, Diaghilev forbade the other dancers to speak to Nijinsky, Diaghilev’s former lover. Additionally, still in disfavor for marrying, the star demanded more money to perform than Diaghilev was willing to pay any performer, and the dancer refused to perform until a contract could be agreed upon. Kahn’s biographer, Mary Jane Matz, suggests that Kahn gave Nijinsky the additional money he desired to perform, but a threat of deportation seems also to have been part of the encouragement Nijinsky needed to perform at last.27 At any rate, Kahn was involved in these negotiations as well. In order to deter any further conflict between Nijinsky and Diaghilev, Kahn first appealed to Pavlova to take over leadership of the company on its tour. When she declined the offer, Kahn placed Nijinsky in charge of the company. It is possible that in addition to being tired of resolving conflicts between Nijinsky and Diaghilev, Kahn had grown tired of working with Diaghilev, who was known for his un-business-like manner. He repeatedly failed to meet contractual agreements and refused to work with anyone in management other than Otto H. Kahn himself. “There was only man whom (Diaghilev) recognized. Desiring instructions of even minor importance, Diaghilev always cabled Kahn for advice.”28 Kahn, who had a full-time banking career, had little interest in overseeing the day-to-day operations of

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70 Russian Culture and Theatrical Performance in America the company. Whatever his other reasons, Kahn ensured the performance of the star Nijinsky and ousted Diaghilev from the 1916–1917 season. Kahn also made arrangements for Nijinsky and the American designer Robert Edmond Jones to collaborate on a new ballet for Richard Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel for the new season. This ballet marked the greatest artistic and lucrative achievement in the second season and tour. According to Bernays, around 1916 a surge of American nationalism rose prior to the U.S. entry into the First World War. The public began to seek out American performers and art. As a concession to this interest, Kahn suggested hiring an American designer for an internationally created new ballet to include a German composer, French conductor, and Russian dancers and choreographer.29 This ballet was a wise move for the company, and it brought fame to the young American designer. Unfortunately, though, the success of this work could not save the season as a whole. The season had greater total losses than the amount of profits from the first season. The lack of success can be attributed to the loss of shock value or novelty, which stimulated the success of the first season. Other factors contributed to the financial failure. In addition to general disinterest in ballet as an art form and the high cost of tickets, the season lacked organization. The opening of Till Eulenspiegel was repeatedly delayed, Nijinsky injured his ankle and it remained a constant problem throughout the tour, programs were spontaneously changed, and in general, chaos, conflict, and miscommunication prevailed. Competition also hurt receipts. For example, Anna Pavlova appeared at the less expensive Hippodrome while the Ballets Russes performed at the Manhattan Opera House. In Pittsburgh, Theodore Kosloff and his “Imperial Russian Dancers” performed in a vaudeville house during the same week the Ballets Russes visited that city. In the end, Kahn acknowledged the losses but remained certain that giving the American public the chance to see the high-quality performances of the Ballets Russes had been his aim, not financial reward. Kahn continued to encourage the development of ballet in the United States, especially through his association with the Met. Significantly, he continued to attract Russian composers, musicians, choreographers, and designers, associated with the Ballets Russes, who sometimes established their careers in America as a result of their work at the Met. One example is Adolph Bolm, a performer and choreographer with the Diaghilev company who emigrated to America. Kahn hired him to stage Le Coq d’Or in March 1918 and Stravinsky’s Petrouchka in 1919. These opportunities, and the success of the ballets, ignited Bolm’s American career. In 1919, he was invited to choreograph and dance the leading part in the ballet, “The Birthday of the Infanta,” at the Chicago Civic Opera in association with John Carpenter.30

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5 Ballets Russes publicity photo of Adolph Bolm in Schéhérazade, New York 1916. White Studio. Harvard Theatre Collection.

This famous performance established him as a star in Chicago. That year, Bolm also launched the Adolph Bolm Ballet Intime, a Chicago-based dance company, which later became associated with the Chicago Allied Arts. In 1922, Bolm founded a ballet school in Chicago, when he was engaged as the ballet master at the Chicago Civic Opera. He remained one of America’s

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leading choreographers and ballet instructors, when he accepted the position of ballet master at the San Francisco Ballet. Through his introduction of the Ballets Russes in the United States, Kahn also aided the early career of Nicholas Roerich, an important mediator in the longtime cultural exchange between Russia and the United States. Roerich, who had been a member of Diaghilev’s World of Art group, gained international recognition as the scenic designer for Stravinsky’s controversial Rites of Spring, presented by the Ballets Russes in Paris in 1913. Like most of the early Ballets Russes artists, Roerich worked primarily as a scene painter, and while simplified plastic settings developed throughout Europe, he continued to paint sensuous and atmospheric backdrops and curtainfronts for ballets and operas. Roerich, known as much for his theosophical mysticism as for his art, painted the mysterious and spiritual aspects of ancient and mythic landscapes into his backdrops, blending his intuitive and archeological knowledge of ancient rites and rituals. Many of Roerich’s easel paintings and theatrical designs use bold and vivid colors, tending toward primitivism, in order to capture ancient Slavic folk life and ritual and a pantheistic view of nature. His design for the Chicago Opera House, Mussorgsky’s The Snow Maiden (1920), employed his characteristic combination of a mystical and historical interpretation of Slavic folk culture. Although he was celebrated as a stage artist, Roerich devoted most of his effort to education and the preservation of cultural artifacts.31 Another designer, Boris Anisfeld, became established in America following the tours of the Ballets Russes. Although his artistic work was introduced to Americans through Pavlova’s performance of Preludes, which she presented at the Manhattan Opera House in 1914, his work did not garner the attention that it would two years later. His designs for the Ballets Russes included those for some of the most popular pieces when the company toured in America in 1916, including Sadko and Les Sylphides. Promoted by Christian Brinton through a touring art exhibit in 1918, Anisfeld drew attention for his fanciful, emotional, and rhythmic use of color and form, in a time when realistic painting prevailed in the United States. One reviewer of the 1918 exhibit wrote that, “In these days when Russia is ‘down,’ the sight of an Anisfeld picture, like the hearing of a Tchaikowsky symphony, makes us realize that the real Russia—its soul—is bound to rise and assert itself again.”32 Following the exhibit, the Metropolitan Opera quickly contracted Anisfeld to design for the operas, La Reine Fiammette and The Blue Bird, which invited new critical discussions about the visual elements of opera and ballet. One of Anisfeld’s greatest successes in American theatrical performance came in 1921, when the Chicago Opera lavishly staged

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 73 Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges. Opening night audiences applauded the designer, as well as the composer and director, during the acts of the performances. Anisfeld joined the faculty of the Chicago Art Institute in 1929. As an impresario who helped to launch the careers of many émigré artists, Otto Kahn liked to suggest that he simply offered his support for projects that appealed to him artistically. Because he often lost money on investments in art, his biographers characterize him as a man who gave his money freely to any artist willing to ask, regardless of profit potential. But Norman Bel Geddes, the important American designer and recipient of Kahn’s generosity, has suggested otherwise. In his autobiography, Bel Geddes reports that Carl Van Vechten cautioned him about Kahn’s motives: Don’t misjudge him . . . He makes chicken-feed investments in young talent like you the way a broker does in the stocks. When he finds your stock is good, his investments in you will continue with a zero or two added. His interest in artists is really interest in himself . . . His creative expression has taken the form of patronage: bringing over Pavlova and Mordkin, Nijinsky with the Diaghilev Ballet, Max Reinhardt’s Sumurun, Copeau and his company, (etc.)33

Undoubtedly, Kahn’s motives for supporting artistic projects combined generosity and goodwill with personal, financial, and social profit. It seems, too, that Kahn was interested in orchestrating events that might sway public opinion on political matters. In 1916, Kahn arranged a benefit concert for the children of Enrique Granados, the Spanish composer who was killed when a German submarine torpedoed a French passenger ship. Bernays believed that concert helped focus American anger against the Germans and their use of submarine warfare. “Long afterward,” wrote Bernays, “I realized that Otto Kahn had conceived and arranged the concert to stimulate public outrage at German Schrecklichkeit.”34 It should be noted that Kahn’s banking firm, Kuhn, Loeb and Company, according to historian Priscilla Roberts, long supported and invested in the development of democracy in Russia and advanced efforts to fight anti-Semitism in Russia. In April 1917, the banking company encouraged Americans to invest in Russia’s provisional government.35 Following the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917, dominant members of the banking firm joined the Russian Information Bureau, an anti-Bolshevik organization. Kahn, himself, was one of the founders in 1918 of American Russian Relief, an anti-Bolshevik relief organization. Apparently, Kahn viewed American support of Russian “freedom” as critical, so the performances he supported were intended, in part, to raise American sympathy for the cause of a “free Russia.”

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Perhaps, then, by investing in the ventures of Morris Gest, Kahn believed in the projects for their artistic potential as well as their financial and/or political possibilities. For many years, Kahn remained allied with Morris Gest, and trusted his management abilities so much that he even resumed negotiations with Diaghilev about a new season of the Ballets Russes in the United States in 1924, with the requirement that the new season would be under the management of Gest. This was a high point in Gest-Kahn’s relationship. The same year Kahn invested $400,000 for Gest and Reinhardt’s production of The Miracle. Kahn had recently earned handsome returns for Gest’s two previous projects: Nikita Balieff ’s Chauve-Souris and the Moscow Art Theatre’s first season in the United States. Kahn had initially invested $72,000 in 1916 for Gest’s musical extravaganza, The Wanderer.36 Though it made no great profit, Kahn underwrote Gest’s next two grand productions, Chu Chin Chow (1918) and Mecca (1920). These popular entertainments seem unlikely choices for a man who so regularly presented himself as inclined toward high art and reveal Kahn’s interest in the financial possibilities and the public relations potential of art and entertainment. The relationship between Gest and Kahn is somewhat difficult to decipher, yet it reveals a great deal about each man and their work in the American theatre. Gest and Kahn met through David Belasco, Gest’s fatherin-law and a sensible link between the two quite distinct impresarios. Mary Jane Matz caricatures these three seemingly contradictory men in a way that reveals how historians have characterized their attributes and status: . . . they would stroll down Broadway. Gest looking like a hero of a Russian boudoir farce; Belasco, shaking his white mane of hair and fingering his clerical collar; Kahn in white tie, tails, and a silk top hat.37

As this comical sketch suggests, by being seen publicly together, these men took on some of the attributes of the others. Indeed, at Kuhn, Loeb, and Company, Kahn came to be regarded as “the more flamboyant” partner due to his affiliation with artists and producers like Belasco and Gest, though his success in railroad financing enabled him to become one of the banking firm’s dominant partners.38 Such affiliation with powerful and influential personalities enabled Kahn to move easily between Wall Street and Broadway. On the other hand, Kahn and Belasco lent an image of seriousness to Gest, who for some time, enjoyed the sponsorship and friendship of both of these men, whom theatre historians have rightly acknowledged for their service to the American theatre. Gest’s fondness and admiration for Kahn

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 75 was widely known, and artists exploited that knowledge for their own benefit. Norman Bel Geddes explained in his autobiography that after numerous attempts to get a meeting with Gest, Geddes appealed to Kahn to get him a meeting with the producer. Geddes also went through Kahn when he later had conflicts working with Gest. The producer honored and respected the famous banker, once writing to him, “It is my life’s ambition just to be around you.” Certainly, in the presence of Otto H. Kahn, Gest gained the respect he could not seem to secure on his own.

MORRIS GEST: BRINGING RUSSIAN ART TO THE MASSES Morris Gest has received very little attention in our histories of the modern American theatre. Yet without him, some of the most significant developments in the American theatre, particularly those involving cultural exchange with Russia, may never have occurred. Greatly backed by Kahn, Gest brought Michel Fokine and Vera Fokina to the United States in 1919 and Nikita Balieff’s Chauve-Souris in 1922 before bringing the Moscow Art Theatre in 1923. Gest continued to work with the Chauve-Souris and the Moscow Art Theatre on their American tours throughout the 1920s. Utilizing a bombastic publicity style, he helped to popularize the work and methods of these important artists. A look at Gest’s career and the Russian productions he made available to the American public reveals the significance of his work in establishing relations between Russian and American theatre artists and audiences. The image of Morris Gest that emerges from what his contemporaries said about him helps to explain his disappearance from histories of the American theatre: he was not, perhaps, the sort of figure whom famous artists liked to credit in their memoirs, nor was he a highly respected man with whom to associate high art such as Russian performance. Channing Pollock, building on the stereotypes of Eastern European producers, described Gest as, “The most wistful person at the Victoria . . . a dark, heavily built Russian Jew, who, in favor one day and out the next, was grateful for crumbs of kindness and forever licking the hand that chastised him.”39 Alexander Woollcott described him (fondly) as a man who behaved like “a cat with catnip” and also charged him with “hornswoggling the public.”40 Burns Mantle called him a “flashing dynamo in Technicolor” in a 1942 obituary, and both Mantle and John Anderson commented on Gest’s ability to weep easily and on cue.41 By many, he was considered childish, excessive, disingenuous, and irresponsible.

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However, when one of his “haphazard adventures,” as Woollcott called Gest’s theatrical projects, turned a significant profit (as many did), he gained the momentary esteem of managers and financiers and the attention of New York theatre artists and the press. Indeed, in the early 1920s, an internationally famous Morris Gest was a leading producer and was even considered a visionary and a genius in his field.42 Nevertheless, his eccentric and erratic behavior and compulsive gambling (on theatrical projects) left him nearly friendless and penniless when his productions were less successful. Gest flamboyantly accentuated his role as a showman through his particular style, which captured the attention of the press. In 1942, John Anderson wrote, “He drew his own caricature with a black slouch hat and his black Windsor tie, a tie almost as flowing as his tears.” A writer for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle noted in 1936 that Gest was “the picture of an impresario” with his hat “like no other hat in the world” and necktie that “set him off from the rest of humanity.”43 Mantle suggested that “even his flowing black Windsor tie took on particular shades and tints of color with him in action.” Gest was a walking advertisement for his unusual and spectacular theatrical presentations. Writing about Gest, his adversary, at length in his autobiography, Norman Bel Geddes hoped to finalize an image of the producer-manager with: If I have not made it plain that Gest was a virtually impossible person with whom to attempt an intelligent conversation, let me reiterate here. Psychologically he was childlike. He had a disorganized mind, an instinctive approach to everything, treated everyone with suspicion, and, so far as possible, avoided every form of positive statement, especially with reference to matters contractual.44

Elsewhere, Geddes granted that “Morris Gest had imagination, mostly on the visual side,” adding, “Yet he lacked discrimination.”45 Without question, Gest had a passion for color and an impulsiveness that could be comical, when it was not annoying, to many around him. These are hardly fit descriptions for a man connected to the Moscow Art Theatre in America, so Gest has largely remained a name with little identity in the histories of that and other significant ventures.46 In an era prone to valuing artistry over showmanship, Gest could not maintain respect from the artistic community. High-minded modernists could write about the Moscow Art Theatre in America, expressing gratitude toward the venerable Otto H. Kahn, but with hardly a mention of Morris Gest, whose unorthodox publicity tactics and his sometimes unethical managerial style tainted him

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 77 and excused him from history. Because many of Gest’s ventures relied more on impulse visits rather than repeat business, he often employed a circusstyle advertising campaign based on exaggeration, bombast, and outright fraud. But his tactics, however we may judge them, enabled him to import many significant European artists, who would make a lasting impression on aspiring and experienced American theatre artists. It was, after all, for publicity that Morris Gest arranged for the actor Richard Boleslavsky, formerly of the Moscow Art Theatre, to lecture on Stanislavsky’s acting techniques in 1923. Nevertheless, our historical narratives have had little ability to reconcile such high artistic endeavors with the charlatanism or manipulation of the public for profit, as associated with Gest. Gest was not altogether the foppish figure he was often made out to be. Such a man could hardly have won the trust of the frugal millionaire Kahn. A decisive and scrupulous investor, Kahn allied himself with Gest for more than a dozen years, before Gest hit rock bottom during the depression. Gest kept careful records of debts to Kahn and maintained clear and effective communication with him throughout their association. Gest often wrote to Kahn explaining a questionable publicity or negotiation tactic. For example, when Reinhardt’s The Miracle was to be presented in Los Angeles, Gest refused to sell tickets to many film stars who sought tickets there. Kahn appealed to Gest on the behalf of several famous actors and actresses who complained that they could not get tickets. Gest explained to Kahn in a letter: Nothing could be to me more thrilling than receiving your wire regarding tickets. I handled the situation so that none of them could get anything and five thousand motion picture actresses howling that they cannot get seats is the greatest advertisement in the world. Do you see my point, Dear Mr. Kahn. The famous players will get their tickets without any trouble . . . Morris Gest”47

The man who came across to many as impulsive and irrational was actually quite strategic and logical when it came to Otto Kahn. Kahn once wrote to Gest, regarding his management of The Miracle: It was about as hard a test of a man’s fiber and real quality as one can be put to. You have met it in a way to win the respect and admiration from me and many thousand others. You have proved yourself not only a great “showman” in the best sense of the term, as a splendid executive, undaunted and resourceful in the face of appalling difficulties [ . . . ]48

This is perhaps the greatest commendation Gest ever received, for he had the highest respect for Kahn. This letter came at the height of Gest’s career,

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but unfortunately Gest was unable to maintain the respect that his notable projects won him. Born Moischa Gershonovich in a small village near Vilna, Russia (now Lithuania) in 1881 and sent to the United States alone as a young boy, Gest grew up in Boston. The details of his youth are hazy because Gest often altered them to suit his need for publicity. In the late 1910s and 1920s, Gest attracted great attention from the press because he was one of the youngest substantial New York producers, he was the son-in-law of David Belasco, and his productions were making him an extremely wealthy man. He capitalized on the press interest in him to draw publicity for his projects. He told reporters that he struggled miserably as a child alone on the streets of Boston and that he worked as a bootblack and a newspaper boy and performed odd jobs in circuses, sideshows, and Yiddish theatre companies before coming to New York City. His Horatio Alger–like childhood was regularly repeated in the publicity surrounding his productions throughout the 1920s, although the specific details are rarely consistent. Even the year of his arrival in America is inconsistently reported in the many articles and interviews, though it seems to have been in the early 1890s. In a letter to Kahn in 1931, Gest said that he had made up some of the stories of his childhood that he had told the press. In this letter, he told Kahn that he had several hundred family members in Boston, and that his ancestors had lived in New England for generations. Somewhere between the two extremes is probably the truth. He most likely had some family in Boston of relative stability and wealth, though Morris Gest would not likely have fit in well with a traditional, observant Jewish family. It is indeed probable that his early interest in the theatre developed in the Yiddish theatre in Boston, where he claimed, at times, to have begun his career. Regardless of the specifics of his childhood and youth, his status as a Russian immigrant enabled him to establish important relationships with Russian artists that propelled him to celebrity status later in his life. Gest moved to New York in 1901, where he made his living scalping tickets until he became a talent scout for Hammerstein’s Victoria Theatre in 1905. In this position, Gest found and publicized such acts as Abdul Kadir and his Three Wives (in reality, a German whom Gest encouraged to pose as a Muslim); Machnow, the nine-foot, five-inch Russian Giant; . . . “The Girl Who Couldn’t Laugh” (she had suffered facial paralysis); a bogus Carmencita (years after the real Carmencita’s death).49

Gest’s tactics for scouting and advertising these and other strange and offensive acts were devised in response to the public’s demand for the

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 79 bizarre and exotic. His work for the Hammersteins certainly shaped his own interest in the unusual and introduced him to spectacular advertising tactics and to methods of public persuasion. Of course, he also learned to capitalize on the stereotypes and prejudices of the public. While he continued to work with the Hammersteins, Gest also began a partnership with the subdued F. Ray Comstock, who leased the Hippodrome Theatre. Their partnership lasted from 1905 to 1928, during which time their firm produced more than fifty plays, musicals, pantomimes, and other spectacles. Gest handled the more mammoth undertakings such as the grand scale spectacles and European imports that exalted him to erstwhile fame, while Comstock preferred to focus on intimate musicals at the Princess Theatre. Except for appearing in the phrase “Under the Direction of F. Ray Comstock and Morris Gest” in the programs, Comstock was rarely mentioned in the publicity or memorabilia of the spectacles and foreign imports. During that period, Gest always had his hands in multiple projects simultaneously, often to the detriment of the projects that received less attention and publicity. From 1911–1920, Gest held the lease at the Manhattan Opera House (where the Ballets Russes had its second season), and from 1917 to 1920, he also leased and directed the Century Theatre, on Kahn’s request after negotiations with Florenz Ziegfeld collapsed. That he became one of the most powerful producers at this time is evident in the attack on him in an editorial in Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic Dearborn Independent newspaper. “At present writing the most advertised man in the world of theatrical production is Morris Gest, a Russian Jew, who has produced the most salacious spectacles in America . . .” The article attacks his character and taste, and argues that “there is nothing in Gest’s career to indicate that he would ever contribute anything to the theatre’s best interest.”50 Gest later sued Ford for $5,000,000, and while the suit was settled out of court, part of the agreement required Ford to write a public apology to the producer-impresario. A Variety obituary emphasized Gest’s involvement in the production of large spectacles. The author declared, “Gest’s penchant for producing spectacles placed him among the leading managers, while his flair for publicity was equal if not superior to other colorful showmen.”51 However, the theatrical works of Gest’s career range from those spectacles to some highly revered performances. The highlights of his career include Gertrude Hoffman’s “La Saison Russe”; the extravaganzas, Chu Chin Chow, Aphrodite, Mecca, and Morris Gest’s Midnight Whirl; and the imports Nikita Balieff ’s Chauve-Souris, the Moscow Art Theatre, the Moscow Art Theatre Music Studio, Max Reinhardt’s productions The Miracle and The Freiburg Passion

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Play, and Eleanor Duse’s farewell tour. In 1926, he was offered a contract of $250,000 a year as a Hollywood consultant.52 Unfortunately, his last major theatrical endeavor, the handling of the so-called “Midget Village” at the World’s Fair, overshadowed some of his earlier contributions. Had he been a respected man like Kahn or his father-in-law Belasco, perhaps Gest may have remained more firmly entrenched in the history of the American theatre. However, Gest never seemed to gain the kind of respectability or consistency he desperately sought. While he enjoyed a great reputation as a leading producer and earned the respect of the theatre world, he eventually lost favor and friendships. Anderson noted in his 1942 obituary that Gest fell from his “summit of achievement” to be “treated with the usual sneers that Broadway reserves for those who inadvertently vacate their pedestals. There were plenty of jeers for the man who had produced ‘The Miracle’ and brought Duse and Stanislavsky to America.” Gest’s descent from his pedestal began in 1926, when he had a nervous breakdown while touring Reinhardt’s The Miracle in California. He became increasingly ill and finally rebounded somewhat in 1928, when he toured again with The Miracle. When the stock market collapsed in 1929, his investors demanded their funds, which left him unable to pay the performers, who sued him. Gest declared bankruptcy and his correspondence with Kahn ended abruptly that year. A final correspondence in 1930 reveals that Kahn remained kind to Gest, unlike others who denounced him. Adding to his struggles in the late 1920s, Gest had managed to get his family out of Russia, but had to support several households financially. He never fully recovered physically or financially from the difficulties of those years, and his reputation in the theatre suffered irrevocably though he continued to work into the late 1930s. An anecdote by Channing Pollock demonstrates that Gest longed for the respect that eluded him and that he tried until the end to attain it. Pollock had visited Gest shortly before his death and later wrote: I met him in the office of Dr. George Colby . . . where he spoke to me of his social standing in Russia, and his graduation from a university there. Of course, he knew I knew the truth as to this . . . Though it was unnecessary, Morris might have reminded me of the triumphs he had achieved for himself—of the fact that he had the soul of an artist and a loyal heart—but, at the end, these things seemed less important to him than the advantages of birth and breeding he never had.53

Though Gest did not have the traditional advantages of birth, his Russian origins had granted him special interest in Russian art and performance and

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 81 the ability to deal directly with the Russian artists, which he developed for the benefit of the American theatre. Gest’s work with these Russian artists helped to establish an artistic exchange between Russians and Americans and led to the American theatre’s longtime connection with the Moscow Art Theatre. Gest’s first experience as a producer of Russian performance in the United States was in 1911, when he worked with Gertrude Hoffmann to present “La Saison Russe.” The production was Hoffmann’s attempt to reproduce Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, which she had seen in Paris in 1909. This was an early sampling for Americans of the exotic and erotic choreography and the elaborate production styles of the Ballets Russes. Although Pavlova and Mordkin had presented samples of the ballet style generated under Diaghilev’s watch, they made no attempt to reproduce the production qualities in full. Hoffmann, whose work as a copy artist had catapulted her to the top of the vaudeville circuit, wanted to present an “authentic reproduction” of the performances she had seen. Under the management of Gest, who had supported her stolen “Salome” vaudeville act, Hoffmann proceeded to scandalize the theatre world and provoke the hostility among competitors and city officials while drawing attention to Russian dance. This rich historical moment reveals what Gest encountered as a producer and publicist in terms of the cultural assumptions and notions of legitimacy that accompanied the growing interest in Russian art and performance in America. With Gest’s help, Hoffmann assembled a company of former Ballets Russes and Imperial Russian Ballet performers who had already immigrated to the United States. Among them was Theodore Kosloff, the dancer and choreographer, who had been “driven from the Colonial Theatre with rotten apples and who retreated to Bustanoby’s café to make a bare living.”54 Hoffmann also employed Lydia Lopokova and Alexander Volinine, who had been performing in the Broadway musical, The Echo. Other performers who were lured from Russia, France, and elsewhere in the United States included Alexis Kosloff, Alexis Bulgakov, Jan Zalewsky, Ana Balderova, and Zinaida Shubert. A number of the “Russian” performers had little connection to dance in Russia, but were advertised as such to make the company seem more Russian than it actually was. Secretly, the company rehearsed three borrowed ballets for the program, Les Sylphides, Schéhérazade, and Cléopâtre, and premiered the works at the Winter Garden on June 14, 1911. The souvenir program suggests that the company had rehearsed secretly in order to avoid the objections of those who believed the work of Diaghilev’s company to be indecent based on reports from France, yet the publicity

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efforts, in true Gest fashion, had emphasized those scandals. It is likely that the rehearsals had been kept secret in order to delay objections to the plagiarism of Fokine’s choreography and to give the managers of the Pavlova and Mordkin tour less time to plan attacks on “La Saison Russe” before its opening. Oliver Sayler and Marjorie Barkentin, who would work for Gest throughout the 1920s, described the premiere in an article published in 1977. They wrote: The press attended in full force, for Gest had learned at Hammerstein’s and the Manhattan how to create the atmosphere of expectancy and of new-in-themaking. Everybody who was anybody—and still in town at this unfashionable date!—was on hand to be thrilled or shocked at the fulfilled promise of daring voluptuousness in Cléopâtre and of sensual abandon in Schéhérazade.55

Gest, always noted as a skillful publicist, faced several difficulties in generating interest in the show while controlling the perception and reception of the work presented in “La Saison Russe.” He wanted to capitalize on the exotic and sensual qualities of the show while maintaining that the work was not indecent, and he needed to stir mass interest in the work as spectacle while maintaining the image of Russian performance as a serious and high artistic endeavor. After the show opened, Gest and Hoffmann were taken to court to defend themselves against charges of public indecency. Gest cleverly convinced his esteemed father-in-law Belasco to come to his rescue, and Belasco explained in court that it was necessary “for dancers to show their limbs to bring out all the beauty of dancing.”56 No doubt on Gest’s advice, the Russian performers expressed outrage to the press that they, the revered “exponents of the highest of all the arts” around the world, were being accused of being immoral and salacious in America.57 Appealing to Americans’ fears of seeming more backward than Russians was an effective tactic this early in the century, for Russians were considered less cosmopolitan than Americans in other matters. However, Russians were gaining a reputation for being deeply passionate and sensitive thanks to the novels of Russian realists and to the arrival of news of the Moscow Art Theatre and the Ballets Russes. The advertising of the Pavlova and Mordkin performances also helped foster the image of Russians as serious and expert in artistic pursuits, though they were considered backward in political and economic life. Eventually, Gest and Hoffmann were dismissed from the court, but they faced one more battle.

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 83 A rivalry between Gest and his competitors Max Rabinoff and Ben Atwell, who then managed Pavlova and Mordkin, escalated into a battle for authenticity and the conflict between high art and lowly amusement. This battle is best explained by the flier screaming, “Warning Against Pirates,” that was posted in all the cities where “La Saison Russe” was scheduled to appear.58 The words “legitimate” and “fraud” appear repeatedly in the flier, which was meant to make a clear distinction between the respectable artists Pavlova and Mordkin and their imitators, who came from “the ten, twenty, and thirty cent vaudeville circuit and their supporting casts from cloak, clothing, boot and shoe, and suspender factories.” In fact, this meant to highlight the dancers as Russian Jewish immigrants rather than as Russian nationals, therefore challenging the “Russianness” of the performances. There are skulls and crossbones in each corner of the flier signifying the danger inherent in succumbing to the fraud of such vaudevillians and poor immigrants posing as “high” Russian artists: “Russian artists will be brought into disrepute,” the flier claimed. Some of the reviewers would echo the claims. Critic George Jean Nathan protested the “indecent bravado of Gertrude Hoffmann [earlier referred to as a player from American vaudeville] who injected her unclothed body and ante-vitegraph ‘art’ into the sacred and most exalted art of the most picturesque nation in the world.”59 The language in the flier and the review points out the growing modernist tendency to separate art and entertainment, and it makes clear on which side Russian performance was to be understood. Gest and Hoffmann countered the attacks by claiming that their production had greater authenticity in regard to Russian ballet than any limited program of a few stars like Pavlova and Mordkin could offer. The souvenir program remarked that Hoffmann’s goal with her program was “to bring not one or two individual artists, no matter how great, but an entire Russian organization.” Although most of the performers had come from various Russian ballet programs, the claim to authenticity and wholeness held some weight in its reception. One critic thanked Hoffmann for “giving us the opportunity to see a complete company of marvelous Russian dancers.”60 The program stated that “in matters of costumes, stage equipment and scenic effects these productions are absolutely the last word in Russian art.”61 The producers claimed that they had imported the costumes and scenery “down to the smallest detail” from St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Paris. The use of Leon Bakst designs (or copies) impressed the critics and added to his growing fame in the United States. Two years later, he received his first exhibition in New York. The charge from their enemies that “La Saison Russe” was a vaudevillestyle entertainment could hardly be challenged by Gest and Hoffmann.

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84 Russian Culture and Theatrical Performance in America Hoffmann had insisted on inserting a revue, for the touring productions, between the three ballets.62 Two performers, Lydia Lopokova and Alexander Volinine, left the company when the revue was added, claiming the revue demeaned their art form and broke the contract they had signed.63 Gest and Hoffmann chose to exploit Hoffmann’s roots in vaudeville and popularity as a performer rather than appeal to an exclusively high brow audience by fighting the claim. This met with some success. One reviewer described the production as appealing to the masses and the classes. He wrote: This is a school of dancing which will make just as strong an appeal to the schoolboy who adores melodrama as it will to the jaded theatergoer. In taking their company to the Winter Garden instead of going to the Manhattan Opera House, as was originally intended, Manager Gest and Miss Hoffmann have placed the theatre management under a heavy debt of gratitude, for these ballets will bring to that spacious playhouse a class of patrons who never have discovered it while extravaganza and vaudeville were its attraction.64

Leaving Hoffmann’s reputation to appeal to the masses, Gest maintained the place of Russian performers on the pedestal of high art, as it was already developing great snob appeal. Some critics were indignant that the program freely mixed high art and low entertainment, while others appreciated the combination. Significantly, “La Saison Russe” introduced Theodore and Alexis Kosloff, into the American performing arts. Both became permanent fixtures in American theatre, dance, and film as popular choreographers and dance instructors. Theodore Kosloff is perhaps best remembered as the original dance instructor of Agnes B. de Mille, who always admired him. Kosloff, who had trained in the Imperial Russian Ballet School, left Russia with a touring production in 1910. In Paris, Gertrude Hoffmann discovered him and hired him to choreograph the stolen Ballets Russes dances, and he became well known as the star opposite Hoffmann. Following “La Saison Russe,” Kosloff choreographed several London revues and made an effort to begin a ballet school in London, but he was unsuccessful. He maintained contact with Morris Gest, who helped him establish his career. In 1914, Gest presented a “pantomime ballet” called, He, He, and She, featuring and choreographed by Kosloff at the Princess Theatre in London. Then, he enticed him back to New York in 1915 to stage two ballets for the operetta, Maid in America, and all the dances for the operetta, The Peasant Girl. Publicity for The Peasant Girl emphasized Kosloff ’s fame and training in Russia, but also cleverly pointed to Kosloff ’s admiration for America

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 85 and young American dancers. For an article that appeared in the New York Times, Kosloff (through his interpreter Gest) told an interviewer that “the short time it took him to put on the ballet in the Winter Garden . . . [was] accounted for [by] the adaptability of American girls.”65 Kosloff said that no other girls in the world could learn to dance so quickly. He added that “if America were to establish a national school of dancing similar to the Imperial School of Moscow, in a few years her dancers would surpass any in the world.” For this show, it was obviously important to emphasize the skill of the American dancers (as there weren’t any Russian ones in the production). Gest used this sort of publicity approach regularly, to remind his audience that they, too, had gifted performers, who could learn much from the Russian imports. In 1916, Kosloff arranged a revue with a small company of dancers and opera singers. They performed with great critical success at the Orpheum in Los Angeles, causing one reviewer to claim, “Vaudeville has gone hopelessly highbrow.”66 This popular revue established him in Los Angeles, where he would soon become the leading choreographer for Cecil B. DeMille’s films. However, in 1916, he returned to the East Coast, with his premiere danseuse Vlasta Maslova, to compete with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes tour. Offering an affordable alternative, Kosloff ’s makeshift company, which included Vera Fredowa and Natacha Rambova (Kosloff ’s American girlfriend named Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy67) joined an evening of vaudeville acts at Keith’s Theatre. In 1919, Kosloff signed a contract with Paramount, which secured his financial fortune in the United States.68 Kosloff played exotic parts in films, inspired by the characters he created under the influence of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Press agents often used his Russianness as a point of discussion, and Kosloff complied: he played the roles of the Russian émigré, fleeing Siberia and certain death, and the strict ballet master, who physically abused his students. He remained the entertainer, mixing borrowed choreography with original dances and presenting it to popular audiences. Though he expected the highest degree of professionalism from performers, he produced the work that popular audiences could appreciate. Kosloff, the first of many Russians to become famous thanks to Morris Gest, opened a dance studio in California and remained one of the most influential dance instructors until his death in 1956. His brother, Alexis, followed in his footsteps, though he remained primarily a stage artist. Following his appearances in “La Saison Russe,” he worked as a choreographer for Broadway musical revues and extravaganzas, produced by Gest and Comstock or the Shuberts. His most successful productions included Chu Chin Chow (1917), Sinbad (1918), Gay Paree (1925),

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86 Russian Culture and Theatrical Performance in America and Sunny (1925). In 1920, he became ballet master at the Metropolitan Opera. He started ballet schools in New York and Cleveland, and wrote the influential book, Russian Ballet Technique, in 1921. Like his brother, Alexis continued to use his skill for the popular Broadway stage until he joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in the 1930s. Later, he danced with the Mordkin Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. Morris Gest’s mingling of high-brow Russian artistry with popular entertainment continued later in some of his musical extravaganzas, for which he recruited the Kosloff brothers. In 1918, Gest attained great financial success (and contributed to orientalist fantasies) by producing enormous spectacles such as Chu Chin Chow and The Wanderer set in exotic, eastern locations at the Century Theatre. With these productions Gest commenced his relationship with Kahn, who invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in these and his next few shows. With each production of this type in the next several years, Gest tried to add more color, more glamor, and more extravagance. In an effort to make these shows more artistic (and thereby more respectable) or at least to give them the fresh stamp of artistry, Gest hired two well-known Russians (who were not associated with the vaudeville stage) for his production of Aphrodite based on the novel by Pierre Louys. In 1919, after two years of negotiations, he signed Michel Fokine, of Ballets Russes fame, to choreograph two ballets for the musical extravaganza. He also hired Leon Bakst to design some of the sets and costumes for the production. As expected, the association with these two artists brought the production instant attention and some notoriety, and the work of these two artists became the focal point of the responses to the production. Bakst’s work had been seen numerous times in the United States by 1919 (in exhibitions and when Diaghilev’s company toured), so it held less intrigue alone than it may have a few years earlier. Coupled with Fokine’s choreography, however, Bakst’s designs gave the stamp of Russian art and the flavor of the exotic tied to the Ballets Russes. Most amazing and indicative of Gest’s determination was his ability to sign Fokine, who had been courted for years by other American and European impresarios, including Kahn, who had tried to bring him to the Metropolitan Opera House. Gest agreed to pay Fokine the highest rate ever given to a choreographer, up to $1,000 per day, to get him to choreograph Aphrodite and his next big show, Mecca.69 As this instance suggests, Gest often paid high-profile artists more than other producers were willing to pay, and while this enabled him to attract such artists to the United States, it often left him profitless and eventually led him into bankruptcy. Seemingly trying to meet the expectation of his

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 87 own advertising, he was perpetually drawn to the biggest, the greatest, and the most famous, so he took tremendous risks as he tried to provide it. One writer likened him to a gambler who “stakes it all on a single turn of the card.”70 After making large profits on a costly production like Chu Chin Chow, Gest compulsively reinvested the money in a more costly, more risky project like Aphrodite. Because Fokine was known worldwide for his spirited and erotic bacchanal ballets, it is hardly surprising that Gest brought Fokine to the United States primarily to choreograph such a ballet for Aphrodite. In that ballet, over one hundred scarcely clad performers portrayed the hedonism and frenzy of the decadent Egyptians of the Occidental imagination. Longhaired females wearing vibrant, jeweled, two-piece costumes performed the ballet. Following a sensuous orgy, the exhausted participants collapsed on the stage, marking the end of the ballet.71 Once again, Gest found himself defending his production against the charges of public indecency. And again, Belasco came to the rescue, Russian artists again told the press that they were appalled by American close-mindedness, and again the public grew more interested in the production because of the scandal. The production, though not as financially successful as his previous extravaganza, remained a steady success at the box office. The critic Alexander Woollcott excused the frivolity and excess of the production and found pleasure in the mixing of art and entertainment, whereas Kenneth Macgowan cried out against the senseless display of wealth and color. Macgowan, however, found unquestionable “genius” displayed in the choreography while noting that the rest of the production had little “true art” despite the expense put into it.72 A writer for Theatre Magazine echoed the sentiment. He bemoaned the high price of the tickets ($11), the lavishness and expense of the production, and the lack of a clear narrative, yet he exalted the work of the Russians. “Were it not for the wonderful costumes and the dances arranged by Fokine, it would be a boresome spectacle,” he noted.73 Thanks to Pavlova, the Ballets Russes and Hoffmann’s copy of it, and several revered Russian writers and painters, the mark of seriousness attached to Russian artists upgraded the work of “simple” entertainers and profiteers. Fokine’s work on Aphrodite marked the beginning of his long career in the American theatre and ballet. Next, he choreographed Gest’s production of Mecca by Oscar Ashe, a lavish fantasy that offered much of the same glamor and sensuality of Aphrodite. Gest also presented Fokine and his wife, Vera Fokina, as performers in 1919. Fokine then worked as choreographer and dancer in the American popular theatre for the Shuberts, Charles Dillingham, and Florenz Ziegfeld. Under the management of

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Sol Hurok, the Fokines soon organized a ballet company that toured the United States. Additionally, Fokine taught ballet and movement classes for many theatre companies and schools in his twenty years in the United States. As the initial impetus behind Fokine’s work in America, Gest heralded this great contribution. Perhaps the most risky of all of Gest’s collaborations with Russians came when he brought Nikita Balieff and the Chauve-Souris to the United States for the first time in 1922. Gest claimed that he was $450,000 in debt when he saw the Chauve-Souris in Paris, but with great financial support from Kahn, who was interested in opening trade relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, he raised the funds necessary to bring the troupe to America.74 Gest faced numerous challenges in producing this company. The company was unknown in the United States, it had not done very well in London, and it had a unique approach to popular entertainment. Also, the company’s comedic style contradicted American perceptions of Russians as solemn and serious. Unlike the dancers, the Chauve-Souris faced a language barrier. And finally, recent Red Scare incidents had raised the fears and suspicions that Russians in the United States were spreading communist propaganda and were trying to overthrow the U.S. government. Despite these seemingly insurmountable odds, this venture proved to be one of the most successful and profitable projects of Gest’s career. The allure of novelty and genuine entertainment apparently outweighed political fears and high-brow posturing for a large sector of the New York City public to draw them to the Century Roof Theatre. By the beginning of the next year, the Wall Street Journal could report on “The Rage for the Russians,” noting that the most fashion conscious New York women were wearing Russian boots, rather than the galoshes that were in style the previous winter. Balieff ’s Chauve-Souris (or Bat Theatre) developed out of the cabaretstyle, impromptu performances given by members of the Moscow Art Theatre, but in 1908 it became a distinct company. After the Russian Revolution, Balieff, who had immigrated to Paris, reorganized a company there, which had become quite successful at the Théâtre Femina, where Gest saw it in 1921. The company performed changing programs made up of Russian songs and dances from various eras, short plays and poems by famous Russian writers like Chekhov, Gorky, and Pushkin, satirical sketches and tableaux set in Russia, France, and the Far East. Between each piece, Balieff would joke with the audience as the next piece was arranged. The sets and costumes, noted for vivid color and exaggeration, were designed by Serge Soudeikine and Nicolai Remisoff.

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6 Morris Gest greets Nikita Balieff. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC.

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Once Balieff signed an agreement with Gest, a massive press campaign began in the United States. Oliver Sayler, Gest’s press agent, boasted that “every magazine and newspaper in the United States” carried stories of the company’s triumphs.75 Publicizing the company’s origins in the Moscow Art Theatre, Gest and Sayler aroused high-brow interest in a project more connected to vaudeville, a pejorative term in some circles in the 1920s. While maintaining an idealized version of Russian artistry, the publicists exploded the stereotype of Russians as overly serious and depressingly passionate. Further, they challenged the idea that art and entertainment were mutually exclusive. The souvenir program stated that the company came to America “to dispel the notion that Russians never laugh.” It continued: The tradition of Russian and Muscovite solemnity was firmly grounded with us. Until Balieff came we knew the land of the samovar, the muzhik and the ruble through the introspective neurasthenia of Dostoevsky, the self-righteousness of Tolstoy, the sad and pompous dirges of Turgenev and the strange mysticism of Roerich’s paintings. Russia to us meant despondency and torment of the soul, with an occasional gleam of beauty like that of the Ballets Russes to lighted prevailing gloom.76

However, the program proclaimed the gaiety of the Chauve-Souris without sacrificing the “genius” of the Russians in the art of the theatre. Gest generated public anticipation for the company and gave it the stamp of importance by making the premiere an all-star event, unlike any other he had arranged. Among the guests that Gest stirred to attend the premiere were Al Jolson (who would become a regular audience member), Charlie Chaplin, Florenz Ziegfeld, Maude Adams, George S. Kaufman, John Barrymore, Joseph Urban, Kenneth Macgowan, and Eugene O’Neill. This mix of theatre artists alone proclaimed the program a combination of art and entertainment. Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover stood out among politicians, which was important to settle any fears that the company came for communist propaganda. The audience was also sprinkled with Morgans and Vanderbelts and Hearsts, and of course, Kahns. Additionally, many Russians of American fame sat in the premiere audience including Pavlova, the Fokines, Fedor Chaliapin (who returned to the United States under the management of Sol Hurok), Boris Anisfeld, and Jacob Ben-Ami, one of the most successful actors to move from the Yiddish to the Englishlanguage stages. This premiere, the publicity hype, and a series of excited reviews proclaimed this an event not to be missed. The language barrier was hardly a

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 91 problem because the program and publicity offered a synopsis of each sketch that required it, and many of the pieces included song, dance, or broadly drawn movement. Balieff, who spoke between the acts in broken English, even asked audience members (who did not know Russian) to interpret for him, which audiences and critics seemed to enjoy. By the Chauve-Souris’s second tour in 1924, jokes were being made that American playwrights were considering having their own plays translated into Russian.77 The show brought great success to the producers and to the entertainers. The initial plan for eight weeks (although only announced for five) was extended to six months to meet the demand. The show ran for 544 consecutive performances in its first season.78 The show’s success brought out critical discussions of “high brow” and “low brow” entertainment, with critics divided over the appropriate response to the unique style of entertainment, though most of them advised their readers to attend the shows. Helen Bullitt Lowry, writing an article that appeared in the New York Times, and Robert C. Benchley of Life magazine represented extreme positions that Gest would have to counter. Lowry wrote: We have known for some time that it was “smart” to enjoy the nonsense of the Jaberwock. But now culture is permitting us to laugh at the nonsensical grimaces borrowed from the monkey—with no more esthetic embarrassment than if we were pleasantly “lit” at a Kit Kat ball. The Bakst-like lure of the costumes and scenery has acted as an intoxicant, and the evening-gowned sophisticated audience, that Balieff ’s show is drawing in is relaxing gently into a medieval conception of the “funny.” 79

Lowry concluded that the only reason the show had any more artistic value than a common circus or American vaudeville show was due to the training of the dancers and actors in the show and the modern visual elements. Clearly, she viewed the show as beneath the elites who were attending in large numbers. Such an attitude was easily countered by others, who noted that it was possible to laugh and think. Comedy, they argued as prompted by Gest’s publicity, could have aesthetic associations and should not easily be dismissed as low brow.80 Benchley, however, viewed the show as elitist in its appeal to the upper classes. While he agreed that the show was basically refined and technically proficient, he jeered at the snobbishness of the event. He wrote of his own review: All of [this] is probably the reaction on a naturally contrary spirit of all the high-class smooch, which has been tossed about since the opening of the “Chauve-Souris,” by people who glow with a great light when the name is

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Benchley believed the high-brow posturing was associated with the Russianness of the event, and he felt frustrated that a similar American production would be quickly dismissed by the critics and sophisticated society. Debate over the high ticket prices and the appeal of vaudeville to the educated elite continued, but the show remained a popular and critical success. Sensitive to the masses, Gest downplayed the elitism of the company by having it perform several benefit shows. At one such event, the company raised $11,000 to aid Russian artists. This reminded the American audiences that although these Russians might have impressive credentials, they were among those who had been displaced by wars and revolution; they were also good-natured and generous. Gest appealed to American sensibilities with press materials favorably comparing the Russian performers with star American performers. On one occasion, Gest’s press agent Sayler wrote a lengthy article imagining an American equivalent of the Chauve-Souris, which he later published as a chapter in Our American Theatre (1923), a work that existed in part to publicize Russian performance in America. Sayler compared: Our light musical and vaudeville stages abound in talents that need not fear comparison with the company and the repertory of the Chauve-Souris. To cite at random, there are: Ruth Page . . . Margaret Severn; Rosiland Fuller . . . Ruth Draper in anything her fancy favors; the Rath Brothers, acrobats . . . the Six Brown Brothers . . . Robert Edmond Jones, Norman Bel Geddes, Lee Simonson, and Herman Rosse are ready to enter the lists as rivals of Balieff ’s artists. Robert Benchley, Brian Hooker, Alfred Kreymborg, George Jean Nathan, Heywood Broun . . . George S. Kaufman, and Marc Connelly are a few of those who might be drafted to write lines and compose sketches . . .82

To these lists, Sayler added Al Jolson, Will Rogers, and Raymond Hitchcock to replace Balieff for an American Chauve-Souris. Sayler, in the service of Gest and the Russian productions, maintained the position that American artists could surpass the Russians, with the proper tutelage. The Chauve-Souris performed regularly in the United States for the next ten years, under Gest’s management until the 1930s. Through the years, the company introduced many performers and artists, such as George Balanchine and Tamara Geva, who would become important figures in the American theatre and ballet. Balanchine, who choreographed a dance

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7 1925 Chauve-Souris Program Cover, Morris Gest rides behind Balieff as Napoleon. Harvard Theatre Collection.

for Geva’s 1927 performance with the Chauve-Souris, founded the School of American Ballet with Lincoln Kirstein in New York in 1934.83 Geva, Balanchine’s first wife, remained a performer on the popular American stage. Serge Soudeikine, one of the leading designers for the company, also

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emigrated to America. He became a prominent designer whose work regularly appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, the Jewish Art Theatre, and for various Broadway productions. Most famously, perhaps, he designed Porgy and Bess in 1936.84 Another important designer, Nicolai Remisoff, remained in America after being introduced by the Chauve-Souris. Remisoff, who became famous as the designer for Elizabeth Arden studios, often worked with Adolph Bolm, first in Chicago and then in San Francisco. In the 1920s, he taught stage design at the Chicago Art Institute. In 1939, he moved to Hollywood, where he became a prominent art director and production designer. Additionally, the comic actress Tamara Daykarkhanova stayed in the United States and worked primarily as an educator, running the Academy of Stage Make-Up in the 1920s and opening the School for Stage Art, with other Russian émigrés, in the 1930s. The Chauve-Souris directly influenced the work of American artists and prompted experimentation in American vaudeville. A reviewer for Theatre Magazine wrote in December of 1922: There is no doubt but that America’s artistic debt to these visitors is huge— beyond estimate. No form of entertainment in the land but that will fall eventually under the influence of their methods directly or indirectly. Already it is becoming obvious on Broadway and in vaudeville.85

One example of this influence of the Chauve-Souris was noted by Alice Lewisohn Crowley of the Neighborhood Playhouse who attributed the style of her theatre’s successful “Grand Street Follies” to Balieff and the Chauve-Souris.86 In addition to providing tutorial inspiration for American theatre artists and leaving behind numerous performers and artists who remained in the United States, the Chauve-Souris contributed greatly to theatre in the United States by serving as a bridge between American theatre artists and the Moscow Art Theatre. Nikita Balieff convinced Morris Gest to bring the Moscow Art Theatre to the United States. Apparently, Gest had never seen them perform and accepted Balieff ’s opinion of the Moscow Art Theatre’s potential for profitability.87 Balieff, with aid from Chaliapin, also convinced Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko of Gest’s ability to produce them in the United States. Although the negotiations were difficult (Gest complained of needing to bring the Russians “down to earth,”)88 Gest finally succeeded in arranging the Moscow Art Theatre’s first visit to the United States. His publicity for the Chauve-Souris, which continued to perform, now focused more on its artistic inspiration, the Moscow Art Theatre.

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 95 The most advantageous use of the popularity of Balieff ’s company occurred prior to the premiere of the Moscow Art Theatre in the United States. Arranged by Gest as another star-studded event during a Chauve-Souris performance, Balieff welcomed the new arrivals of the Moscow Art Theatre. The event, as described by John Corbin in the New York Times, was “unusually gay and vivid.” He wrote: Balieff gave Stanislavsky a bouquet and Stanislavsky spoke briefly in Russian. As rendered by an interpreter, what he said was a graceful and touching tribute from sorrowing Russia toward beneficent America. According to Balieff, the interpreter missed the point, which was that the women of America are the most beautiful in the world, especially those who were present.89

This well-devised moment exaggerated the contrasting styles of the two men and their theatres and established the more serious tone of the new arrivals from Russia. Historians who have studied Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre in America often diminish Gest’s role in establishing the important relationship between American artists and the Russian artists. When his role as producer is briefly acknowledged, he is sometimes criticized for his aggressive publicity tactics and his overbearing personality. Scholars agree, however, that much of the financial success of the first season can be attributed to publicity, though it might have been detrimental to Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre back home. Facing the obstacles of the language barrier and the prejudices against Russians associated with Bolshevism, Stanislavsky’s company required Gest’s image-making expertise for there to be hope of financial success in the United States, which was, of course, a desire of Stanislavsky as well as Gest. Russian performers in the United States faced a possible angry, fearful, and violent mob if Red Scare suspicion was allowed to fester. Gest asked Kahn, the principal backer of the tour, to solicit membership for a “Committee of Patrons” for the Moscow Art Theatre’s American Tour. Gest wanted to associate the theatre with some important American names and institutions. Kahn sent letters to many of the most revered individuals in finance, art, education, and politics, whose patronage would dispel any question about the intent of the Russian performers. Membership in the committee had no financial obligation or commitments, though members were strongly encouraged to attend a welcome reception for the performers. It included such respected Americans as the president of Princeton (where Kahn had strong ties), the editor of the New York Tribune, and various

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8 Morris Gest greets Konstantin Stanislavsky. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC.

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 97 university professors, artists, businessmen, and their wives. Kahn’s letter promised members that there was no connection between the Moscow Art Theatre’s visit and Soviet propaganda. Gest used the finalized, prestigious list regularly in press materials and in the programs.90 Gest again called on Kahn to help alleviate fear when the American Defense Society vociferously protested the Moscow Art Theatre’s tour, directly calling it Soviet propaganda. Both Kahn and Gest gave statements to the press strongly denying the claims as absurd, reminding the public that the Moscow Art Theatre had toured France, the most anti-Bolshevist nation at that time, and emphasized the purely artistic nature of this most highly regarded company. Gest also arranged a meeting between Stanislavsky and President Calvin Coolidge to ease American suspicion, though, as Sharon Carnicke has noted, the Soviet Union, still unrecognized by the United States, had no ambassador through whom he could speak to the president.91 Nevertheless, the seeming interaction of the two men mattered more for the success of the company than any real interaction, and Gest mastered the art of “seeming,” and had enough influence to be able to arrange such a photo opportunity. Gest understood how to work the American press and knew how to generate the necessary images for success in the United States. He knew that Stanislavsky must appear as a kind family man rather than a dangerous Bolshevik (which explains why the confused Stanislavsky was forced to pose with a wife and child that were not his own). This well-documented publicity stunt also safeguarded Stanislavsky against the fate of Gorky. The focus of the press materials had to be on the company’s artistry Gest knew, and any relationship to politics was vehemently denied. Indeed, Stanislavsky was labeled a “White Russian,” much to his consternation and worry, in the American press;92 therefore, it was unlikely that he would be perceived as working as an agent of Bolshevism. Among the publicity efforts, some poorly conceived and ill-timed, were many effective strategies that helped lead to the enduring relationship between Stanislavsky and the American theatre. Months in advance, the public gained increasing information about the company. Members of Gest’s staff followed the Moscow Art Theatre on their European tour, sending highlights and building expectation in the United States.93 Oliver Sayler published the book The Russian Theatre, a newly titled reprint of an earlier work, in 1922, which had helped raise interest in both Russian troupes sponsored by Gest. Additionally, the plays that the company would perform in Russian were made available in new English translations. Some volumes were sent by Gest as gifts to high-profile potential audience members.

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Eight days after the premiere, with Gest’s sponsorship and Stanislavsky’s approval, Richard Boleslavsky, who had been an actor with the Moscow Art Theatre, held his famous lectures on Stanislavsky’s approach to acting.94 Perhaps the most effective single publicity event, though, was the meeting between the very popular Chauve-Souris, which Gest had exalted to fame, and the Moscow Art Theatre. Certainly, the event helped to raise enthusiasm for the Moscow Art Theatre, and along with other publicity efforts and decisions by the producer, positioned the Moscow Art Theatre to make its long-lasting impact on the American theatre. The first tour attracted large audiences, though the primary audiences were Russian-Jewish émigrés, American actors and directors, and the cultural elite.95 Following the financial and artistic success of the first tour, Gest agreed to another tour in 1924, though with less generous financial terms.96 He warned the company that, having lost its novelty for the American public, it would probably not attract large audiences. The company considered working with another Russian-American producer (most likely Sol Hurok), but the members decided to sign with Gest, whom the actor Leonid Leonidov, the chief negotiator for the Moscow Art Theatre’s American tours, referred to in his memoirs as forthright, experienced, and honest.97 Gest was right about the second tour. Though Russian-Jewish émigrés and American actors remained in the audience, the company’s productions no longer attracted large crowds. The company was disheartened by the financial results and most of its members returned to Moscow, aware of its great artistic success and influence. Several members of the Moscow Art Theatre remained in America. According to Anatoly Smeliansky, a group of the actors (which included Maria Ouspenskaya, Akim Tamiroff, Leo Bulgakov, and his wife Barbara Bulgakova) had always intended to stay in the United States.98 Maria Ouspenskaya joined Boleslavsky at the American Laboratory Theatre, where for seven years, they trained actors in an approach to acting inspired by their work with Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre. In addition to his work with the American Laboratory Theatre, Boleslavsky, invited by Gest, assisted Max Reinhardt on the lavish spectacle The Miracle in 1924 and produced several plays on Broadway. He later embarked on a noteworthy career as an actor and director in Hollywood in the 1930s. Ouspenskaya established her own theatre school in New York in 1929, but she moved the school to Los Angeles in 1940, when she decided to advance her film career. Akim Tamiroff worked in the theatre in the 1920s, going on to establish a career in Hollywood. He appeared in hundreds of films, often playing ethnic sidekicks.99 Leo Bulgakov and his wife Barbara Bulgakova also

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The Russian Invasion of the American Theatre 99 remained in America. He launched a successful career as a director in New York and the northeast region, and, like Boleslavsky, and later Theodore Komisarjevsky, tried to establish a permanent, repertory company, though the organizations he founded, such as the Leo Bulgakov Theatre Associates, were shortlived. Bulgakov’s wife Barbara, appeared in many of Bulgakov’s productions. She outlived him by several decades, and turned her efforts to teaching. Unlike her husband who had tried to establish a reputation in his own name, Bulgakova gave lectures on acting for eager Americans, well into the 1960s, using the famous name of Stanislavsky. In 1925, Gest brought Nemirovich-Danchenko and the Moscow Art Theatre Musical Studio, the stylized musical-theatre branch of the Moscow Art Theatre devised to appeal to young Soviets. Leonidov had convinced Gest that it would be a “revolutionary success.”100 It wasn’t. The company opened with Lysistrata at the Jolson Theatre, which reviewers found creative and innovative, but seemed ill-suited to the theatre. John Mason Brown of Theatre Arts Monthly noted that the much-anticipated settings of Isaac Rabinovitch “did not seem scaled to fit the stage of the Jolson . . . and were sadly in need of a coat of paint.”101 Gest blamed the failure of the group, however, on Nemirovich-Danchenko’s refusal to open with Carmencita and the Soldier, a daring adaptation of Carmen, which had been attacked in Berlin, but was the most popular and critically acclaimed production of the company in America. The New York Times reviewer wrote at length about the striking stage pictures and musical elements, and called it “the triumphant demonstration of new syntheses and new technical methods of the lyric theatre.”102 But just as the company began to attract audiences with Carmencita, it was called back to Moscow.103 Leonidov called the tour a success, but a “success d’estime,” though, of course, the company may have been more financially successful had it been allowed to stay. NemirovichDanchenko, frustrated by his working conditions in Soviet Russia, decided to accept an offer from United Artists to work in Hollywood for a few years, a deal most likely arranged by Gest.104 Despite carrying the financial burden of the losses, Gest was negotiating again with Nemirovich-Danchenko in Moscow in 1929, though another tour did not materialize. Like many others in the American theatre, Gest was struck by the artistic work of the Moscow Art Theatre, and he believed that the Americans and the Russians profited by this cultural exchange. The Russians profited, he believed for some time, by generating sympathy for Russians in America and keeping Russia open to the West for as long as possible, for Gest, who had family in Russia and had to petition strongly to arrange American tours, knew of the increasing restrictions and closures there. But in his

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estimation, Americans also profited as the students of the greatest artists of Russia. Leonidov agreed with this assessment. He wrote in his memoir that he often thought about the way that American actors and directors had firmly absorbed the lessons they had received from the Moscow Art Theatre into their own practices.105 Although Morris Gest’s ascension to the stage of “high art” was short lived, his contributions, and those of his mentor Otto Kahn, as cultural ambassadors remain significant. Over a period of fifteen years, the projects of Russian cultural exchange arranged by Gest and Kahn prepared the way for the success and eventual entrenchment of Stanislavsky and Balanchine in America. Many of the artists who came to America under their watch, remained in America as dancers, actors, directors, designers, and teachers and continued to shape the direction of the American theatre. After years of preparation through aggressive advertising and educational materials, Americans began to consider Russian performance with increasing awe and respect. Gest and Kahn helped make the work of Russian artists available to “the masses” and “the classes,” and helped to depoliticize Russian art and performance, making it a greatly desired commodity for American theatrical consumers for years to come.

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Part III Revolutionary Theatre: From Russia to America Today we are witnessing a remarkable extension of the Bolshevist cultural programme in America, Western Europe and England. It is being effected by exceptional and to some extent unexpected, methods and means. —Huntly Carter, The New Spirit in the Russian Theatre, 1929, 318–319 The living elements in the theatre all over the world must be galvanized and reshaped by the actual organization and procedure of the Soviet Theatre. —Harold Clurman, The Daily Worker, 1933

T

heatre in Russia, from the turn of the century until the era of Stalinist censorship beginning around 1927, was characterized by sporadic and varied experimentation often uniting political and social ideals with modernist artistic innovations. Even as Stanislavsky struggled to develop and articulate a practical approach to acting, other Russian theatre artists were adamantly attacking naturalistic illusionism in the theatre. Throughout this period, artists explored the possibilities of Symbolism, Futurism, Expressionism, Theatricalism, Constructivism, and Suprematism. They sought inspiration from medieval mysteries, folklore, commedia dell’arte, classical dramas, European modernism, and the circus as well as from political doctrines and contemporary headlines. Inspired by prerevolutionary avant-garde impulses, after the revolution, artists of the theatre searched for a theatre that could represent the New Russia. Following the October Revolution in 1917 until the early 1930s, Russian artists produced massive spectacles, circus-theatres, living newspapers, and agitprop dramas, employing both realistic techniques and explicit

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theatricality in order to engage a new proletarian audience, while others staged new adaptations of classical and traditional texts using new forms. Not surprisingly, debates raged over the purposes and possibilities of theatre in Russia, resulting in a wide diversity of form, content, production style, and venue. This chapter presents the arrival of Soviet experimentation on American stages from the late 1920s to the early 1930s. American theatre artists began to take interest in a range of Russian approaches to theatrical production as more information of the theatre in Soviet Russia came available through writers who visited Russia or saw Russian performances in Europe. Several journalists wrote about Russian avant-garde theatre, but the first extensive studies in English were published by Oliver M. Sayler, Huntly Carter, and Hallie Flanagan. In 1917, Oliver M. Sayler, dramatic editor for the Indianapolis News, travelled to Russia, intent on collecting a firsthand account of the Russian theatre before “the pressure of revolution should bear too harshly upon it.”1 He stayed for sixth months and published his experiences of Russian theatre in The Russian Theatre under the Revolution (1920)2 and in The North American Review, The New Republic, The Saturday Evening Post, the Indianapolis News, The Boston Evening Transcript, and Vanity Fair. Sayler’s writings became the primary avenue through which Americans first learned about Russian theatre. According to Thomas Dickinson, who reviewed Sayler’s work in 1920, Sayler gave his contemporary readers vivid, detailed, and accessible accounts of the events and supplied important early visual documentation. Dickinson wrote, “since I can’t be there myself, the book helps me to see what I should want to see if I were there.”3 Sayler’s writings on Russian theatre made him the American expert on Russian theatre.4 Although Sayler had given accounts of the avant-garde experiments of Tairov, Meyerhold, Evreinov, and others, he had not witnessed the growth of proletarian theatre and experiments in biomechanics and constructivism. His work largely emphasized the developments of the Moscow Art Theatre and its studios, which he promoted throughout his career, though his discussions of Russian experimentation ignited American interest in the new forms. In 1924, the Harvard professor Leo Wiener wrote The Contemporary Drama of Russia, a work which also focused largely on the prerevolutionary theatre and concluded that the drama written after the revolution was insignificant.5 The British writer Huntly Carter was the first to write extensively in English on the emerging styles in his studies, The New Theatre and Cinema of Soviet Russia (1923) and The New Spirit in the Russian Theatre (1928).6 His detailed descriptions and illustrations gave English readers the most comprehensive access to the Soviet experimental theatre.

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In 1926, Hallie Flanagan received a Guggenheim Fellowship to study European theatre. She spent most of her time in Soviet Russia and dedicated much of her book, Shifting Scenes on the Modern European Theatre, to her impressions of the Russian Theatre. She also sent articles and photographs of theatre in the USSR to the very interested editors of Theatre Arts Monthly during her trip. Her writing was especially useful for American readers because she often described theatre in Soviet Russia in comparison to specific American productions familiar to her readers.7 In the late 1920s, Soviet theatre attracted Americans for a variety of reasons, but the leading reasons included a desire to experiment with stylization or theatricalism and/or a desire to use theatre as a weapon for social change. Flanagan’s writings offered American readers a view of both, though she herself was most interested in theatre that seemed to grip its audience. There were also numerous articles on theatre in Soviet Russia published in a variety of presses, with Theatre Arts Monthly being a leading conduit of information to English readers. The monthly printed dozens of articles on Soviet experiments throughout the late 1920s. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, left-wing publications, such as The New Masses and Workers’ Theatre, regularly published articles in English on Soviet theatre and connected American workers theatres to their Soviet counterparts. Networks for the exchange of information about theatre in Russia were particularly strong among Russian Eastern European and American Jews who continued to travel the Yiddish theatre circuits, and to publish in Russian- and Yiddish-language newspapers in the United States. A good deal of current information on experimental theatre in Russia was available especially to artists working in the American Yiddish theatre, such as Maurice Schwartz of the Yiddish Art Theatre. The Soviet government was engaged in promoting its revolutionary theatre to Americans, as well. Under the sponsorship of two American organizations, the Soviets presented Russian experimental theatre to Americans in New York as part of an exposition in 1928.8 For two weeks in February, the Russian Exposition of Handicrafts, Theatre, Science and Industry, which had appeared in Berlin, Paris, and Brussels, showed the Soviet Regime’s “advances” in education, public health, agriculture, transportation, and the arts. The exhibition featured what was called the “futuristic developments” of the theatre through designs, photographs, model sets, and a miniature stage “set up in the door of a box car.”9 Works demonstrated the theatrical creations of professional theatres as well as the amateur workers’ theatres. As part of the event, musical presentations and lectures were given each evening. The guests invited to speak about the Russian theatre included

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Oliver Sayler, Leo Bulgakov, and Lee Simonson. Among the speakers, Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood, who acted as interpreter, and Irene Lewisohn (of the Neighborhood Playhouse), were invited to attend an opening reception for the event. Albert Rhys Williams, the American involved with the Soviet Information Bureau that began distributing information about Soviet life in America in 1917, was the guest of honor for the opening reception. Williams published widely on Soviet art, society, finance, etc. for decades. One of the most direct ways that Americans came in contact with the experimental Russian theatre, however, came through the American tours of high profile Russian companies such as the Moscow Art Theatre Musical Studio and the Habima (the Hebrew-language theatre centered in Moscow). And, following the revolution, Russian émigré theatre artists continued to appear in various American theatrical venues and political organizations. By the late 1920s, more radical experiments in design and staging could be found on American stages, particularly in the theatres of the Lower East Side. The distinctive, often harsh and grotesque Russian experimental styles softened in American productions, but the influence remained. Experiments influenced by the Soviets peaked with the workers theatres in the 1930s, when interest in Russian culture reached a second crescendo.

EXPERIMENTATION IN THE SOVIET THEATRE A quick overview of the variety of experimentation in Soviet theatre will be useful for demonstrating the links between Russian and American experimental theatre in the late 1920s and early 1930s explored in this chapter. Here, I will quickly outline some of the most significant developments in Soviet theatre in this period. When the Provisional Government abolished censorship from the Russian stage in 1917, it increased the production of previously banned plays and enabled theatre professionals to experiment, if at first reluctantly, with new forms. Prerevolutionary interests in popular forms, ritual, and theatricalization soon met postrevolutionary impulses to define a changing Russia through art. While realistic plays and the traditional Russian repertoire were mainstays of many theatre organizations, satirical and propagandistic plays and sketches populated the cabarets, the streets, and the stages of minor theatres. Theatre became a site for public debate, political campaigning, and rigorous propaganda.10 Addressing problems confronted by the early Russian avant-garde, Soviet experiments in theatre raised questions about the moral, social, and educational responsibilities of theatre; audience-performer relationships; collective

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creation; stage space and theatrical design; dramaturgy and text selection; and acting styles and performer training. Although their methods and concerns broadly differed, many groups used the theatre for education and agitation. The revolution spawned many new children’s theatres, nationalist theatres, and trade union club drama circles dedicated to propaganda for the new Soviet state. At the height of the era of Soviet theatre, according to Huntly Carter, there were twenty-three factory theatres and 160 dramatic clubs in Petrograd (later Leningrad) alone.11 Many of these organizations existed primarily for educating workers and building solidarity. As the impulse to support and to celebrate the revolution flourished, some theatre artists and organizations resisted traditional venues in support of street theatres, living rooms, or massive halls and lobbies. The various Blue Blouse groups, independent workers’ theatres, for example, performed short, stylized living newspapers in a variety of places where they might find the proletarian audiences they sought, such as street corners, in clubs or lunchrooms. The Blue Blouses were brought to American attention in an article appearing in Theatre Arts Monthly in 1926. The author wrote that “audiences were quick to respond to the Living Newspapers enacted by the Blue Blouses” and decided that the “unity of spirit between the actors and audience” were the major achievements of such groups.12 Flanagan wrote about the dynamic, yet spare presentations of the Blue Blouses in her 1928 book, and, later, she encouraged the adaptation of the forms used by the Soviet groups when she was appointed head of the Federal Theatre Project in the 1930s. In 1930, the Moscow Blue Blouses contacted American workers theatre organizations through the New Masses. A brief article entitled, “Greetings from Soviet ‘Blue Blouse,” appeared in the October 1930 issue. It read: The Moscow Theatre “Blue Blouse” sends greetings to all proletarian drama groups in America. We will gladly exchange dramatic material and notes on stage experiments. We are sending our magazine Forms of Club Spectacles for your attention. In addition to this, we are sending in a few days, a number of short plays and sketches . . . Since some of these are of local interest for the Soviet spectator, a certain amount of revising will have to be done to make them suitable for American worker’s clubs . . . If American theatre groups are interested in our methods we will gladly send any information requested . . .13

The letter also requested a copy of an American play mentioned in the May issue of the New Masses. Contact between the Soviet Blue Blouses and

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the American workers theatres increased as the New Masses became more devoted to the workers theatre movement and a workers art movement developed in America in the 1930s. On a much larger scale, Soviet artists and political leaders organized mass spectacles commemorating the revolution and celebrating the May Day holiday. Thousands of trained and untrained actors and dancers performed historical reenactments and processional pantomimes in large, festively decorated public squares. One of the most elaborate productions of this kind was The Storming of the Winter Palace, directed by Nikolai Evreinov. On November 7, 1920, the historical reenactment of the Bolsheviks’ victory over the provisional government took place in front of the Winter Palace and involved 8,000 performers, 500 musicians, and an estimated 100,000 spectators.14 The carefully orchestrated event, complete with machine-gun fire, soldiers on horseback and motorbikes, politicians in armored cars, and fireworks, concluded with audiences singing “The Internationale.”15 Many other avant-garde theatre artists and organizations remained in the confines of traditional theatre spaces, but producers often reconfigured those spaces to encourage new kinds of relationships between performers and audience members in order to reflect the national attitude of solidarity. Hallie Flanagan repeatedly highlighted the active involvement and passion of the audience, shouting “Tovarishch!” (Comrade) or singing “The Internationale,” in a chapter entitled, “Red Theatre” in her 1928 study of Russian theatre. American communists adopted the style of mass spectacle and audience participation when they, too, celebrated the Russian Revolution on January 21, 1928, at Madison Square Garden. The Lenin Memorial Celebration in New York included a reenactment of the Russian Revolution with a cast of 1,000 actors. Staged by Edward Massey of the New Playwrights Theatre and choreographed by Edith Segal, associated with the Neighborhood Playhouse, 20,000 spectators attended the event.16 As with similar Soviet productions, the production ended as the performers and spectators joined in singing “The Internationale.” There were other grand theatrical events and parades staged by American communists as they agitated for a political candidate, joined strikes, or protested an action of the U.S. government, but this was among the most massive. The lack of new Russian dramas written after the revolution sent Soviet theatre companies looking in many different directions for texts: the classics, newspapers, poetry collections, scenarios for improvisation, political speeches, new adaptations, and recent history.17 The search for texts appropriate for the new Russia also encouraged artists to create montages and to reassemble and reinterpret existing works. This nourished the growing

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devaluation of written text in favor of pantomime and symbolic gesture, which, in the most technically proficient theatres, required actor proficiency in mime, acrobats, gymnastics, contortion, and Chaplinesque film acting. Even amateurs with the Blue Blouse groups underwent rigorous training for highly physical performances. In contrast to the natural, earthy dancemovement styles encouraged by the American dancer Isadora Duncan in the early part of the century in Russia, much of the experimentation with plastic movement and rhythm became associated with a pseudoscientific mix of Taylorism, studies of motion efficiency, and Pavlov’s studies of reflex stimulation. Exemplified by Meyerhold’s biomechanics, made more rigorous with circus and gymnastic techniques, experiments in plasticity could be seen in the studios of the Experimental-Heroic Theatre, the Laboratory Theatre of Expressionism, and Nikolai Foregger’s MastFor dance company in the Soviet Union. Some Americans had taken note of Meyerhold’s work as early as 1915, when an article about him appeared in the New York Times. His name began to appear regularly in discussions of the Russian theatre throughout the 1920s. Sayler gave an early American account of Meyerhold in his 1920 book as an experimental director, unbound by tradition and realism, but Sayler was unable to assess his working methods with any specificity. Whereas Sayler did not have a chance to see expressions of Meyerhold’s biomechanics in performance because of his early arrival, Hallie Flanagan did have such an opportunity, and she found the energy of the performances electrifying. She usefully detailed her experiences of watching Meyerhold in rehearsal and watching his famous production of Roar, China! Describing the actor in Meyerhold’s theatre, she wrote, “He must not become an abstract idea, as in expressionism, because this is not the age of abstractions, but of realities and machines . . . His acting is not classic, romantic, or realistic . . . he is a supermachine, his movements attaining a rhythmic beat of power and precision.”18 A Russian actress visiting the United States wrote an article for the New York Times about the work of Meyerhold during her tour in 1927 because, she said, so many people throughout Europe and America had asked her about him on her tours. She explained for Americans, “Today, actors in the theatre cannot walk, stand, and sit as in the old days, when life went normally and slowly. Nowadays, the actor must run, jump and fly, because life runs, the age jumps, epochs fly.”19 As we shall see in the next section, touring and émigré actors in New York would become especially influential in transporting stylized movement and the frenetic pace of Russian performance to the American theatre.

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As with performance spaces, text selections, and acting styles, scenic and costume designs greatly varied in the Russian theatres following the revolution. Minimalism, pictorialism, and representational illusionism fulfilled the needs of many theatre companies, while futurism, cubism, and constructivism increasingly appeared on experimental stages. Avant-garde Russian design of this era contrasted with the exotic, painted backdrops of the Ballets Russes, which had brought international recognition to Russian art and design prior to the revolution, though the later artists were certainly influenced by use of color and the rhythmic, tonal, and sculptural qualities of costumes by artists like Leon Bakst, Boris Anisfeld, Nicolai Remisoff, and Nicholas Roerich (all who eventually provided designs for American ballet, opera, and/or musical theatre productions). Alexandra Exter’s costume and set designs for the Kamerny Theatre in the late 1910s exemplified the new attention on composition in stage space and rhythmic scenery and the growing movement toward extreme stylization. While maintaining the Ballets Russes artists’ lavish use of color, Exter disrupted the continuity of the stage space with many levels using steps, pillars, and light and shadow for her 1917 designs of Annensky’s Famira Kifared and Salome. The designs also make use of fragmented and nonrepresentational geometric shapes and harsh angular lines in the scenery and the costumes. Her early work provoked interest in the application of modernist trends in painting and sculpture for theatrical design. Under her tutelage, Boris Aronson, who would emigrate to America in the early 1920s, explored similar approaches to design. By the mid-1920s, the scarcity of building materials, the disdain for lavishness and excess, and the idealization of industrialization in the USSR encouraged Russian avant-garde artists to move toward the use of nonrepresentational, utilitarian structures exemplified by constructivism. Constructivists focused primarily on the dynamics of action and the efficiency of the machine. Supposedly offering a parallel to the reconstruction of the Soviet state, the constructivist sets were sites for worker-actors to engage. Reduced to the bare essentials, constructivist sets, epitomized by Liubov Popova’s designs for Meyerhold’s production of The Magnanimous Cuckold, operated as large machines with movable, operable parts with many playing areas for actors. Alexandra Exter also experimented with constructivism in design. In a 1924 plan for a revue that was never produced, she employed huge swings, ladders of various heights and angles, wheels, nets, and other naked structures for the athletic performances of the actors. Few productions in Russia could be designated as purely constructivist, though a mixture of various styles often converged in avant-garde productions.

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While many theatre organizations persistently faced economic struggles, criticism from conservatives as well as radicals, and perpetual restructuring, a few Soviet theatre companies received solid government sponsorship and remained relatively stable throughout the 1920s. Some, partly due to international fame, endured as exhibitions of Russian art and Soviet tolerance. Among these theatres were the Moscow Art Theatre and its studios, initially under the leadership of Evgenii Vakhtangov and Michael Chekhov, the Kamerny Theatre, and the Moscow State Yiddish Theatre (GOSET). Of these, only GOSET had both a clear revolutionary agenda for life as well as theatre. A quick description of GOSET is useful here because, though the company never toured America (as it had planned in the 1920s), it maintained contact with theatre artists in America through its strong association with Yiddish theatre artists in the United States. Prompted by revolutionary allegiance and a desire to educate the Jewish masses in revolutionary ideals, Alexander Granovsky founded the Yiddish Chamber Theatre in 1918 in Petrograd. Granovsky, who had studied with Max Reinhardt in Germany and had adored Meyerhold’s early experiments, moved his company to Moscow in order to work more closely with the playwright Abram Efros. The two men envisioned that the company, eventually renamed the Moscow State Yiddish Theatre, would train workeractors from across the Soviet Union in revolutionary aesthetics, and then the actors would return to their native lands and operate the theatres in their regions.20 In its first season, the company worked out its primary aesthetic, which was to merge Jewish and Russian folk culture with modernist artistic trends. Marc Chagall, who had studied painting in Paris, designed GOSET’s first production, and he greatly influenced the company’s artistic approach. As many experimental companies did during this time, GOSET adopted Meyerhold’s biomechanics as the primary technique for actor training, but the company preferred the exaggerated techniques of the expressionists in staging and design. GOSET’s style became internationally known, particularly among Jewish artists, because Granovsky sent regular press releases and photographs of his theatre to European and American newspapers, though the group was sometimes confused with its Russian rival, the State Hebrew theatre, Habima. Granovsky tried to arrange a tour of the United States in 1924, but the fees for performing ($16,000) and the prepublicity support Granovsky demanded (including books in English and Yiddish) proved more than any Broadway manager could afford to invest in the theatre company, which they feared would have limited appeal.21 Also, this was the same year that Gest and Kahn were tied up with the second season of the

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Moscow Art Theatre, were producing Max Reinhardt’s massive The Miracle, and were preparing for the MAT Music Studio’s tour, so they were probably not willing to take on another large international risk. When GOSET toured Europe in 1928, the company had planned to tour the United States also, but the Soviet government forbade it to enter America, no doubt disturbed by the emigration of the entire Habima group one year earlier (which will be discussed in the following section).22 GOSET gradually modified its style to meet increasing Soviet regulations with regard to the accessibility of art and the theatre’s responsibility to conduct propaganda, but the early work of GOSET inspired international imitation, notably in the work of the Vilna Troupe and Maurice Schwartz’s Yiddish Art Theatre in the mid-1920s. By 1933, experimentation in Soviet Theatre was brought to an end. Though the government had been moving in this direction for some time, socialist realism became the only acceptable form in literature and arts. International workers’ theatres associated with the Comintern were encouraged to comply with the standards established by the Communist Party leaders in the Soviet Union. Though Americans, including Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Sidney Kingsley, and Harold Clurman travelled to the Soviet Union in the mid-1930s, they had arrived too late to see the radical and lively experiments of the Soviets in their own setting. Fortunately, the most interested Americans had been given opportunities to see Russian experimental theatre in America.

THE HABIMA IN AMERICA Sol Hurok, an impresario who would become world famous for his presentation of Russian artists from the 1920s to the 1970s, began his career as a manager of experimental dramatic theatre artists with an abysmal failure. Hurok had successfully managed the performances of Anna Pavlova, Fedor Chaliapin, and even the near-disastrous tour of Isadora Duncan (the American dancer whose citizenship was revoked when she married the Soviet poet Sergei Esenin) in the early 1920s. Hurok had fought to get Duncan a visa for her performances, hired lawyers to combat police suspicions that she carried secret Soviet documents, and stilled the waters when Duncan (in spite of promises of art, not politics) gave Soviet propaganda speeches on American stages.23 Against such odds, Hurok made financial gains for the dancers and singers under his sponsorship. With modest success, he managed the tour of The Blue Bird cabaret, a Russian competitor of The Chauve-Souris, in 1924. His next adventure with Russian

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artists, the avant-garde Moscow Habima Theatre, haunted him for years to come. In 1925, Hurok saw the Habima troupe perform The Dybbuk in Paris at the Madeleine Theatre. Other major producers were in attendance, including Morris Gest, Lee Shubert, and Al Woods. The latter producers decided the American public would have little interest in this shabbily dressed Jewish group, but Hurok disagreed. He quickly contracted the group for an American tour the following year. It turned out that the other producers were right, for even with the usual prepublicity (and the modest support of Otto Kahn), the company could not gain a consistent American audience. The premiere audience included only 39 individuals who had purchased tickets.24 Hurok quickly moved the Habima to the East Side, then sent it on a short tour, though it continued to incur losses. The company returned to New York for a brief engagement, gave a benefit performance that raised $12,000 for the performers, and eventually split into two separate groups, one remaining in the United States and the other travelling to Palestine, under the sponsorship of Kahn and other high-profile businessmen.25 Though the American tour was a financial disaster, it was a critical success and had a tremendous impact on the American theatre. Several of the artists who remained in the United States became high-profile directors, actors, and choreographers and were influential as acting and dance instructors. The tour also helped Habima gain the support it needed to establish a national theatre in Palestine. Hallie Flanagan confessed in her book that her visit to Russia had been sparked, in part, by the “incomparable art which we have seen in Stanislavsky’s theatre, in the Chauve-Souris, the Ballets-Russes, the Habimah . . .”26 Harold Clurman wrote about seeing the Moscow Art Theatre, the Kamerny Theatre, and the Habima Theatre, though he regretted that he only saw the prerevolutionary work of the first two companies.27 Lee Strasberg also referred to seeing the performances of Habima, which served as the basis for his understanding of Vakhtangov.28 Americans saw the highly physical acting and modernist design that developed in Russia through the American tours of the Moscow Art Musical Studio and the Habima and, for some, the European tours of the Kamerny and GOSET. Of the companies that toured in the United States in the 1920s, only the Habima Theatre was an offspring of the revolution, though its ideology was not tied purposefully to the revolution. This Hebrew theatre company, which had long been a dream of its founder, Nahum Zemach, had been made possible when the provisional government ended censorship and

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112 Russian Culture and Theatrical Performance in America eliminated discrimination based on nationality, enabling theatrical production in Hebrew. As with many Russian companies founded in the early years of the revolution, the company’s purpose was moral and educational, though it was Zionist rather than revolutionary. The company might have received little attention in the Soviet Union had it not been for its desire to produce high-level art. This goal motivated Zemach, a Hebrew teacher with little experience in the theatre, to pursue assistance from Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre. Stanislavsky agreed to work with the Habima Theatre as a sort of studio of the Moscow Art Theatre and assigned Evgenii Vakhtangov to direct the company in 1917. The theatre’s Zionist ideals were swept away in a whirlwind of Russian theatrical idealism.29 It is primarily through the Habima Theatre that the work of Vakhtangov, who died in 1922, became known and celebrated in America. As the company’s first director and teacher, Vakhtangov largely determined the Habima’s approach to actor training and sharply stylized brand of performance, often referred to in American accounts as the “Habima style.” Because most of the first members of Habima were not professional actors, Vakhtangov required them to train with him for one year before allowing the company to perform a group of one-act plays in late 1918. Vakhtangov, who, despite his illness was working with three other M.A.T. studios, the Proletkult workshop, and the Popular Theatre, demanded absolute seriousness and commitment from the performers, who rehearsed and studied rigorous physical and vocal performance techniques. One actor from Vakhtangov’s first studio attended a rehearsal of The Dybbuk and felt frustrated that Vakhtangov devoted so much attention to this group and achieved such remarkable results with them. He understood, though, that Vakhtangov could achieve such results from the Habima players because the actors trusted his artistic leadership completely and saw his every word as law.30 Another actor, Vassily Yakhontov, called the Habima, “the theatre of a single actor,” designating Vakhtangov as the group’s sole artist because the actors imitated his own impersonations and strictly adhered to his direction.31 Yakhontov called Vakhtangov the Habima’s prophet. This group, unlike the others Vakhtangov directed, could be viewed as thoroughly styled by Vakhtangov. In addition to teaching the actors to study the psychological motivations and emotional lives of their characters, Vakhtangov emphasized the importance of physical training to his students.32 Vakhtangov wrote to a group of students in 1918: I need to explain to you how to study the plasticity of movement and how important it is to know how to study it, to understand the nature of “plasticity,”

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a very important ability for the actor . . . It is impossible to acquire [the sculptural quality of a role] without the correct study of movement.33

One member of Habima, Alexander Karev, recalled how Vakhtangov taught the actors to externalize the inner life of the characters through the controlled and expressive use of their hands and bodies. “The hands are the eyes of the body!” Karev recalled Vakhtangov saying in rehearsal. Vakhtangov talked about the expressiveness of the hands often and demonstrated the physical style of performance he desired for each performer. Karev remembered lengthy conversations about the actors’ hands, bodies, and form in rehearsals. He also recalled Vakhtangov working individually with each actor to demonstrate the movement of each character in The Dybbuk.34 During his last years, while he was working with the Habima, Vakhtangov grew increasingly interested in a revolutionary theatre along the lines of Meyerhold’s “October in the Theatre,” which would build a new theatre from scratch. In a letter to Vakhtangov in 1922, Meyerhold asks Vakhtangov to give a talk to his own actors. “The soldiers of my army await you.”35 The ill Vakhtangov, however, never joined forces with Meyerhold, though he greatly admired him and his work. Unlike Meyerhold, Vakhtangov supported the cultural preservation of older theatres such as the Moscow Art Theatre, though he believed that the traditional approach of the Moscow Art Theatre was lifeless and offered nothing new to the Russian people, for whom everything in life was new. In 1921 he wrote: Stanislavsky’s theatre is dead and will never be resurrected. I am happy at this . . . All theatres in the near future will be built along the main lines that Meyerhold foresaw long ago . . . May naturalism in the theatre die! 36

Vakhtangov also contemplated how a new theatre would serve postrevolutionary society, and he considered accepting a position in the Theatre Department of the Commissariat of Enlightenment in 1919. He concluded that a theatre for the people should “reflect and nurture the people’s revolutionary spirit” through a variety of theatrical forms appropriate to the plays.37 His final work with the Habima Theatre, The Dybbuk, indicates that he was working in that direction. The Dybbuk, which the company rehearsed with Vakhtangov for two years before it opened in 1922, became one of the most popular works of the Habima Theatre and served as a testimony, along with a stylized production by the First Studio of Princess Turandot, to Vakhtangov’s brilliance

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as a director. In S. Ansky’s38 play, a mystical drama rich in Hassidic Jewish folklore, Khonon, a young, poor scholar, falls in love with Leah, without knowing that their fathers had arranged their marriage before the children were born. Leah’s father, Sender, who has become very wealthy in the intervening years, ignores the agreement with Khonon’s father, and instead promises his daughter to a wealthy man. Khonon learns of Leah’s engagement, and he dies while trying to gain mystical powers from the Kabbala to prevent Leah’s marriage. At the wedding, during the traditional beggars’ dance, Khonon’s ghost (the dybbuk) overtakes Leah’s body and forestalls the wedding. The Zaddic, a religious leader and sage, places the dybbuk on trial and attempts to persuade the spirit to leave Leah’s body. Later, in a dream, the Zaddic learns of Sender’s broken pact and punishes him, requiring him to give half his wealth to the poor. The dybbuk, finally avenged, exits Leah’s body, but later he enters her soul, and she dies as she yields herself to him, affirming their eternal union. The play was a popular choice among Yiddish performers in the 1920s. Allegedly, the Habima leaders hesitated about performing the play that does not express Jewish nationalist ideals, but the lack of quality scripts with this theme and the urging of Stanislavsky and Vakhtangov convinced the company to produce it.39 Inspired by the design work of Natan Altman, Vakhtangov freely adapted the play into what many saw as a revolutionary social drama that critiqued traditional customs and traditions and depicted the frenzied state of contemporary Russian life.40 In Vakhtangov’s version, Khonon and Leah’s struggle was likened to a revolution against an old order, and the romantic elements were downplayed. In fact, by casting as woman as Khonon (Miriam Elias), Vakhtangov shifted the focus of the play away from Jewish folklore and the traditional romantic elements of the play. Vakhtangov extended the beggars’ scene, creating a grotesque beggars’ dance, and made extreme contrasts between Sender, representing the wealthy, and the beggars, representing the underprivileged. Vladislav Ivanov has effectively argued that Vakhtangov built the production around principles of “passionate, or ecstatic, composition.”41 Many Russian critics, however, thought Vakhtangov represented a universal story of the people’s revolutionary spirit, which had little to do with the play itself but brought the theatre much acclaim. The beggars’ dance became the critical moment in the play for performers and critics alike. It was in this dance that the revolutionary, as well as the ecstatic, aspects of the play seemed most pronounced. In fact, Vakhtangov created a dance piece for each act that worked to crystallize the emotional and thematic thrusts of each act. Michael Chekhov’s critique of the play during

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a rehearsal partially inspired the insertion of the dances and other extratextual moments. Vakhtangov had invited Chekhov, who understood no Hebrew, to a rehearsal one evening well into the rehearsal process. Chekhov enjoyed and understood most of the play, but Vakhtangov urged him to specify places where the play was not entirely clear.42 Vakhtangov worked long hours with the actors to clarify the play (as if for a child) through their movement, without relying on the written text. The idea to create a beggars’ dance came to him suddenly as he was explaining the importance of the use of their hands to tell the story.43 Chekhov could not believe the remarkable transformation when he saw the performance of the play. He understood that by enabling the actors to work outside of the specific text, Vakhtangov had freed the actors to tell the story more clearly, through their physical actions. The dance clarified the overall direction of the piece. In his recollection of Vakhtangov’s work, Alexander Karev revealed the way that Vakhtangov reworked the play, rich in Jewish folk tradition, to seem like a more distinctly revolutionary play. Karev remembers that Vakhtangov told the actors while they were dancing in a style informed by the Jewish folklore and customs they understood, as staged by the Bolshoi ballet master, Lev Lashchilin, “It must not be a Jewish dance. For me it must be a dance of beggars at the wedding of wealthy merchants.” Vakhtangov staged the dance as a mad and violent dance of beggars, coming from the frenzied mind of the horrified bride. He instructed the actors that “it must be a dance of protest, a dance outcry.”44 He turned the beggars’ dance into a cry of protest imparting to Ansky’s drama, what many read as an unquestionably revolutionary theme. One Russian reviewer wrote: What would you say, please, if you found the mythos of the Soviet Revolution revealed in ancient folk legend created by a genius of the people? Wouldn’t your heart be moved to see the spirit of the Revolution revealed in its internal, essential meaning as the victory of great love? On the surface of it, there is nothing in common between the Russian Revolution and The Dybbuk. So . . . why is it that thanks to The Dybbuk, I recognize the great meaning of the mythos now being created?45

The production, though, did not please the Soviet critics entirely. One critic protested that, while the play did invoke the revolutionary spirit, the play ends with Leah’s death, rather than her triumph. The play, he thought, should have ended with a victory.46 Another complained of the “excessive use of hands.”47 Vakhtangov’s production of The Dybbuk embodied his fervor for theatricality, the grotesque, and Expressionism. The mysticism of the play lent

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itself to Vakhtangov’s sharply stylized, expressive physicality. The melodramatic conflicts in the play between heaven and earth, body and soul, and rich and poor enabled Vakhtangov to create vivid and striking contrasts. The production was Expressionistic in its creation of a nightmarish world through the rhythmic and rigid movement of some actors in contrast to the floating movements or complete stillness of others; the monstrous makeup that highlighted the unpleasant characteristics of each character; and the stark and angular sets casting large, frightening shadows. One American reviewer of the production captured the style in a helpful description: First of all, the make-up is extraordinary. Faces are painted with curious designs, in high colors, not unlike grotesque masks; mouths are pulled out of shape by daubs of grease-paint; eyes are rendered almost uncanny by circles and arches; noses are pulled to a sharp point . . . the angular treatment of the property extends even to the unpretentious scenery. The actors move about the stage with grotesque motions, with absurd attitudes; the lines of the human figure are broken up by stooping or leaning heavily to one side.48

The exaggerated, unnatural gestures and the Expressionism in design and makeup of The Dybbuk became the signature style for the company in Russia and abroad.49 According to Emanuel Levy, the Habima members proudly bore Vakhtangov’s stamp on their production. The play remained in the company’s repertory for forty years, and the older actors insisted on performing the play “exactly” as they had done in the original production.50 Even taking into account the impossibility of such exactness, it is safe to assume that Vakhtangov’s style lingered in the Habima’s The Dybbuk, and his ideas shaped many of its performers’ personal aesthetics for years to come. An actor’s tenure with the Habima theatre while in Moscow became a status symbol, largely because of the company’s connection to the Moscow Art Theatre and Vakhtangov, long after the company came to the United States and then moved to Palestine. The Habima company left for an international tour in 1925, and it never returned to Soviet Russia, where it had been under official pressure because of its Zionism, considered reactionary, and its use of Hebrew, alien to most Russians, even Russian Jews. With the exception of a few artists and intellectuals, the Habima rarely attracted audiences. Russian Jews had GOSET, which performed in the familiar Yiddish language, the proletariat had many theatrical options closely linked to their needs and interests, and even the artists and intellectuals had many Russian-language experimental theatres from which to choose. The Habima, performing under the name The Moscow Habima Theatre, hoped to find a more receptive as well as

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more Jewish audience abroad. They found this in Western Europe, where Zionism was regaining popularity and where theatrical experimentation in the most extreme nonrealistic styles was well established. In the United States, however, the company met with more resistance than the members or producer had anticipated. While a small number of artists and intellectuals interested in modernist European theatre celebrated Habima, American audiences generally found the Habima style, coupled with its Hebrew language, too strange. Hurok had mistakenly set the ticket price at $10, hoping to signify the prestige of the company and its affiliation with the Moscow Art Theatre, but this also deterred audiences. Leftist Jewish political organizations found the Zionism and use of Hebrew reactionary, and while they applauded the bold style of the group, they did not support it. Additionally, the company’s most celebrated production, The Dybbuk, was being produced simultaneously in English, and under the direction of former Habima member, David Vardi, who had helped stage the original Habima version.51 Hurok could do little to save the company, and Kahn failed to rescue the company, though he did host fundraising meetings with wealthy philanthropists at his home in New York to help establish the group in Palestine. Despite the financial struggles, the Habima achieved artistic success as it exemplified the effective application of trends in Russian and European modernism for American artists and critics. The group prompted American artists and intellectuals to evaluate the possibilities of a “theatricalized” style of production. Though Americans had, of course, been experimenting with a variety of theatrical styles throughout the 1920s, they had been given few opportunities to see the performance of actors who had been trained extensively in such highly physical methods developed in a culture that esteemed athleticism and efficiency of motion. At the end of the Habima’s second week in New York, J. Brooks Atkinson wrote a lengthy article for the New York Times, discussing the attributes of the company. As usual, the critic compared the work of the foreign company to the work of American companies to point out what American theatres lacked. For Atkinson, the Habima epitomized the concept of “theatre,” which he defined as an art form transcending dramatic literature through the artistic combination of acting, design, and dramatic text. “What is the quality that distinguished the Habima from any other organization in this country? Again, it is ‘theatre.’ ”52 Atkinson felt the company had generated a theatrical style by welding together the grotesque makeup and costumes, unnatural vocal timbres, off-stage musical accompaniment, rhythmic exactness of movement, and angularity of design. The Habima prompted another critic to explore the

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concept of “style” in the theatre. In “The Gamut of Styles,” John Mason Brown investigated the stylistic differences between the productions by the Habima, the Neighborhood Playhouse, the new Yiddish Art Theatre, and the Comedie Francaise of 1927. Brown decided that in the Habima “stylization, as well as in the temerity of their intention, they are more advanced than any other group of players New York has seen,” although he did not discredit the stylized productions of the American productions as harshly as Atkinson had done in a similar comparison. Brown noted the difference between social conditions of the two countries in his exploration of the Habima’s “flaming spirit of unrest.”53 For both Brown and Atkinson, the excellence of the Habima’s production of The Dybbuk lay in the bold and skillful direction of Vakhtangov. Brown celebrated Vakhtangov’s “unswerving mastery” of stylization, while the more antagonistic Atkinson argued that: Until we find a director of force and vision like M. Vakhtangov of the Habima troupe, and surrender entirely to his judgment, we shall never exploit the possibilities of “theatre” completely.54

Pointing to the attention Habima received from art circles, another critic wrote, “We are enjoying, though I have a suspicion some of us are only pretending to enjoy, another visitation of Russian and Jewish art this week . . .”55 The critic called the Habima’s production of The Dybbuk, “flat and crude” in comparison with the production at the Neighborhood Playhouse in English, but said the group would stir up interest among those interested in expressionism or “extreme modern” performance. Although the company performed several other plays, The Dybbuk became the primary attraction for audiences of artists and intellectuals, probably because the play was widely known by these Americans; therefore, the language barrier, which existed for nearly every audience member was less of an issue: Hurok had not made translations of the plays available in English as Gest had done for the Moscow Art Theatre. One way audiences could overcome the barrier of the spoken word can be attributed to Vakhtangov’s aim to make the story and themes visually comprehensible. According to the actor Karev, Vakhtangov, who did not speak Hebrew, had often shouted to the actors during rehearsals, “I don’t understand what you’re saying. I don’t understand what you are doing,” and he worked with each actor until the meaning was clear through the rhythms and intonations of the language, broad gestures and dynamic movement, and the physical relationships of the characters.56 Few foreign companies on tour in the

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United States had originally been directed to perform for an audience that did not understand its language, but the Habima’s visual clarity demonstrated its need to surmount a language barrier in its country of origin. The language of the body created meaning for the American artists who went to the Habima performances for instruction in theatricalization. As noted earlier, the Habima’s production of The Dybbuk brought on comparisons with the Neighborhood Playhouse’s English version of the play, directed by Vardi. One year before the arrival of the Habima, the Playhouse had presented a very popular version of the play. Although the play had been performed in New York in 1922 by the Yiddish Art Theatre and in 1924 by the Vilna Troupe, a famous Yiddish art company, it had received little recognition outside of the Yiddish-speaking community, where the stylization of the productions certainly made an impact. The Vilna Troupe, influenced by German and Russian modernism, had been the first group to perform Ansky’s drama in 1920, and its expressionist style greatly influenced later productions. The New York Times reviewer of the Vilna production in 1924, however, expressed little enthusiasm, and he simply retold the plot of what he called “the strangest Yiddish novelty” offered in New York City. Surprisingly, he made no mention of the troupe’s production style, or of its potential for instructing American theatre artists, as reviewers of foreign productions almost always did. This company had not been publicized outside of the Yiddish community in America, and though the Vilna name was famous there, it apparently garnered little attention outside of that realm. The Neighborhood Playhouse’s English version, presented two years earlier, became so popular that a Broadway manager asked the company to move it to his Broadway theatre.57 Personnel constraints and promises to subscribers inhibited the Broadway venture, but The Dybbuk remained an unparalleled artistic and financial success for the company. The Neighborhood Playhouse had been greatly influenced by Russian culture and artists throughout its history. In 1912, the first production of the Neighborhood performers, when they were organized as an amateur club at the Henry Street Settlement, was Olive Tilford Dargan’s The Shepherd, a play about the revolutionary movement in Russia. Most of the audience members who came to the settlement were Eastern European Jews, so there was a constant awareness of trends in Russian drama and theatre. Jacob Ben-Ami, the famous Russian-born Yiddish theatre artist, directed three one-act plays with the troupe The Yiddish Progressive Dramatic Club (of which Lee Strasberg and his brothers were members) at the Neighborhood Playhouse in 1915. The Playhouse produced Russian folk scenes and dances

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9 Neighborhood Playhouse production of The Dybbuk, 1925. Harvard Theatre Collection.

in 1916, and it produced some of the first American productions of dramas by Leonid Andreev, Zinaida Gippius, and Anton Chekhov. Following the success of Balieff ’s Chauve-Souris in 1922, the Neighborhood began its annual Grand Street Follies, which echoed the “whimsical naïve character”

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of the Russian troupe.58 In 1923, Richard Boleslavsky gave instructions to the Neighborhood performers and directed several productions. The playhouse performers, then, were not alien to various Russian approaches to theatre when they met Vardi to begin work on The Dybbuk. Because of their work with Boleslavsky, the performers were quite familiar with many of the rehearsal techniques that had emerged from the Moscow Art Theatre’s First Studio, of which both Boleslavsky and Vakhtangov (Vardi’s teacher) had been a part. The performers had also been trained in movement and dance, some of them had even worked with Michel Fokine,59 so they were more prepared than most American performers at that time to work on a stylized presentation with a Russian director. Fokine’s approach to physicality, however, had not been based on the industrialized physicality that had influenced the Habima actors. In only ten weeks, Vardi (who had rehearsed The Dybbuk in Russia for two years) tried to create a rhythmic and expressive mystery using many techniques he had learned from his Russian teachers. Alice Lewisohn Crowley, a founding member of the playhouse and assistant to Vardi, described the rehearsal process at length in her memoir. The following excerpt reveals Vakhtangov’s influence on Vardi’s directing practices: From realistic studies of their types through improvisation of the background and home life of the characters, the actors had to undergo a process of gradual transformation until they could realize their supernatural prototypes. Day after day in rehearsal the beggars fought among themselves, grumbled, growled, suffered, and gobbled food, at first politely and decorously, then with growing abandon, until at last their beggarhood seemed to take to itself supernatural attributes and ultimately the grotesque stature of fiends let loose by the disembodied Channon to capture his promised bride [sic].60

Vardi borrowed much of the staging and the musical scores freely from the Habima interpretation and production, which he may have helped create,61 though the final productions were very dissimilar. Vardi’s collaborators, the actors and artists of the Neighborhood Playhouse, who were far removed from Soviet experimentation and life, created a less rigid, frenetic, and grotesque presentation. The Jewish folk characteristics, romanticized by the Americans, came through in the songs, dances, costumes, and set pieces, which were less distorted or exaggerated than they had been in Vakhtangov’s staged critique of folk traditions. The absence of harsh, geometrical makeup, and sharp angularity in design removed the Neighborhood Playhouse’s more Symbolist production from the nightmarish Expressionism of the Habima’s The Dybbuk. One reviewer described the Neighborhood’s revival production as having a “somber and eerie beauty”

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in which the “racial, religious, and folk elements are given eloquent and impressive expression.”62 After seeing the Habima’s The Dybbuk, Atkinson made the necessary comparisons between its bold and grotesque stylization and the Playhouse’s more subtle and natural stylization, yet he concluded that the “Neighborhood performance is a very good one indeed, and the legitimate offspring of the Habima.”63 Critics attributed the artistic success of both of these productions to the visionary directors responsible for unity. The points of interest in both productions were the highly stylized ensemble acting and the musical accompaniment that aided in creating the mystical atmosphere. However, the Habima production received more attention for its design elements, which were so foreign in their abstraction, and the Neighborhood produced more interest in the actual play, which had not been subverted to achieve any greater political significance or hidden behind efforts to develop a new theatrical language. After the disastrous financial results of the Habima’s tour, the company split in two factions: a small group led by Nahum Zemach and his brother Benjamin stayed in New York and a larger group moved to Palestine and established itself as the National Theatre there. Several attempts were made to revive the Habima in New York, but constant financial battles forced members to take individual paths in America. Among the most influential members of the company to work in the United States were the following: David Vardi, who continued to act and direct in New York into the 1930s; Benno Schneider, who took the leadership of the highly acclaimed Yiddish group, Artef, a workers’ theatre, before moving to Los Angeles to work in film and theatre; Nahum Zemach, who became the manager of the Jewish Unit of the Federal Theatre Project, and his brother, Benjamin Zemach, who became a celebrated choreographer, founded the Jewish Ballet, and taught acting in Los Angeles for decades.64 The significance, then, of the Habima tour was its presentation of highly stylized theatrical forms developing in the Soviet Union, its initiation of a number of artists trained by Evgenii Vakhtangov into the American theatre, and its success in finding support for its desire to establish a theatre in Palestine.

EXPERIMENTS IN STYLE IN THE 1920S YIDDISH THEATRES The popular success of the Neighborhood Playhouse’s The Dybbuk in addition to the Habima tour, the Vilna Troupe’s popularity, and GOSET’s international publicity prompted an explosion of experimentation in

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nonrealistic production in the Yiddish art theatres in America. Yiddish art theatres developed in America in much the same way that they had developed throughout Europe. With immigrant membership of German and Eastern European Jews, the Yiddish art theatres emerged primarily under the influence of both German and Russian modernism in addition to developing out of unique Yiddish folk culture. The Moscow Art Theatre, in particular, had served as a model for the Yiddish art theatres in Europe such as the Perez Hirshbein Troupe, based in Odessa, and the Vilna Troupe. Many members of both troupes emigrated to the United States in the late 1910s and 1920s. One of the leading figures in the development of Yiddish art theatre in America, Jacob Ben-Ami, had been a member of the Hirshbein Troupe, and when he emigrated to the United States in 1912, he brought with him a conviction to produce quality, literary plays with talented professional actors. When he signed a contract with Maurice Schwartz, who founded the Yiddish Irving Place Theatre (later the Yiddish Art Theatre), Ben-Ami required a commitment from Schwartz to produce a play of literary merit, chosen by Ben-Ami, at least once during each season. Ben-Ami performed with Schwartz’s company for only one year before he established his first company, the Jewish Art Theatre. He later performed with the Civic Repertory Theatre and became well known among English-speaking audiences. Even after Ben-Ami drifted away from the Yiddish Irving Place Theatre, Schwartz tried to maintain a high level of artistic performance. Both Schwartz and Ben-Ami worked primarily in naturalism, where they were most successful, but they continued to experiment with various styles throughout their careers. From 1926 to 1929, in particular, both men worked with the bold stylization represented in the work of the Habima and GOSET. Raiken Ben-Ari, a member of Habima, believed that the Russian company had brought about a profound effect on Schwartz, “for shortly after [the Habima’s] departure [Schwartz] presented several plays in which its influences were strongly felt.”65 While this influence is clear, Schwartz’s interest in theatricalism and stylization derived from various sources; he had been exposed to many European and Russian theatrical experiments before Habima’s arrival. Schwartz had toured Europe in 1924, had aided the Vilna Troupe in the United States that same year, and had been working with Russian émigré artists from the Soviet Union throughout the 1920s. His most bold attempts at stylization, however, did correspond with the Habima tour. For his 1926–1927 season, Schwartz hired several Russian artists who were familiar with Soviet experimentation to work on an adaptation of a Goldfadn play retitled The Tenth Commandment, which opened

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in November 1926. Moscow’s GOSET had produced the adaptation ten months earlier. Schwartz’s decision to produce the play reveals how aware he was of developments in the Soviet theatre as well as his knowledge that his Jewish audience was attuned to the cultural activities in Soviet Russia. The Russian artists involved in this production included Boris Aronson, the set designer who had studied with Exter at the Kamerny Theatre; Joseph Akhron, the composer who had worked with GOSET; Mikhail Mordkin, who taught plastic movement to Schwartz’s actors; and Michel Fokine, who choreographed the ballet.66 The production of The Tenth Commandment received the greatest acclaim of the season for Schwartz, who was otherwise criticized for a hodgepodge approach to stylization and mere opportunism. The play, dealing with the temptations of good and evil and ranging in location from earth to heaven and hell, easily accommodated bold theatricalism. Demons and angels rushed about the dynamic Constructivist sets for rapid and varied movement. Vivid green lighting and grotesque masks complemented the set, thereby creating a haunting and highly stylized production. Ben-Ari applauded The Tenth Commandment for consistency of form, the harmony of the play, the interpretation and the sets.67 J. Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times seemed somewhat bored by the lengthy production that he called “unfinished,” but praised the use of the Constructivist sets, fantastic makeup and costumes, eerie masks, and the stylized movement. “None of the rigidity of the Anglo-Saxon theatre cramps Mr. Schwartz’s style as a director,” he wrote, and added that audiences of the English-speaking stage could discover “the magic of life on the Yiddish stage.”68 John Mason Brown seemed most impressed by Aronson’s multiple constructivist sets, which he called “the bravest experiments in scenic design” of the season. He also admired the energetic use of the sets. He applauded the production’s “vivid, deep-dyed theatricality, for the sheer joy of theatricality.”69 Of course, not everyone appreciated Schwartz’s exploration of nonrealistic trends in production. For example, Celia Adler, who was performing with Schwartz at this time, disliked the experimentation with new forms and claimed that Schwartz was simply avoiding realistic production in order to demonstrate “his sophisticated awareness of the new stylized methods of production.”70 Adler believed that the actors in these productions were swallowed by the spectacle of the scenery. Another critic of Schwartz’s experimental phase, Nathanial Buchwald, a communist theatre critic, argued that the director had to “bend over backward” to try to stay in touch with the trends, for Schwartz did not seem truly suited to the new forms.71 Schwartz was not the only director accused of inartistic motives in theatrical

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experimentation. Ben-Ami and the Vilna Troupe (which established itself in New York in 1927) were also criticized as opportunists when they employed modernist techniques in performance in the late 1920s. The audience’s fascination with Soviet culture and the continuous arrival of Russian artists promoted this experimentation, which was driven by commercial as well as artistic incentives for the professional theatre companies. After a few financially disastrous seasons, many of the Yiddish art theatres returned to a realistic approach to interpretation and production, leaving the broad styles of the Soviet theatre to the amateur workers’ theatres to develop. As demonstrated in Vardi’s work with the Neighborhood Playhouse and Aronson’s designs for the Yiddish Art Theatre, Russian émigré artists influenced nonrealistic theatrical production in the United States in the late 1910s and 1920s. Many Russian émigrés came with entire touring companies, while others came individually to direct, design, exhibit their art, or to simply start a new life. As designers, directors, and actors, innumerable Russian artists established themselves in Yiddish theatres, little theatres, commercial theatres, amateur clubs, and universities throughout the United States. Among the most visible influences were the Russian designers, who brought attention to prerevolutionary scene painting, on one end of the spectrum, and postrevolutionary constructivist design, on the other. So many Russian artists emigrated to America, exhibited their work, designed for the theatre, and taught in studios and universities that it is impossible here to track them all, but the most prominent were Boris Anisfeld, Nicholas Roerich, Erte (Romain de Tirtov), Serge Soudeikine, Nicolai Remisoff, Boris Aronson, and, later, Marc Chagall. In 1921, the Russian Arts and Crafts Studio, a New York organization led by Irving and Nathanial Eastman, listed thirteen Russian artists in the organization. In an advertisement that appeared in Theatre Arts Magazine, the company boasted that its expertise in scenic and costume construction and lighting arrangement had been seen on the stages of the Chicago Opera Co., the Hippodrome, Ziegfeld’s theatre, and the Winter Garden, among others. The fame of the Ballets Russes artists assured a reputation for Russian artists in the United States, and entrepreneurs capitalized on that reputation and encouraged continual cultural contact between the Soviet and American theatres well into the 1930s. In contrast to some of his predecessors, Boris Aronson became and remained a fixture in the American theatre, and made his living primarily as a designer, rather than as a teacher. His career spanned over five decades, during which time he worked with the most prominent Russian, European, and American artists. His achievements had a major impact on American

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theatre during his career, and his work has continued to influence subsequent generations. Aronson acquired his aesthetic sensibility in a tumultuous, revolutionary era Russia. He studied with Alexandra Exter in the late 1910s and assisted her on her production of Romeo and Juliet at the Kamerny Theatre in 1920. In 1922, Aronson left the Soviet Union with an exhibit of Russian art to Berlin, and he never returned. After a year in Germany, Aronson emigrated to the United States, where he almost immediately embarked upon his influential career in the American theatre. Aronson’s work in the United States can be viewed in three phases, for after a brief period with Yiddish art theatres, he greatly modified his Russian avantgarde approach to suit the demands of the American stage (and the work of the Group Theatre, in particular). However, he periodically returned to his interest in theatricality and stylized settings from the 1950s to 1970s for works such as Orpheus Descending (1957) and Company (1970). Aronson’s earliest design work in the American theatre reflected the dynamic traits of the Russian avant-garde that had such an influence on his aesthetic. However, only his early relationship with Yiddish theatres had allowed him to design freely in his bold, theatrical style. His first job came with the Unser Theatre, a Yiddish company in the Bronx, in 1923. There, he designed bright and abstract constructions for S. Ansky’s Day and Night and David Pinski’s The Final Balance, before economic hardships forced the company to close. Next, he worked for Rudolf Schildkraut, a famous German and Yiddish actor, whose experimental productions (at the Unser Theatre) captured the attention of English-speaking modernists. In a review of The Bronx Express at the Schildkraut Theatre in 1925, Kenneth Macgowan likened the show to something he had seen by the Kamerny Theatre in Europe in 1914 and said that “in America it remained for the Bronx to demonstrate the foreground and background and costumes all shaped and distorted into a visual dramatization of Futurist theory.”72 Macgowan pointed out that the extraordinary sets had been designed by “an artist from Moscow, B. Aronson.” Additionally, a caption accompanying one of Aronson’s sets depicted in Theatre Arts Monthly (formerly Theatre Arts Magazine) in 1926 states: “Constructivism” has seemed to be a sort of monopoly of the revolutionary Russian theatre; and it is therefore something of a surprise to learn that in New York City—somewhere out where the Bronx subway ends—a little experimental theatre, Unser Theatre, has been mounting plays in the most modernistic fashion. The designs are by a Russian artist who modestly signs himself B. Aronson, who aims to abolish the “illusory, the explanatory” in scenery [ . . . ]73

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Because of the amount of attention Aronson was receiving from the Yiddish- and English-speaking audiences, Maurice Schwartz quickly hired him, and Aronson helped to define the stylization of the Yiddish Art Theatre between 1925 and 1929. Aronson’s biographers, Frank Rich and Lisa Aronson, noted that the Yiddish Art Theatre’s production of The Tenth Commandment “contained some of Aronson’s most elaborate flights into constructivism, symbolism, and whimsical fantasy.”74 The Tenth Commandment received a great deal of attention from artists and intellectuals throughout New York, and soon Aronson’s work was exhibited at the Anderson Galleries on Park Avenue at 57th Street. The exhibition in 1927, sponsored by leading American theatre artists and theorists, brought Aronson’s work into the modernist American mainstream. The same year Aronson designed his first sets for the English-speaking stage when his application to design Gustav Weid’s 2 x 2 = 5 for the Civic Repertory Theatre was accepted. The play, contrasting the lifestyles of a modern woman and her traditional husband called for a stylized rather than a conventional set, which would depict through exaggeration the contradictory ways these two individuals viewed the world. Aronson’s work bore the mark of bold and vivid theatricality that the director Eva La Galliene sought for the play. Aronson said that if the play had been called 2 x 2 = 4, he wouldn’t have gotten the job because at that time, he only created abstract settings in various modernist styles.75 As Exter had taught him, Aronson allowed the play to determine the style of each design. Rather than sticking to any rigid formula, in his work for 2 x 2 = 5, he revealed his ability to work in various abstract styles, not only the cubofuturist and Constructivist styles for which he became known in the Yiddish theatres. In the 1930s, Aronson moved out of the Yiddish theatres and into the Broadway arena, working primarily with the Group Theatre, and his work became less stylized and abstract. By this time, left-wing theatres generally began to shift toward realism and naturalism, in response to the Soviet attacks on formalism. Because of this and his work with the Group Theatre that tended to produce social dramas of a realistic nature, Aronson’s penchant for the fantastical and highly theatrical was curtailed in the mid-1930s, though it would return later. Unfortunately, little has been written about Aronson’s work with the Artef, the Yiddish Workers’ Theatrical Alliance, which resulted in some of his most experimental work in the United States. Of course, communistbaiting and McCarthyism in the 1940s and 1950s encouraged artists like Aronson and some members of the Group Theatre to sever ties with any political affiliations that might have endangered their careers, if they hadn’t

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already done so. Well into the 1980s, artists and biographers gloss over or minimize connections to leftist political organizations or workers’ theatres, even though numerous artists and intellectuals in the 1920s and 1930s openly celebrated leftist ideologies, even communism, and often looked to Soviet Russia for aesthetic instruction, though they may have abandoned those politics later. In Boris Aronson, Frank Rich and Lisa Aronson indicate that Aronson’s work was apolitical. They point out several times that Aronson admired the work of Meyerhold, but they stressed that he despised Meyerhold’s politics. Certainly, Aronson’s career development at the Kamerny could suggest his inclination toward an aesthetic that had less to do with politics than art, but his work as a designer and a board member for Artef, an organization supported by the Communist Party in America (one of two communist parties at the time) and other ultra leftwing organizations, immersed him in the political debates in America in the 1930s. The Artef was just one of many leftist organizations that looked to Soviet leadership for developing an artistic as well as a political theatre in the United States. Not all members of Artef were radical, as Edna Nahshon points out in her book on the Artef theatre, but they could not have been oblivious to the political nature of the organization.76 As a board member and early designer for the company, Aronson helped the Artef theatre to achieve its goal to be revolutionary in both art and politics. Unlike Maurice Schwartz’s Yiddish Art Theatre, the Artef wished to produce proletarian culture as well as innovative art. Aronson contributed to the aesthetics of the influential theatre.

THE ARTEF AND WORKERS’ THEATRE IN THE UNITED STATES Long before other workers’ theatre groups began organizing in the United States, the Artef theatre was training recruits. According to an article in the New Masses, “it preceded the John Reed clubs by three years and the Theatre Union by seven years in its pioneering efforts to lay the foundation for a proletarian culture in this country.”77 There had been several attempts to organize a workers’ theatre organization, but most, like the American communist playwright Mike Gold’s Workers’ Drama League,78 were short-lived. The Artef would become the first workers theatre on Broadway (though it continued to perform in nontraditional spaces), and the only Jewish workers’ art theatre. For the New Masses author, the popularity of Artef proved that the large working-class audience he and

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others dreamed of “is not a potentiality but a vital, throbbing, enthusiastic reality.”79 The company advertised its productions in English, Yiddish, Russian, and German language newspapers, and its most popular productions attracted large, diverse audiences. The early work of Artef represents, perhaps, the height of Russian revolutionary, avant-garde influence on the American theatre. The Artef combined revolutionary ideology with a search for experimental new forms of expression to be performed by workers for workers. Guided by the policies of the Prolekult and GOSET, the Artef continuously adapted its beliefs about the role and appropriate forms of culture in society to conform with the Communist Party’s cultural program. Like the Proletkult in Soviet Russia, the Artef began through workshops to develop a high level of artistic performance with the intent of creating an entirely proletarian form of theatre. Though hundreds of Soviet-influenced workers’ theatres sprung up throughout the United States in the 1930s, the Artef, one of the earliest of such organizations, had one of the strongest links to early Soviet experimentation because of its physical connection to Russian artists, including Benno Schneider, Benjamin Zemach, and Boris Aronson, who guided the theatre artistically.80 The Artef, although it was a Yiddish theatre, became well-established in the non-Yiddish-speaking left-wing American theatre community in New York. Through associations with artists from such organizations as the Neighborhood Playhouse and the American Laboratory Theatre, and through the English-language press, the Artef theatre began to draw the attention of a diverse American public. The leaders of the Jewish Labor Movement, which was comprised of socialists, communists, and labor union activists who disagreed among themselves on many issues, had expressed an interest in developing a workers’ theatre, long before the Artef was created in 1925. In 1915, the Educational Committee of the Workmen’s Circle began supporting an amateur people’s theatre called the Yiddish Folksbine. The Folksbine presented social dramas, often directed by Russians, every season at the Neighborhood Playhouse well into the 1930s. The Folksbine was not, however, an organ of the labor movement. From 1923, the Folks Farband far Kunst Theatre (People’s Association for Art Theatre) supported Maurice Schwartz’s Yiddish Art Theatre and in return held debates and social events at the theatre, where leaders discussed the need for a workers’ theatre to serve the revolutionary Jewish left.81 In 1925, The Freiheit, the official publication of the Communist Party, published a series of articles attacking the Yiddish theatre, and in the final article put forth a call for workers interested in developing a theatre

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dedicated to labor reform. According to an article in the New York Times, there was a large response, and thirty factory laborers and garment workers, many of whom were Russian émigrés, were selected to form the Freiheit Dramatic Studio, under the leadership of Jacob Mestel, a former actor with the Viennese Yiddish Theatre.82 In 1926, the group came under the direction of the Folks Farband, which elected a board of artists and intellectuals to oversee the Artef Studio and theatre. Among members of the board were Mestel, Boris Aronson, Nathaniel Buchwald, other Freiheit members, and several students from the studio.83 The group rehearsed for one year before presenting a short piece, entitled, “At The Gate,” at the American Laboratory Theatre in 1927. It also presented work as part of the Lenin Memorial in Madison Square Garden in 1928. Initially, as the New York Times put it, “Nobody paid much attention.”84 In a training program designed to last three years, the Artef studio trained students in acting, voice and diction, plastic movement and dance, standard Yiddish dialect, dramaturgy, theatre history, dramatic literature, and makeup. Among the teachers were Mestel, Michel Fokine, Benno Schneider (of Habima), and Buchwald, the drama critic. The training emphasized an exaggerated and theatrical style of performance based on the techniques developed by Vakhtangov, Meyerhold, and Foregger. Such techniques complied with the group’s desire to overthrow bourgeois forms of expression. The actors were so prepared for stylized performance, according to Nahshon, that Buchwald later complained the actors lacked sufficient training for psychologically complex, realistic characters.85 In 1929, Benno Schneider became the artistic director for Artef. He quickly helped build the company’s artistic reputation. That season, Schneider directed one of Artef ’s most popular productions, an adaptation of Sholem Aleichem’s comedy, The Aristocrats. The Artef used a Soviet adaptation of the play that highlighted the class struggles depicted in the play, centering on a wealthy Russian-Jewish family and their servants. The Russian designer, Moi Solotaroff, who had worked at the Neighborhood Playhouse, created the sets for the Artef production, S. Anisfeld designed the costumes, and Benjamin Zemach, the former Habima member, choreographed the dances. Through exaggeration and distortion, the humble servants and their bright domestic sphere highly contrasted the gaudy environment of the disingenuous Gold family. The sharply stylized acting, set design, costumes, lighting and makeup, reminiscent of the Habima’s The Dybbuk, combined to remove the play from the realm of the mundane to the fantastical as it highlighted class difference.

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Schneider was praised both inside and outside of the Yiddish community for his visionary and harmonious directing, and he would soon become a star director, whom professional theatre companies would try to lure away from the Artef. Schneider’s approach to directing was similar to Vakhtangov’s, and he was sometimes accused of reducing the actors to puppets in his pursuit of a unified and stylized production, but critics agreed that Schneider was one of America’s most effective directors.86 Artef ’s early productions bore the mark of Schneider and his collaborators’ interest and experience with modernist theatrical production, though not all of the productions were presented in the grotesque style of The Aristocrats. Rather, productions ranged from symbolism to expressionism to the machine-age combination of biomechanics and constructivism. The Artef theatre primarily produced works by Soviet authors, but it also presented plays dealing with American life, such as an adaptation of a play by Hallie Flanagan and Margaret Ellen Clifford, Can You Hear Their Voices?, based on a story by Whittaker Chambers. The Artef presented the play under the title, Trikenish (Drought) in 1931. Based on an actual event, the agitprop play deals with a group of Arkansas tenant farmers’ attempt to raid the local Red Cross food supply. The poor farmers and the kind communist who organizes them stand in stark contrast to the local businessmen and Washington congressmen represented in the piece. Flanagan and Clifford’s play, though charged, encouraged nonviolent protest, a change from the violent outburst of the farmers in Chambers’s story. For the Artef production, Nathaniel Buchwald translated and adapted the piece, sticking closely to the Flanagan-Clifford outcome. A reviewer, A. B. Magil, writing for the New Masses (which had published the original story in 1931) critiqued this modification of the story and thought Chambers’s story had lost some of its powerful effect.87 He commended Buchwald for sharpening the character of the communist leader, who he felt lacked potency in the Flanagan-Clifford version. In spite of a few criticisms, Magill acknowledged the play as one of the few revolutionary plays in English, and thought it a good choice for adaptation by the Artef theatre, which he felt hadn’t dealt enough with the American class struggle in earlier plays. In his review, Magill highlighted the technical skill, excellence in design, and the overall impact of the piece, though he warned the Artef of being more strongly devoted to art than ideology (a criticism that would often be leveled against the group because it aimed for a sophistication in production). Benno Schneider directed the play, Moi Solotaroff88 designed the sets and costumes, and Sophie Berensohn89 choreographed the dances. In a subsequent review, Magill said the Jewish actor-workers ineffectively portrayed the American farmer,

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turning them into “clowns or tragic second avenue heroes,” but praised the acting company for its portrayal of the Russian characters in its next production, Aron Kushnirov’s Hirsch Leckert.90 Such statements surely encouraged a return to Soviet-inspired dramas. In addition to presenting the works of Soviet-Yiddish authors in subsequent productions, Artef premiered two plays on Broadway by Maksim Gorky (Yegor Bulevitch and Dostigayev). By the mid-1930s the group, which was now widely known by audiences of left-wing workers, artists, and intellectuals, achieved its greatest popular success with Schneider’s production of the Soviet writer L. Resnick’s The Recruits in 1934, once again in the exaggerated and ecstatic style of the Habima’s The Dybbuk. They play deals with conflicts between the Jewish bourgeoisie and the Jewish workers in a nineteeth-century Russian village, when in 1828 the tsar decreed that a percentage of Jewish boys from the village would serve in the army for a period of 25 years. The production filled the 298-seat Artef Theatre on 48th Street night after night (Friday through Sunday) for 154 performances, and attracted a large audience of theatre artists, producers, and actors for Sunday evening performances.91 Moi Solotaroff ’s designs were compared to the paintings of Marc Chagall (indicating GOSET’s influence). One critic complimented Schneider’s ability to coordinate the “remarkable plasticity of his actors” with the set, and for the “beautiful rhythm of the performance.”92 With the production of The Recruits, considered audacious in its theatricality, America’s leading theatre artists became increasingly aware of the collective. Actors apparently attended in great numbers, and many critics for English-language presses strongly advocated for the production. One writer joked that ordinary theatregoers were being “trampled by actors and directors and producers and even writers who were coming to find out how the miracle of an ensemble company had been worked.”93 A scheduled production for subscribers, Gorky’s Dostigayev, the second play in a trilogy dealing with the Bolshevist Revolution, interrupted the successful run of The Recruits, which played in repertory with Gorky’s condemnation of the Kerensky government in the following season. One optimistic chronicler wrote, by the end of the 1934–1935 season, “the whole town was Artef conscious.”94 A writer for the New York Times in 1935, however, qualified this notion: If the Artef players had come here, properly promoted, from Europe, every theatergoer interested in the fine art of acting would know them for what they are worth. Our theatergoing is so systematized that we often ignore the good things that are hidden in the gloom of our own side streets.95

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10 Program for Artef ’s production of Dostigayev by Maxim Gorky. From the Archive of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York.

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The author pointed out that the Artef Collective, though very popular among artists and intellectuals, sometimes had difficulty maintaining large enough audiences to stabilize the company financially. What’s clear, though, is that American artists, especially on the left, knew about and admired the work of Artef. As Nahshon has discussed, changing Communist Party policies toward art and the growth of the Workers’ Theatre Movement in America constantly affected Artef as a producing organization, and it had to amend its experimental style at times to appeal to a growing number of left-wing audiences. In late 1929, the Comintern (the Russian controlled organization for International Communism) issued a cultural policy that stipulated that all works of art should agitate for international working class unity and revolutionary action among proletarian audiences. This marked the beginning of the Third Period of Communism, so called by Joseph Stalin, following the first period of revolution and the second period of reconstruction. International communists developed systems for judging an artwork’s value to the proletariat, and they dictated the forms that drama should take. For example, the guidelines stipulated that the protagonist had to be from the masses; the theme should present the necessity of communism and revolutionary action. The play must present clear divisions of good and evil, and the good should always prevail.96 To meet the requirements of agitation for communism within the party, workers’ theatre collectives throughout the Western world adopted the agitprop style, which were being popularized by the Soviet Proletkult and the Blue Blouse troupes. Agitprop, as described by Daniel Friedman, was characterized by the following: Radical political content; simplicity and mobility of set, costume, and make-up; the integration of dialogue with chanting, choral reading, singing, music, dance, and circus techniques; the consequent use of an extremely physical, presentational acting style; and the use of archetypal characters and symbolic imagery, which, tied together by political association in the form of montage, became the basic dramatic structure.97

The worldwide Great Depression sparked a massive shift toward class consciousness that had already been triggered by the Russian Revolution and other international revolutionary activities. In the United States, the economic boom of the 1920s and the anti-Soviet campaigns had tempered revolutionary activities, but the conditions of the early 1930s enabled revolutionary fervor to rebuild into what Harvey Khler has called “the Heyday of American Communism.”98 During this time of class awareness,

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workers’ theatres popped up everywhere: in schools, factories, shops, universities, unions and social clubs, and they presented for workers in every conceivable space where workers could be reached. After a conference for Workers’ Theatre in 1931, Hallie Flanagan accurately predicted: When we see, as we probably shall during the next year, their street plays and pageants, their performances on trucks and street corners, we shall probably find them crude, violent, childish, and repetitious. Yet we must admit that here is a theatre which can be supremely unconcerned with what we think of it.99

At the height of the Workers’ Theatre Movement in the United States in 1934, according to Friedman, there were 400 workers’ theatres, both foreign-language and English-speaking, that were affiliated with the League of Workers’ Theatres.100 The organizations ranged in quality, but they were united by the same Herculean aim, as Flanagan called it, which was the reorganization of society. At the 1931 meeting, the affiliation of the Workers’ Theatre Movement with the USSR was unabashedly presented through the free and open display of Soviet banners and messages from the Soviet Union. The most famous of the groups, the Workers’ Laboratory Theatre, was in direct contact with Moscow’s Blue Blouses, which advised the group on performance techniques.101 But, although they were clearly inspired by Soviet agitprop theatres, the American workers’ theatres eventually found forms and content appropriate to the specific problems of workers in the United States. As more and more workers’ theatres emerged in the United States in the early 1930s, the Artef came under heavy pressure from Communist Party leaders who believed that the theatre company did not reach enough proletarian audiences, did not produce adequately revolutionary plays, and did not operate sufficiently as a collective. The level of sophistication of Artef productions, communist critics claimed, seemed alienating to the working classes. Under such pressure, Artef produced more agitprop theatre, but when agitprop was no longer acceptable as a revolutionary form, it shifted from this, too. In the mid-1930s, the group produced plays by Maksim Gorky and other acceptable Soviet authors in their Broadway theatre to emphasize their affiliation with the Soviets and the socialist realism newly in favor. For most of its existence, however, the Artef struggled to maintain an audience, keep a permanent theatre, and avoid harsh criticism of its supporters as ideology zigzagged throughout the late 1920s and 1930s.102 Following the demise of the theatre in 1940, some of its artistic leaders moved to California. Benjamin Zemach, who had been moving between

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New York and Los Angeles to choreograph, direct, and perform, established his dance studio in Los Angeles in 1947. Benno Schneider, after years of teaching acting in the Greenwich Village Acting Studio, also established himself in Hollywood in the 1940s. There, he continued to direct theatre in various venues and worked as an acting instructor and coach. Following the explosive period of experimentation in forms in the late 1920s and early 1930s, America’s theatre of social protest settled into less radical forms politically and artistically. At the International Theatrical Olympiad in Moscow in 1933, Soviet leaders encouraged a movement away from agitprop, calling it combative, simplistic, and divisive.103 The decline of the Workers’ Theatre Movement in the mid- to late 1930s helped bring to a close the interest in revolutionary ideas and forms in the theatre, though social consciousness would remain a concern of various individuals and groups in the American theatre. Stalin’s popularity among left-wing individuals diminished (and ended abruptly for most American communists after the Hitler-Stalin Pact in 1937) and interest in Soviet theatrical forms waned along with it. When Revolutionary Marxism gave way to New Deal reform politics as the favored leftist ideology, theatres became more inclined to present social problem plays in realistic or epic production styles advocated by Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator, and interest in Soviet theatre eventually declined. One of the most influential American theatre companies, the Group Theatre, which began as a theatre collective with revolutionary ideals, shaped its artistic aesthetic by producing realistic social dramas, more suited to Stanislavsky’s approach to production than Vakhtangov’s (though organizers claimed allegiance to Vakhtangov also.)104 Audiences for dramas with a social conscience grew, enabling groups like the Group Theatre and Artef to perform successfully on Broadway, but in a more digestible, popular form. Another factor in the decline of workers’ theatres, as Friedman has argued, was the inception of the Federal Theatre Project in 1934, which not only gave paying jobs to many theatre workers who were not being paid in workers’ theatres, but also produced less radical plays of social consciousness throughout the United States.105 The period of revolution soon passed, but the conscience remained, and as artists looked for less abstract models more appropriate to the new era, they (like their Soviet counterparts) turned back toward Stanislavsky, who enabled them to perform the new social dramas (with their lineage in Gordin) of Odets and Miller. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, many American artists and intellectuals looked to Russians for guidance in aesthetics and politics. As they searched for Russian models and guides, Americans adapted new techniques and

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ideas appropriate to their own milieu, distinct from their Russian counterparts’ experiences. As American theatre critics and authors watched Russian performances, they often noted the cultural gaps between Americans and Russians, even as they urged American artists to pay attention to the modernist advances in the Soviet theatre. Russian émigré artists soon recognized the cultural differences and made the necessary adjustments. As Boris Aronson’s biographers have pointed out, Aronson viewed America and Russia as inversely related in art and technology. Awestruck by skyscrapers revealing the industrialism of New York City, Aronson understood why its stages had little interest in the glorified machine of Russian constructivism and biomechanics. The horse-drawn carriages of a Moscow desiring modernization through technology was a far cry from the motorcars cramping the New York City streets. Yet what Moscow lacked in technology, it made up for in the dynamism of the theatre, which Aronson found lacking in his new city.106 Aronson, like other artists coming from the Russian stages, sought a balance between the two worlds. Even the workers’ theatre companies knew they had to create a theatre for their own audiences in America, regardless of how much stimulation they got from Russia. Hallie Flanagan noted this mode of accommodation in her 1931 article on the workers’ theatre conference. Though the participants sang the “Internationale” and decorated their walls with the banners of the USSR, they addressed the concerns of American workers and knew they had to find forms intelligible to them. When these theatre groups abandoned Soviet dramas, they produced agitprop pieces on such topics as West Virginia coal miners, mid-Western farmers, and inner-city industrial and shop workers. Certainly, even when the result was a hybrid of American and Russian cultures, Russian revolutionary theatrical styles greatly influenced and promoted American experimentation, particularly in the realm of the political, in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

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R

ussian influence on the modern American theatre occurred within many complex and contradictory contexts, which helped to define the extent and shape of that influence. Some of the leading factors that encouraged relationships between Russian artists and their American counterparts include the advent of modernism in the American theatre, the immigration of Eastern Europeans to the United States, the conditions of American consumerism and commercialism, and the Russian Revolution and all of its domestic and international ramifications. Within each of these vast and overlapping developments and historical realities, Russian culture became increasingly acknowledged and revered by American artists and intellectuals, sometimes because of politics, sometimes because of artistry, and sometimes because of both. This study, in an effort to understand the extent of American enthusiasm for Russian artists beyond Stanislavsky, has examined some of the most significant moments when Russian performance crossed American paths in the early decades of the twentieth century. As we have seen, many individuals, such as the touring artists from Orlenev’s theatre company, the Moscow Art Theatre, the Chauve-Souris, and the Habima presented Russian culture to Americans, if sometimes in a belated way. Others, including the adapters such as Jacob Gordin, and those who devoted space in their periodicals to translations and adaptations of Russian drama and literature, contributed to the growing interest in Russian culture and theatrical performance in the United States. Most notably, perhaps, the producers and impresarios such as Otto Kahn, Max Rabinoff, Morris Gest, and Sol Hurok, and their press corps, shaped Russian culture for American audiences. Seeing themselves as cultural ambassadors, they worked to keep the lines of communication between Americans and the Russians open. Individual artists who emigrated to America such as Alla Nazimova, Theodore Komisarjevsky, Adolph Bolm, Michel Fokine, Richard Boleslavsky, Tamara Geva, Tamara Daykarkhanova, Benjamin Zemach, Benno Schneider (and later George Balanchine, Michael Chekhov, and many others) transported Russian

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culture (sometimes representing the Russian body itself) for Americans, through their performances and acting studios. Artists such as Boris Anisfeld, Nicholas Roerich, Serge Soudeikine, Boris Aronson, and others, generated enthusiasm for the colors, forms, and landscapes of distant Russia. Some of these individuals have been forgotten, but their work influenced a generation of American artists and scholars. Certainly, Stanislavsky’s influence on the modern American theatre has been great, but our attention to his influence has overshadowed the work of other Russian stage artists and their lasting contributions to the American theatre. Russian experiments in plasticity of movement, stylized design, adaptation, and political theatre greatly influenced the work of Americans in the 1920s and 1930s. Modernism flourished under the tutelage of Russian artists: the bodies dancing in Broadway shows were choreographed often by Russian dancers, stage settings brightened and became more dynamic, vaudeville artists searched for American parallels to the folk characters of the Chauve-Souris, American workers’ theatre groups adopted the living newspapers and agitprop styles of their Soviet counterparts. The currents of antinaturalism and political theatre in America that reemerged in the 1960s had their roots in the early experiments of the 1920s and 1930s. By now it is clear that Yiddish theatre artists who identified as Russian, and their audiences significantly aided the transportation and popularization of a broad range of Russian theatre artists, practices, and theories to the American stage. The ability of many Jewish artists and thinkers to cross cultural and linguistic borders enabled them to adopt and adapt Russian culture into Yiddish culture and eventually into American culture. Any number of artists alternately identified as Russian, Jewish, and/or American because of their movement within various cultural spheres. Jacob Ben-Ami, Jacob Gordin, Maurice Schwartz, Morris Gest, Sol Hurok, Boris Aronson, and Benno Schneider are some of the key artists and producers who traversed those overlapping spheres and had an immeasurable impact on the American theatre through their interaction with American artists and audiences. As this study has made clear, the history of Russian theatre and culture in America is intimately tied to the history of Eastern European Jewish immigration in the United States, though this mass migration is certainly not the exclusive cause of the relationship. The importance of Eastern European Jews in fostering cultural relationships between Russia and the United States is evident. Jacob Gordin and Jacob Adler were committed to developing a Yiddish theatre as an art theatre in the fashion of European art theatres taking hold in Russia and Europe. Gordin reminded his audiences

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of Russia through the landscapes of his plays, but also by making the works of Russian writers and playwrights available through adaptation and translation. Morris Gest, the important impresario of Russian origin, whose early work came in the Yiddish theatres of Boston, helped establish the Russian brand of art as the greatest in the world for his vast American audiences. His path was followed by Sol Hurok, who helped maintain this image well into the 1970s, in spite of the Cold War. And the art and workers’ theatres of the 1920s on the Lower East Side showed the influence of Soviet experimentation most profoundly. These important links between the Russians and the Americans were not made easily, and not always purposefully, but the impact was distinct and powerful. Throughout the study, I have noted moments of intercultural collision that either condemned Russian artists to failure or were carefully negotiated in order to avoid such a failure. In addition to an ever-present language barrier, differing notions of aesthetics, morality, the functions of the press, and political ideologies widened the gulf between Russians and Americans, and among themselves, during these years. Maksim Gorky’s disastrous 1906 trip to the United States, for example, exemplified the lack of cultural understanding between Gorky and his mistress and his hosts and a prospective audience. Though American sympathy for Russian political dissidents was on the rise in the early part of the twentieth century, few Americans would publicly defend an adulterer. American morality confronted Russian artists numerous times, especially in regard to Russian ballets, but the promise of exoticism and artistry often outweighed the moral outcries. Publicity continued to play an important role in establishing the relationship between Russian artists and the American public; press agents and journalists helped to determine the fate of Russian performers in the United States by smoothing out cultural misunderstandings or by exacerbating them. Aesthetic differences between the cultural products of Russians and Americans, coupled with moral and political differences, in the early twentieth century also required negotiation. This is clear, for example, in the case of Chaliapin’s first disastrous American performances and in the work of Boris Aronson as he shifted from the popular Russian stage to the American Yiddish theatres and then to American mainstream theatres. The cultural and historical realities of Russians, Eastern European Jews, and Americans determined their aesthetic needs and often made transitions from one stage to the next extremely complicated. Producers played a significant role in smoothing out the transitions from the Russian stage to the American stage. Morris Gest, in his endeavors to bring significant Russian companies to the United States, negotiated cultural

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barriers, stirred interest in the foreign product, controlled the American image of the organization and its stars, elicited financial as well as political support, and defended his choices against dominant cultural attitudes that threatened the success of the performances. With the help of the powerful and influential Otto H. Kahn, Gest managed to clear a path in America for Russian performance. Indeed, by depoliticizing Russian art, the two men helped to establish Russian performance practices as a true measure of theatrical artistry. Along with producers, English-speaking theatre educators and journalists played an important role in preparing American audiences and artists for Russian performance. Authors who visited Russian theatres during and after the revolution garnered American interest in exciting and new Russian avant-garde theatrical practices. Politically idealistic American artists and theorists, in particular, took note of the efforts of Russian theatre artists as they attempted to use theatre to help rebuild society following the revolution. A continuous stream of émigré artists aided the efforts of artists in America as they sampled the various Russian techniques in their own efforts to transform and restructure society. As others had done earlier in the century, these later émigrés enabled Russian aesthetics to filter into American culture by adapting them to meet the social needs in their new home. This study lays a foundation for many possibilities of further research into the Russian influence on the American theatre. Because of the limitations of this study, which focused on the primary events that enabled Russian culture and performance to flourish in the early part of the twentieth century, I had to exclude or only briefly deal with many contributing factors and individuals who fostered the relationships between American and Russian artists. The careers of many Russian performers, designers, impresarios, and directors who worked in the United States can be explored further to generate a more thorough understanding of the impact that the Russian theatre artists had on the American performing arts. Focused studies on those who became dance and acting instructors or coaches like Adolph Bolm, Mikhail Mordkin, Benjamin Zemach, Benno Schneider, Jacob Ben-Ami, Tamara Daykarkhanova, Theodore Komisarjevsky, Nicholas Roerich and many others may reveal the degree of the entrenchment of Russian influence in the development of the modern American theatrical performance. A study of their individual teaching methods and performance techniques would contribute a greater sense of the impact that Russian performance training systems spilled into our own systems. There were also important Russian artists who emigrated to America in the late 1930s and 1940s as the Second World War threatened much of Europe. Michael Chekhov is one important

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example, but others established influential careers in theatre, dance, opera, and film. Their individual careers, which were affected by the changing political situations and diplomatic positions, might clarify the role the arts played in bridging the distance between Americans and their increasingly feared Russian other. For those who came later, they were greeted by an established Russian émigré culture, and by American artists who welcomed the artistic leadership of Russians trained in theatre and ballet schools in Russia and the Soviet Union. They no longer met with the overwhelming disinterest that Russian theatre artists met in the early twentieth century. Other individuals, nonartists who played a role in the transmission of Russian performance in America, have not received extended analysis in my own study due to the concentration on the earliest connections to Russian theatre. For instance, here I have only discussed the earliest work of Sol Hurok, who became the single most important producer of Russian performance in America. From the late 1920s into the 1970s, he sustained the image of Russian art that Morris Gest, Otto Kahn, and Max Rabinoff had developed. During those years, he handled the American tours of Anna Pavlova, Feodor Chaliapin, Michel and Vera Fokine (and is thus tied to some of the earliest performances given by Artef in mass spectacles choreographed by Fokine), Michael Chekhov’s company, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, the Moiseyev Dance Company, the Bolshoi Ballet, the Moscow Art Theatre’s visit in the 1960s, and hundreds of musical performers. Hurok’s work, which extended into the Cold War, could not easily be placed in this study, though I have tried to point to his work when possible. A study of Hurok also points to the changing political climate between the United States and the USSR, and the diplomatic role played by cultural exchange. Though Soviet companies and artists could not tour from the 1930s until the death of Stalin in 1953, the cultural exchanges of the late 1950s and 1960s received great press, renewed artistic conversations, and served as a low stakes arena for diplomatic posturing. Following the hiatus of interest in Russian culture and performance encouraged by McCarthyism, Americans reestablished associations with Russian performers, largely through Hurok, in the 1960s. Russian culture and theatrical performance in America turns out to be a story of a multiethnic, adapted, often belated, and sometimes questionably Russian culture in America. The individuals and performers who shaped, presented, and adapted Russian culture for American audiences were sometimes from areas of the Russian Pale of Settlement that would now be considered Ukraine or Poland. Those considered in this study identified as Russian, but they might also have identified as Ukrainian, Polish,

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or Romanian and as Jewish, rather than Russian Orthodox. Some leading “Russian” performers were born in Poland or came from Georgian parentage, though they trained in distinctive Russian schools or with Russians who had trained in the Imperial programs or art theatres. The types of Russian culture that entered into America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century often went through a process of adaptation to meet the needs of its new audience. Gordin’s The Kreutzer Sonata was not meant to simply mimic Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata, though it introduced audiences to Tolstoy and used the novel as a key signifier of Russian thought. Balieff ’s performers portrayed Russian folk characters, filtered through the lens of modern aesthetics. They danced, sang, and enacted Russian traditional ballads, Pushkin’s poems, and Chekhovian sketches that evoked a real and imagined past. Even the plays of contemporary Soviet authors required reworking and reinterpretation for American audiences. Russian theatrical performance in America often echoed Russian theatrical performance in Russia. When performances arrived in America, they were often years away from their creation, and the circumstances that bore those performances had disappeared. Few of the companies performing in America presented the original performances in tact. Actors were shifted, scenery had faded, and performers had aged. The Moscow Art Theatre presented plays that were no longer in their repertoire and picked up émigré actors to fill in along the way. Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes required the secret rehearsals of a number of new performers learning old choreography with a new ballet master. Some Russian artists in America continued to echo past performances through the choreography, direction, and training they provided in America. Benjamin Zemach’s “The Beggars’ Dance,” the famous piece he created with the Jewish Ballet troupe he established in America, clearly invokes the beggars’ dance he took part in as an actor in Vakhtangov’s production of The Dybbuk. It became common for programs featuring work by Adolph Bolm and Theodore Kosloff to include the parenthetical, “after the work by Fokine.” With all the efforts of producers and press agents to give a stamp of currency, the performances presented in America were often decidedly late. Unsuspecting Americans didn’t mind, for them the performances had arrived just in time. It should be remembered that these performances were never the same thing over again. Though performances might resemble earlier performances and reflect past Russian circumstances, a new energy emerged when the performances took place on American stages before American audiences. Questions of authenticity haunt the work of Russians in the American theatre. While some aspects of Russian performance in America could be

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considered echoes, others might be considered outright fraud. Stolen and plagiarized performances and artwork also appeared on American stages. In some cases (to the great frustration of historians) the “Russian” performers weren’t even Russian, or even Eastern European; it became a habit for artists to Russify their names to evoke mastery and high art. In spite of all the echoes and the belatedness, the charges of fraud and plagiarism, and the desire to revisit past landscapes, Russian art and theatrical performance was made anew on American soil. Some of the artists from Russia, who came with touring shows and remained in America, reworked and reshaped material from the past, while others found fresh resources for creativity. This is probably most clearly seen in the work of those who worked in the American musical theatre and ballet. A prime example is the work of Serge Soudeikine who came to America with Balieff ’s ChauveSouris and became a fixture in the American performing arts. While one can see the interest in Russian folk culture carried over into his approach to the designs of Porgy and Bess (1935) and The Four Seasons (1945), the results were distinctive and original. While still colorful, the palette comes from American landscapes. Applying his particular perspective to American folk culture, he contributed to an American audience’s evocation of the American spaces and life. Soudeikine, like other artists, applied his distinctively Russian training to his American circumstances and helped Americans give expression to their own distinctive culture. It should be remembered, for example, that Agnes de Mille, choreographer of Oklahoma!, studied with Theodore Kosloff. Innumerable individuals with differing motives stood in the gaps between American and Russian cultures and served as cultural intermediaries. This study has identified key artists, intellectuals, émigrés and producers, often marginalized in historical studies of the American theatre, in order to show the diversity of the kinds of Russian theatrical performance that took place in early twentieth century America. These individuals were of varying class and intellectual backgrounds. Some were leftist intellectuals and political activists, some were modernist aesthetes, still others were trying simply to find a way to survive after leaving Russia. Together, these individuals helped to alter the course of the American theatre by clearing a path for Russian theatrical performance on the American stages and in American studios.

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Appendix: Representative U.S. Performances Featuring the Work of Theatre and Dance Artists from the Russian Empire1 Boris Anisfeld (1879–1973) designer Preludes (Pavlova tour) Les Sylphides (Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes) Sadko (Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes) La Reine Fiammette The Blue Bird Mefistofele The Love for Three Oranges Snegorochka Le Roi de Lahore Aziade (Mordkin Ballet) Carnvial (Mordkin Ballet) The Magic Night (V. Boritch’s Children’s Theatre) Prince Igor

Manhattan Opera Metropolitan Opera Metropolitan Opera Metropolitan Opera Metropolitan Opera Metropolitan Opera Chicago Civic Opera Metropolitan Opera Metropolitan Opera Washington Auditorium Washington Auditorium Garrick Theatre, NY

1914 1916 1916 1919 1919 1920 1921 1922 1924 1926 1926 1925

Hippodrome, NY

1934

Unser Theatre Schildkraut Theatre Yiddish Art Theatre Civic Repertory Theatre Yiddish Art Theatre Princess Theatre, NY

1924 1925 1926 1927 1929 1930

Boris Aronson (1898–1980) designer2 Day and Night The Bronx Express The Tenth Commandment 2x2=5 The Golem Jim Kooperkop

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Appendix

Walk a Little Faster Small Miracle Ladies’ Money Three Men on a Horse Awake and Sing Paradise Lost The Merchant of Yonkers The Time of Your Life The Gentle People The Heavenly Express Cabin in the Sky Crash by Night Café Crown The Snow Maiden The Russian People The Red Poppy What’s Up? South Pacific Pictures at an Exhibition Sadie Thompson The Desert Song The Assassin Truckline Café The Fortune Teller Sweet Bye and Bye The Big People Love Life Detective Story Season in the Sun The Rose Tattoo Barefoot in Athens I am a Camera The Crucible My 3 Angels Mademoiselle Colombe Bus Stop A View from the Bridge The Diary of Anne Frank Girls of Summer A Hole in the Head

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St. James Theatre, NY John Golden Theatre, NY Ethel Barrymore Theatre, NY The Playhouse, NY Belasco Theatre, NY Longacre Theatre, NY Virginia Theatre, NY Shubert Theatre, CT Martin Beck Theatre National Theatre, NY Martin Beck Theatre Belasco Theatre, NY Cort Theatre, NY Metropolitan Opera Virginia Theatre Music Hall, OH National Theatre Cort Theatre, NY International Theatre, NY Alvin Theatre Philharmonic Auditorium, CA National Theatre Belasco Theatre Philharmonic Auditorium, CA Shubert Theatre, CT Lyric Theatre, CT 46th Street Theatre, NY Hudson Theatre, NY Cort Theatre Martin Beck Theatre Martin Beck Theatre Empire Theatre Martin Beck Theatre Morosco Theatre Longacre Theatre, NY Music Box Theatre Coronet Theatre Cort Theatre Longacre Theatre Plymouth Theatre

1932 1934 1934 1935 1935 1935 1938 1939 1939 1940 1940 1941 1942 1942 1942 1943 1943 1943 1944 1944 1945 1945 1946 1946 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1951 1951 1953 1953 1954 1955 1955 1955 1956 1957

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Appendix Orpheus Descending The Rope Dancers The Cold Wind and the Warm J. B. Do Re Mi A Gift of Time Fiddler on the Roof Incident at Vichy Cabaret Mourning Becomes Electra The Price Zorba Company Follies A Little Night Music The Tzaddik Pacific Overtures

Martin Beck Theatre Cort Theatre Morosco Theatre Virginia Theatre St. James Theatre Ethel Barrymore Theatre Imperial Theatre, NY Washington Square Theatre Broadhurst Theatre, NY Metropolitan Opera Morosco Theatre Imperial Theatre Alvin Theatre, NY Winter Garden, NY Shubert Theatre, NY Newman Theatre, NY Winter Garden Theatre

149 1957 1957 1958 1958 1960 1962 1964 1964 1966 1967 1968 1968 1970 1970 1973 1974 1976

Leon Bakst (1866–1924) designer The Big Show, set designer Aphrodite, costume designer Mecca, costume designer Revue Russe, set, costume designer Aurora’s Wedding, set designer

Hippodrome Theatre, NY Century Theatre, NY Century Theatre, NY Booth Theatre, NY Majestic Theatre, NY

1916 1919 1920 1922 1923

George Balanchine (1904–1983) Balieff’s Chauve-Souris, choreographer Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, choreographer American Ballet Company, choreographer Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 Orfeo and Eurydice On Your Toes! Babes in Arms I Married an Angel The Boys from Syracuse Louisiana Purchase Cabin in the Sky

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US tour U.S. tour Adelphi Theatre Winter Garden, NY Metropolitan Opera Imperial Theatre, NY Shubert Theatre, NY Shubert Theatre, NY Alvin Theatre, NY Imperial Theatre, NY Martin Beck Theatre, NY

1927 1933 1935 1936 1936 1936 1937 1938 1938 1940 1940

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Appendix

Rosalinda The Merry Widow What’s Up? New York City Ballet Where’s Charley Nureyev and Friends

44th Street Theatre, NY Majestic Theatre, NY National Theatre, NY City Center, NY St. James Theatre, NY Uris Theatre, NY

1942 1943 1943 1948 1948 1974

Nikita Balieff (1877–1936) actor, producer Chauve-Souris US Tour The Miracle Chauve-Souris US Tour Chauve-Souris US Tour Chauve-Souris US Tour Chauve-Souris US Tour Continental Varieties

49th Street Theatre, NY Century Theatre, NY 49th Street Theatre, NY Cosmopolitan Theatre, NY Jolson’s 59th Street, NY Ambassado Theatre, NY Little Theatre, NY

1922 1924 1925 1927 1929 1931 1934

Jacob Ben-Ami (1890–1977) actor, director Samson and Delilah The Idle Inn Johannes Kreisler The Failures Welded Man and the Masses The Goat Song, director Schweiger, actor, director John Diplomacy The Seagull The Cherry Orchard The Living Corpse, actor, director Romeo and Juliet The Green Cockatoo Siegfried Camille Evensong A Ship Comes In Bitter Stream, director

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Greenwich Village Theatre, NY Plymouth Theatre, NY Apollo Theatre, NY Garrick Theatre, NY 39th Street Theatre, NY Garrick Theatre Guild Theatre, NY Mansfield Theatre, NY Klaw Theatre, NY Erlanger’s Theatre, NY Civic Repertory Theatre, NY Civic Repertory Theatre Civic Repertory Theatre Civic Repertory Theatre Civic Repertory Theatre Civic Repertory Theatre Civic Repertory Theatre Selwyn Theatre, NY Morosco Theatre, NY Civic Repertory Theatre

1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1924 1926 1926 1927 1928 1929 1929 1929 1930 1930 1930 1931 1933 1934 1936

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151

The Infernal Machine Phoenix Theatre, NY 1958 The Tenth Man Booth Theatre, NY 1959 Films and TV series: The Wandering Jew (1933), Green Fields (1937, director), Esperanza (1949, actor), The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse (TV series, 1955), Studio One in Hollywood (TV series, 1957), Play of the Week (TV series, 1960) Alexander Benois (1870–1960) designer Boris Godunov3 Petrouchka Chauve-Souris Aurora’s Wedding Petrouchka Raymonda (Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo)

Metropolitan Opera Century Theatre, NY 49th Street Theatre, NY Majestic Theatre, NY Majestic Theatre, NY New York City Center

1913 1916 1925 1935 1935 1946

Adolph Bolm (1884–1951) dancer, choreographer, dance instructor Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, dancer Sadko, choreographer Ballet Intime, mixed program Miss 1917, choreographer Le Coq d’Or, director Aphrodite, dancer The Birthday of the Infanta, choreographer Elopement, choreographer Petrouchka, performer Apollon Musagete The Spirit of the Factory, choreographer Mixed Dance Program, choreographer Le Coq d’Or

U.S. tour Metropolitan Opera New Nixon Theatre, NJ Century Theatre Metropolitan Opera Century Theatre Chicago Civic Opera

1916 1916 1917 1917 1918 1919 1919

Chicago Allied Arts Metropolitan Opera Library of Congress Hollywood Bowl Hollywood Bowl San Francisco Ballet

1924 1925 1928 1931 1936 1935

Films: Dance Macabre (1922), The Mad Genius (1931) Barbara Bulgakova (c. 1898–1977) actress, acting instructor Moscow Art Theatre Moscow Art Theatre

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U.S. tour U.S. tour

1923 1924

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152

Appendix

Princess Turandot Love is Like That Hot Pan The Seagull At the Bottom (The Lower Depths) The Seagull Enter Madame Life’s So Short Devil in the Mind (Andreev’s Thought) Wonder Boy The Cherry Orchard

Provincetown Playhouse Cort Theatre, NY Provincetown Playhouse Comedy Theatre, NY Waldorf Theatre, NY Waldorf Theatre, NY Surrey Playhouse, ME Surrey Playhouse, ME Fulton Theatre, NY Alvin Theatre, NY County Center, NY

1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1930 1930 1930 1931 1931 1931

Leo Bulgakov (1888–1948) actor, director, acting instructor Moscow Art Theatre Moscow Art Theatre The Miracle Princess Turandot, director Lovers and Enemies Spring Song Gods of the Lightning The Cherry Orchard, director Street Scene The Seagull, director At the Bottom (The Lower Depths), director This One Man, director Enter Madame, director Life’s So Short, director Devil in the Mind (after Andreev), director The Cherry Orchard, director One Sunday Afternoon, director Come What May, director Lend Me Your Ears!, director Prologue to Glory, director Close Quarters, director Another Sun Hope for the Best

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U.S. Tour U.S. Tour Century Theatre Provincetown Playhouse Little Theatre, NY Bayes Theatre, NY Little Theatre, NY Yiddish Art Theatre Playhouse Theatre, NY Comedy Theatre, NY Waldorf Theatre, NY

1923 1924 1924 1926 1927 1927 1928 1928 1929 1929 1930

Morosco Theatre, NY Surrey Playhouse, ME Surrey Playhouse, ME Fulton Theatre, NY

1930 1930 1930 1931

County Center, NY Little Theatre, NY Plymouth Theatre, NY Mansfield Theatre, NY Maxine Elliot Theatre, NY John Golden Theatre, NY National Theatre, NY Fulton Theatre, NY

1931 1933 1934 1936 1938 1939 1940 1945

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153

Tamara Daykarkhanova (1889–1980) actress, acting and makeup instructor Balieff’s Chauve-Souris The Emperor’s Clothes Three Sisters

49th Street Theatre, NY Barrymore Theatre, NY Actors Studio, NY

1922 1953 1964

Mansfield Theatre, NY Theatre Guild, NY

1926 1931

Miriam Elias, actress The Dybbuk Miracle at Verdun Film: Broken Hearts (1926) George Ermoloff, actor Balieff’s Chauve-Souris The King’s Henchmen, stage director Clear All Wires If and When The Vagabond King, director

U.S. tour Metropolitan Opera Times Square Theatre Times Square Theatre Shubert Theatre, NY

1927 1927 1932 1932 1943

Vera Fokina (1886–1958) choreographer, dancer Fokine program The Swan American Ballet Company Special Performance for Opera Club Varied program Fokine Ballet Fokine Ballet Fokine Ballet La Reve de la Marquis Fokine Ballet Les Sylphides, director

Metropolitan Opera Hippodrome, NY Metropolitan Opera Sherry’s, NY Hippodrome, NY Carnegie Hall, NY City College Stadium, NY Century Theatre Hollywood Bowl Lewisohn Stadium, NY Park Theatre, NY

1919 1920 1924 1924 1926 1926 1927 1927 1929 1934 1944

Michel Fokine (1880–1942) choreographer, dancer, dance instructor Ballet Divertissement, choreographer Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, chief choreographer Aphrodite, choreographer Fokine program, dancer/choreographer

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Metropolitan Opera Metropolitan Opera

1910 1916

Century Theatre, NY Metropolitan Opera

1919 1919

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154

Appendix

Les Sylphides segments, dancer Mecca, choreographer The Rose Girl, choreographer Get Together, performer Sweet Little Devil, choreographer American Ballet Company, choreographer Varied program, choreographer Fokine Ballet, choreographer Fokine Ballet, choreographer Fokine Ballet, choreographer La Reve de la Marquis Fokine Ballet, choreographer Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Concert, choreographer

Hippodrome, NY Century Theatre, NY Ambassador Theatre, NY Hippodrome, NY Astor Theatre, NY Metropolitan Opera

1920 1920 1921 1921 1924 1924

Hippodrome, NY Carnegie Hall, NY City College Stadium, NY Century Theatre, NY Hollywood Bowl Lewisohn Stadium, NY US tour Metropolitan Opera

1926 1926 1927 1927 1929 1934 1936 1940

Alexander Gavrilov, dancer, director Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Circus, director Night Club, director Ballet Moderne

Metropolitan opera Madison Square Garden Princess Theatre, NY Gallo Opera House

1916 1926 1926 1928

Maria Germanova (1884–1940) actress, director Three Sisters A Glass of Water, director

American Laboratory Theatre American Laboratory Theatre

1930 1930

Tamara Geva (1906–1997) actress, dancer Balieff’s Chauve-Souris Whoopee Three’s a Crowd Flying Colors The Red Cat American Ballet Theatre On Your Toes Trojan Women Dark Eyes No Exit Blithe Spirit

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U.S. tour New Amsterdam, NY Selwyn Theatre, NY Imperial Theatre, NY Broadhurst, NY Adelphi Theatre Imperial Theatre Cort Theatre, NY National, D.C. Coronet Theatre, LA La Jolla Playhouse

1927 1928 1930 1932 1934 1935 1936 1941 1943 1947 1949

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155

Pride’s Crossing Biltmore, NY 1950 Misalliance City Center Theatre, NY 1953 Lysistrata Lenox Hill Playhouse, NY 1957 Come Play With Me, co-creator York Playhouse, NY 1959 The Queen and the Rebels Theatre Four, NY 1965 Films: The Girl Habit (1931), Their Big Moment (1934), Manhattan Merry-Go-Round (1937), Orchestra Wives (1942), and Specter of the Rose (1946). Television: The Gay Intruders (1951) Theodore Komisarjevsky (1882–1954) director, acting instructor The Lucky One, director The Tidings Brought to Mary, director Peer Gynt, director Maitresse de Roi, director Revenge with Music, director Escape Me Never, director/designer Russian Bank, playwright/director The Cherry Orchard Escape Me Never! The Storm Crime and Punishment, director Pelleas and Melisande, director Don Giovanni, director Love for Three Oranges, director

Garrick Theatre, NY Garrick Theatre, NY Garrick Theatre, NY Cosmopolitan Theatre, NY New Amsterdam, NY Shubert Theatre, NY St. James Theatre, NY Yale University Theatre Maplewood Theatre, NJ Heckscher Theatre, NY National Theatre, NY New York City Opera New York City Opera New York City Opera

1922 1922 1923 1926 1934 1935 1940 1941 1942 1943 1947 1948 1950 1951

Vera Komissarzhevskaya (1864–1910) actress, manager American Season Daly’s Theatre, NY 1908 Performances included A Doll’s House by Ibsen, A Child of Nature and The Dowerless Bride by Ostrovsky, The Children of the Sun by Gorky, The Miracle of St. Anthony by Maeterlinck, Magda, The Fires of St. John and The Battle of Butterflies by Sudermann. Alexis Kosloff (1887–1982) choreographer, dancer La Saison Russe, dancer The Passing Show of 1915, performer The Show of Wonders, dancer/ choreographer Chu Chin Chow, choreographer

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Winter Garden, NY Winter Garden, NY Winter Garden, NY

1911 1915 1916

Manhattan Opera House

1917

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156

Appendix

Sinbad, choreographer Little Simplicity, choreographer Le Coq d’Or The Love Song, choreographer Gay Paree, choreographer Sunny Lakme Goyescas (American Ballet Theatre) La Fille Mal Gardee (American Ballet Theatre) Samson et Delila Un Ballo in Maschera La Fille Du Regiment Alceste Tannhauser Aida Carmen Phoebus and Pan

Winter Garden, NY Astor Theatre, NY Metropolitan Opera Century Theatre, NY Shubert Theatre, NY New Amsterdam, NY Metropolitan Opera Century Theatre, NY Century Theatre, NY

1918 1918 1924 1925 1925 1925 1932 1940 1940

Metropolitan Opera Metropolitan Opera Metropolitan Opera Metropolitan Opera Metropolitan Opera Metropolitan Opera Metropolitan Opera Metropolitan Opera

1940 1940 1941 1941 1941 1941 1942 1942

Film: The Dancer’s Peril (1917) Theodore Kosloff (1882–1956) La Saison Russe, dancer/choreographer Winter Garden, NY 1911 The Passing Show of 1912, choreographer Winter Garden, NY 1912 The Passing Show of 1915, Winter Garden, NY 1915 choreographer/performer Hands Up, choreographer 44th Street Theatre, NY 1915 The Peasant Girl, choreographer 44th Street Theatre, NY 1915 A World of Pleasure, choreographer/ Winter Garden, NY 1915 performer See America First, choreographer Maxine Elliott’s, NY 1916 The Awakening, performer Criterion, NY 1918 Schéhérazade, based on Fokine, Hollywood Bowl 1926 choreographer Chopin Memories, choreographer Hollywood Bowl 1932 Midsummer Night Ballet, choreographer Hollywood Bowl 1938 Films: The Woman God Forgot (1917), Something to Think About (1920), Why Change Your Wife (1920), Forbidden Fruit (1921), Fool’s Paradise

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157

(1921), The Affairs of Anatol (1921), Lane that had No Turning (1922), Green Temptation (1922), The Dictator (1922), To Have and To Hold (1922), Adam’s Rib (1923), Law of the Lawless (1923), Children of Jazz (1923), Triumph (1924), Golden Ben (1925), New Lives for Old (1925), The Volga Boatmen (1926), Woman Wise (1928), Sunny (1930), Madam Satan (1930), The Raven (1935), Stage Door (1937), Samson and Delilah (1949) Ari Kutai (1900–1980) actor Jacob’s Dream At The Bottom (The Lower Depths) Miracle at Verdun Clear All Wires! The Dybbuk Children of the Shadows Each Had Six Wings

Neighborhood Playhouse Waldorf Theatre, NY Martin Beck Theatre, NY 42nd Street Theatre, NY Little Theatre, NY Little Theatre, NY Little Theatre, NY

1927 1930 1931 1932 19644 1964 1964

Eugenie Leontovich (1900–1993) actress Revue Russe Booth Theatre, NY 1922 Grand Hotel National Theatre, NY 1930 Twentieth Century Broadhurst Theatre, NY 1932 Bitter Oleander Lyceum Theatre, NY 1935 Dark Eyes, actress, co-writer Belasco Theatre, NY 1943 Obsession Plymouth Theatre, N 1946 Anastasia Lyceum Theatre, NY 1954 The Cave Dwellers Bijou Theatre, NY 1957 A Call on Kuprin Broadhurst Theatre, NY 1961 Medea and Jason, director, writer Little Theatre, NY 1974 Films and television: Four Sons (1940), The Men in Her Life (1941), Anything Can Happen (1951–2), The World in His Arms (1952), The Rains in Ranchipur (1955), Celebrity Playhouse (TV series, 1956), Studio One in Hollywood (TV series, 1958), Naked City (TV series, 1958–61), The DuPont Show with June Allyson (TV series, 1961), Homicidal (1961), The United States Steel Hour (TV series, 1962) Lydia Lopokova (1892–1981) dancer, actress The Echo La Saison Russe Vera Violetta

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Globe Theatre, NY Winter Garden, NY Winter Garden, NY

1910 1911 1912

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158

Appendix

The Lady of the Slipper Just Herself Fads and Fancies Fashion’s Passing Show Mixed Vaudeville Bill The Antick Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes The Rose Girl

Globe Theatre, NY Playhouse, NY Knickerbocker, NY Rose Cliff Ballroom, RI Palace Theatre, NY Bandbox Theatre, NY Metropolitan Opera Ambassador Theatre, NY

1913 1914 1915 1915 1915 1915 1916 1922

Léonide Massine (1896–1979) dancer, choreographer Various programs, choreographer Various programs, choreographer Woof, Woof Various programs, choreographer La Sacre du Printempts, choreographer Concert, dancer/choreographer Les Presages, choreographer Choreartium, choreographer Union Pacific, choreographer Symphonie Fantastique, choreographer Gaiete Parisienne, choreographer Helen Goes to Troy

Roxy Theatre, NY Roxy Theatre, NY Royale Theatre, NY Roxy Theatre, NY Metropolitan Opera Chicago Arts Club Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo tours Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo tours Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo tours Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo tours Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo tours Alvin Theatre, NY

1928 1929 1929 1930 1930 1931 1933 1933 1934 1936 1938 1944

Films: The Gay Parisian (1941), Spanish Fiesta (1942) Mikhail Mordkin (1880–1944) dancer, choreographer Coppélia, dancer Ballet Divertissement, dancer Imperial Russian Ballet, dancer Russian Wedding Vera Violetta Greenwich Village Follies Mordkin Ballet Revenge with Music, choreographer

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Metropolitan Opera Metropolitan Opera Metropolitan Opera Auditorium, Chicago, IL Winter Garden, NY Winter Garden, NY Washington Auditorium, D.C. New Amsterdam Theatre, NY

1910 1910 1911 1911 1912 1924 1926 1934

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Appendix Mordkin Ballet Mordkin Ballet

U.S. tour U.S. tour

159 1937 1938

Alla Nazimova (1879–1945) actress, director St. Petersburg Dramatic Co. Hedda Gabler A Doll’s House Hedda Gabler Comtesse Coquette The Master Builder The Comet Little Eyolf The Fairy Tale The Marionettes Bella Donna That Sort War Brides ‘ception Shoals The Wild Duck Hedda Gabler A Doll’s House Dagmar The Unknown Lady Mother India The Cherry Orchard Katerina A Month in the Country Mourning Becomes Electra The Good Earth The Cherry Orchard Doctor Monica The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles Ghosts, actress, director Hedda Gabler, actress, director The Mother, actress

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U.S. Tour Princess Theatre, NY Princess Theatre Bijou Theatre, NY Bijou Theatre, NY Bijou Theatre, NY Bijou Theatre, NY Nazimova’s 39th Street Theatre, NY Chicago, IL Lyceum Theatre, NY Empire Theatre, Wallack’s Theatre, NY Harris Theatre, NY B.F. Keith’s Palace Theatre, NY Princess Theatre Plymouth Theatre, NY Plymouth Theatre Plymouth Theatre Selwyn Theatre, NY Keith’s Theatre, NY Keith’s Theatre, NY Civic Repertory Theatre, NY Civic Repertory Theatre 42nd Street Theatre, NY Guild Theatre, NY Guild Theatre New Amsterdam Theatre Playhouse Theatre, NY Guild Theatre

1905 1906 1907 1907 1907 1907 1907 1910

1914 1915 1917 1918 1918 1918 1923 1923 1928 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1933 1935

Empire Theatre Longacre Theatre Lyceum Theatre, NY

1935 1936 1939

1910 1911 1912

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160

Appendix

Radio plays: The Ivory Tower (1939) and This Lonely Heart (1939) Films: Revelation (1915), Toys of Fate (1915), War Brides (1916), A Woman of France (1918), Eye for Eye (1918, actress, producer and co-director), Out of the Fog (1918), The Red Lantern (1919), The Brat (1919, actress, producer and writer), Stronger Than Death (1919, actress and producer), The Heart of a Child (1919, actress and producer), Madame Peacock (1920, actress, producer and writer), Billions (1920, actress, writer and editor), Camille (1921), A Doll’s House (1922, actress, producer and writer), Salome (1923, actress and producer), Madonna of the Streets (1924), The Redeeming Sin (1924), My Son (1925), Escape (1940), Blood and Sand (1941), In Our Time (1941), The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944), Since You Went Away (1944). Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko (1858–1943) director, playwright, co-founder MAT The Brothers Karamazov, adapter MAT tour 1923 Moscow Art Theatre Music Studio Jolson’s Theatre, NY 1925 Performances included Lysistrata by Aristophanes, La Perichole by Offenbach, Fille de Mme. Angot by Lecoq, Carmencita and the Soldier by Bizet, and three short operas performed in one night under the general title Love and Death (Aleko, Fountain of Bakhchi-Sarai, and Cléopâtra). Vaslav Nijinsky (1890–1950) dancer, choreographer Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes tour Till Eulenspiegel, choreographer

Metropolitan Opera Manhattan Opera House

1917 1917

Pavel Orlenev (1869–1932) actor, manager St. Petersburg Dramatic Company US tour 1905 Orleneff’s Russian Company US tour 1912 Performances included The Chosen People by Chirikov, Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov after Dostoevsky, The Son of Ivan the Terrible by A. Tolsoy, Ghosts and The Master Builder by Ibsen, Revizor by Gogol, Vanyushin’s Children by S. Naydenov, The Seagull by Chekhov, The Family Zwee by Pinski, Star by H. Bahr, and Zaza by Berton and Simon. In 1912, Orlenev added Tsar Paul II by D. Merezhkovsky and Brand by Ibsen. Maria Ouspenskaya (1876–1949) actress, acting instructor Moscow Art Theatre The Saint

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U.S. tour Greenwich Village Theatre

1923 1924

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161

The Jest Plymouth Theatre, NY 1926 The Witch Greenwich Village Theatre 1926 Taming of the Shrew Garrick Theatre, NY 1927 Three Sisters American Laboratory Theatre 1930 Summer repertory theatre Millbrook Theatre, NY 1930 Goose Palm Beach Playhouse 1931 Passing Present Ethel Barrymore Theatre, NY 1931 Dodsworth Shubert Theatre, NY 1934 Abide With Me Ritz, NY 1935 Daughters of Atreus 44th Street Theatre 1936 Outrageous Fortune 48th Street Theatre 1943 The Romantic Young Lady Bucks County Playhouse, PA 1943 Films: Dodsworth (1936), Conquest (1937), Love Affair (1939), The Rains Came (1939), The Magic Bullet (1940), Judge Hardy and Son (1940), Waterloo Bridge (1940), Dance Girl Dance (1940), The Man I Married (1940), The Mortal Storm (1940), The Wolf Man (1941), Kings Row (1942), Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943), Tarzan and the Amazons (1945), I’ve Always Loved You (1946), Wyoming (1947), A Kiss in the Dark (1949) Anna Pavlova (1881–1931) choreographer, dancer Coppélia, dancer Ballet Divertissement Oriental Fantasy and other pieces Amarilla, Preludes, and other pieces The Big Show Solo performances, part of Russian Bazaar Amarilla, La Peri, and other pieces Oriental Impressions and other pieces Film: The Dumb Girl of Portici (1916)

Metropolitan Opera Metropolitan Opera Metropolitan Opera Manhattan Opera Hippodrome Armory, NY Manhattan Opera House Manhattan Opera House

1910 1910 1913 1914 1916 1916 1920 1923

Gregory Ratoff (1897–1960) actor, director Revue Russe Blossom Time Castles in the Air Tenth Avenue Café de Danse, director, performer Out of a Blue Sky Wonder Boy Nina

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Booth Theatre, NY Jolson’s 59th Street Theatre, NY Century Theatre, NY 42nd Street Theatre, NY Forrest Theatre, NY Booth Theatre Alvin Theatre, NY Royale Theatre, NY

1922 1924 1926 1927 1929 1930 1931 1951

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162 Appendix The Fifth Season Cort Theatre, NY 1953 Black-Eyed Susan Playhouse Theatre, NY 1954 Films: Symphony of Six Million (1932), What Price Hollywood? (1932), Skyscraper Souls (1932), Once in a Lifetime (1932), Under-Cover Man (1932), Secrets of the French Police (1932), Sweepings (1933), Professional Sweetheart (1933), I’m No Angel (1933), Headline Shooter (1933), Broadway Through a Keyhole (1933), Sitting Pretty (1933), Girl Without a Room (1933), Let’s Fall in Love (1933), Forbidden Territory (1934), George White’s Scandals (1934), Hello, Sweetheart (1935), Falling in Love (1935), 18 Minutes (1935), Remember Last Night? (1935), King of Burlesque (1936), Under Your Spell (1936), Here Comes Trouble (1936), Under Two Flags (1936), The Road to Glory (1936), Sing, Baby, Sing (1936), Under Your Spell (1936), Sins of Man (1936, director), Seventh Heaven (1937), Top of the Town (1937), Café Metropole (1937), Lancer Spy (1937, director), Sally, Irene and Mary (1938), Gateway (1938), Wife, Husband and Friend (1939, director), Rose of Washington Square (1939, director), Hotel for Women (1939, director), Intermezzo: A Love Story (1939, director), Day-Time Wife (1939, director), Barricade (1939, director), The Great Profile (1940), I Was an Adventuress (1940, director), Public Deb No. 1 (1940, director), Adam Had Four Sons (1941, director), The Corsican Brothers (1941, director), The Men in Her Life (1941, director), Two Yanks in Trinidad (1942, director), Footlight Serenade (1942, director), Something to Shout About (1943, actor, director), The Heat’s On (1943, director), Song of Russia (1944, director), Irish Eyes Are Smiling (1944, director), Where Do We Go From Here? (1945, director), Paris Underground (1945, director), Do You Love Me (1946, director), Carnival in Costa Rica (1947, director), Moss Rose (1947, director), That Dangerous Age (1949, director), My Daughter Joy (1950, actor, director), All About Eve (1950), O. Henry’s Full House (1952), The Moon Is Blue (1953), Taxi (1953, director), Sabrina (1954), Abdulla the Great (1955, actor, director), The Sun Also Rises (1957), Once More, with Feeling! (1960), Exodus (1960), Oscar Wilde (1960, director), The Big Gamble (1961) Nicolai Remisoff (1884–1977) set designer Balieff’s Chauve-Souris U.S. tours Le Foyer de la Danse Chicago Allied Arts Elopement Chicago Allied Arts The Rivals Chicago Opera Ballet Little Circus Chicago Opera Ballet Mandragora Chicago Opera Ballet

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1922 1924 1924 1925 1925 1925

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163

Bal des Marionettes Chicago Opera Ballet 1925 Christmas Carol Chicago Opera Ballet 1925 Pierrot Lunaire Chicago Opera Ballet 1926 Parnassus on Monmartre Chicago Opera Ballet 1926 Tragedy of the Cello Chicago Opera Ballet 1927 Apollo Musagetes Library of Congress 1928 Arlechinada Chamber of Music, Washington, DC 1928 Oak Street Beach Ravinia Opera, Chicago 1928 Cinderella Ravinia Opera, Chicago 1929 Pavanne Ravinia Opera, Chicago 1929 Iberian Monotone “Bolero” Ravinia Opera, Chicago 1930 The Soldier’s Tale Ravinia Opera, Chicago 1931 La Guiablesse Auditorium Theatre, Chicago 1933 Gold Standard Chicago Civic Opera 1934 Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Chicago Civic Opera 1934 Le Coq d’Or San Francisco Opera 1935 Love Song Chicago City Opera 1935 An American Pattern Chicago Opera House 1935 An American in Paris Cincinnati Zoological Gardens 1936 Faust Pilgrimage Theatre 1938 Firebird The Hollywood Bowl 1940 The Fair at Sorochinsk Broadway Theatre, NY 1942 Films: Of Mice and Men (1939, art director), Captain Caution (1940, crew), One Million B.C. (1940, associate art director), Turnabout (1940, art director), Broadway Limited (1941, crew), Corsican Brothers (1941, crew), The Men in Her Life (1941, crew), My Life with Caroline (1941, production designer), Topper Returns (1941, art director), Heavenly Music (1943, art director), Something to Shout About (1943, production designer), Guest in the House (1944, production designer) Paris Underground (1945, production designer), Walk in the Sun (1945, crew), The Strange Woman (1946, crew), Young Widow (1946, art director), Dishonored Lady (1947, production designer), Lured (1947, production designer), No Minor Vices (1948, production designer), The Red Pony (1949, production designer), The Big Night (1951, production designer and art director), When I Grow Up (1951, crew), The Moon Is Blue (1953, production designer), Apache (1954, production designer), Johnny Concho (1956, art director), Please Murder Me (1956, art director), Black Patch (1957, art director), Undersea Girl (1957, art director), Half Human: The Story of the Abominable Snowman (1957, production designer), Pork Chop Hill (1959, production designer), Ocean’s Eleven (1960, art director)

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164 Appendix Benno Schneider (1902–1977) actor, director, acting instructor The Dybbuk, actor Jacob’s Dream, actor Aristocrats, director

Mansfield Theatre, NY Neighborhood Playhouse, NY American Laboratory Theatre, NY Jim Kooperkop, director American Laboratory Theatre Diamonds, director Princess Theatre, NY In the Whirl of Machines, director Princess Theatre Trikenish (Drought), director Heckscher Foundation Theatre Hirsch Leckert, director Fifth Avenue Theatre Four Days, director Fifth Avenue Theatre The Steppe on Fire, director Fifth Avenue Theatre The Third Parade, director Heckscher Theatre Yegor Bulichev, director Heckscher Theatre Recruits, director 48th Street Theatre Dostigayev, director 48th Street Theatre The Reapers, director 48th Street Theatre Haunch, Paunch and Jowl, director 48th Street Theatre 200,000, director 48th Street Theatre But for the Grace of God, director Guild Theatre Uriel Acosta, director Mercury Theatre Liliom, director 44th Street Theatre Strange Bedfellows, director Morosco Theatre, NY The Valiants Assistance League Theatre, CA The Blackouts Assistance League Theatre Here We Are Assistance League Theatre

1926 1927 1929 1930 1930 1930 1931 1932 1932 1932 1933 1933 1934 1934 1935 1935 1936 1937 1939 1940 1948 1949 1949 1949

Moi Solotaroff, designer At the Gate Aristocrats Trikenish (Drought) Four Days The Steppe on Fire Yegor Bulichev Recruits Dostigayev The Reapers Haunch, Paunch and Jowl

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48th Street Theatre, NY American Laboratory Theatre, NY Heckscher Foundation Theatre The Fifth Avenue Theatre The Fifth Avenue Theatre Heckscher Theatre 48th Street Theatre 48th Street Theatre 48th Street Theatre 48th Street Theatre

1928 1929 1931 1932 1932 1933 1934 1934 1935 1935

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Appendix 200,000 Chains The Outlaw The Good Soldier Schweik The East Side Professor Clinton Street

48th Street Theatre 48th Street Theatre Daly Theatre (Artef Theatre) Daly Theatre (Artef Theatre) Daly Theatre (Artef Theatre) Mercury Theatre, NY

165 1936 1937 1937 1937 1938 1939

Serge Soudeikine (1882–1946), designer Revue Russe Booth Theatre, NY Balieff’s Chauve-Souris US tour Petrouchka Metropolitan Opera Le Rossignol Metropolitan Opera Die Zauberflöte Metropolitan Opera Mignon Metropolitan Opera Les Noces Metropolitan Opera Sadko Metropolitan Opera Der Fliegende Holländer Metropolitan Opera The Fair at Sorochintzy Metropolitan Opera New Faces of 1934 Fulton Theatre, NY The Chinese Nightingale Theatre of Young America, NY Reminiscence Adelphi Theatre, NY Porgy and Bess Alvin Theatre, NY Forbidden Melody New Amsterdam Theatre, NY Giselle Majestic Theatre, NY The Goldfish Majestic Theatre Dionysus Majestic Theatre La Fille Mal Gardée Majestic Theatre Trepak Alvin Theatre, NY Film: We Live Again (1934, set designer)

1922 1922 1925 1926 1926 1927 1929 1930 1930 1930 1934 1934 1935 1936 1936 1937 1937 1938 1938 1938

Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863–1938) actor, director, co-founder MAT Moscow Art Theatre Jolson’s Theatre, NY 1923 Performances included Tsar Fedor by A. Tolstoy, The Cherry Orchard and Three Sisters by Chekhov, The Lower Depths by Gorky, The Brothers Karamazov after Dostoevsky, and The Lady from the Provinces by Turgenev. The second season, beginning in 1924, also included Uncle Vanya and Ivanov by Chekhov, An Enemy of the People by Ibsen, The Mistress of the Inn by Goldoni, The Death of Pazukhin by Saltykov-Shchedrin, and Enough Stupidity for Every Wise Man by Ostrovsky.

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166 Appendix Akim Tamiroff (1899–1972) Armenian actor trained at the Moscow Art Theatre Moscow Art Theatre U.S. tour 1923 Moscow Art Theatre U.S. tour 1924 Balieff’s Chauve-Souris U.S. tour 1927 The Life Line Vanderbilt Theatre, NY 1930 Miracle at Verdun Theatre Guild, NY 1931 Rashomon Music Box Theatre, NY 1959 Films: The Barbarian (1933), The Scarlet Empress (1934), The Great Flirtation (1934), Chained (1934), The Winning Ticket (1935), Black Fury (1935), The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), The General Died at Dawn (1936), Her Husband Lies (1937), The Soldier and the Lady (1937), The Great Gambini (1937), The Buccaneer (1938), Ride a Crooked Mile (1938), Union Pacific (1939), Untamed (1940), New York Town (1941), Tortilla Flat (1942), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944), Can’t Help Singing (1944), Pardon My Past (1945), A Scandal in Paris (1946), Fiesta (1947), Relentless (1948), Black Magic (1949), Desert Legion (1953), Cartouche (1954), Mr. Arkadin (1955), The Black Sleep (1956), Anastasia (1956), Battle Hell (1957), Touch of Evil (1958), Me and the Colonel (1958), Desert Desperados (1959), Ocean’s Eleven (1960), Bondage Gladiator Sexy (1961), Romanoff and Juliet (1961), Tartar Invasion (1961), The Trial (1962), Invasion 1700 (1963), Lord Jim (1965), Crime on a Summer Morning (1965), Blue Panther (1965), Adultery Italian Style (1966), After the Fox (1966), A Rose for Everyone (1967), Great Catherine (1968), The Girl Who Couldn’t Say No (1969), The Great Bank Robbery (1969), Moto Shel Yehudi (1970), Don Quixote (unfinished Welles film, fragments released in1992) David Vardi, playwright, director, actor, instructor The Dybbuk, director Lenin’s Dowry, playwright/actor Evening of impersonations5 David’s Crown, actor

Neighborhood Playhouse, NY Chanin Auditorium, NY NY School for Social Research Broadway Theatre, NY

1925 1932 1932 1948

Evgenii Vakhtangov, (1883–1922) director The Dybbuk, director

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Habima tour, Mansfield Theatre, NY

1926

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Appendix

167

Alexander Volinine (1882–1955) dancer La Saison Russe, dancer Imperial Russian Ballet, dancer The Big Show

Winter Garden, NY Metropolitan Opera, NY The Hippodrome

1911 1912 1916

Benjamin Zemach (1902–1997) dancer, choreographer, dance instructor The Dybbuk, actor Mansfield Theatre, NY 1926 Jacob’s Dream, actor Neighborhood Playhouse, NY 1927 The Golem, actor Irving Place Theatre, NY 1927 Aristocrats, dance director American Laboratory Theatre, NY 1929 Jim Kooperkop, dance director Princess Theatre, NY 1930 Jewish Ballet, choreographer Hollywood Theatre 1932 Salome, director, choreographer Pasadena Playhouse, LA 1932 Fragments of Israel, choreographer Hollywood Bowl 1933 The Victory Ball, choreographer Hollywood Bowl 1935 The Outlaw, dance director The Daly Theatre (Artef Theatre) 1937 The Eternal Road, choreographer Manhattan Opera House 1937 Pins and Needles, choreographer Windsor Theatre, NY 1937 The Natural Man, director 135th Street Library Theatre, NY 1941 The Witch, director Las Palmas Theatre, Hollywood 1955 Let’s Sing Yiddish, director Brooks Atkinson Theatre, NY 1966 Films: She (1935), The Last Days of Pompeii (1935), and Night Tide (1961) Nahum Zemach (1887–1939) actor, acting instructor, manager of Jewish Unit of FTP The Dybbuk, actor Jacob’s Dream, actor The Dybbuk, director The Dybbuk, director

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Mansfield Theatre, NY Neighborhood Playhouse West Coast tour Wilshire Ebell Theatre, CA

1926 1927 1929 1931

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Notes INTRODUCTION 1. Almanac of Russian Artists in America, vol. 1 (New York: Nicholas Martianoff and Mark Stern, 1932), 3. 2. Ibid., 3. 3. The Russian-born Gorelick emigrated with his family as a child. He was heavily influenced by Soudeikine. 4. See, for example, Edward Bernays’s account of his work as a press agent for the Ballets Russes’s American tour in his memoir, Biography of an Idea: Memoirs of Public Relations Counsel (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965), 105–106. 5. Stanislavsky’s influence on American theatre is well documented in such studies as Jean Benedetti, Stanislavski: A Biography (London: Methuen, 1988); Sharon M. Carnicke, Stanislavsky in Focus (New York and London: Routledge, 1998); Christine Edwards, The Stanislavsky Heritage (New York: New York University Press, 1965); Erika Munk, Stanislavski and America (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1967); Robert Leach and Victor Borovsky, A History of the Russian Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). See also articles by Elena Poliakova and Sharon Carnicke in Wandering Stars: Russian Émigré Theatre, 1905–1940, ed. Laurence Senelick (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1992). 6. Richard Boleslavsky and Maria Ouspenskaya, former members of the Moscow Art Theatre, established the American Laboratory Theatre and instituted a Stanislavsky-based actor training system in America. 7. Pavel Orlenev, Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo Russkogo aktera (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo Iskusstvo, 1961), 97. 8. For an excellent discussion of various American religious and political interests in Russia from the nineteeth century to the present, see Daniel Fogelsong, The American Mission and the “Evil Empire” (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 9. As my bibliography makes clear, there have been a number of excellent studies on many aspects of this topic. Scholars have produced many fine studies of the Russian theatre, the American theatre, the Yiddish theatre, the workers’ theatre, Stanislavsky, the Ballets Russes, GOSET, Habima, the Artef, Russian emigration, Russian-American relations, etc. Scholars have also highlighted

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170 Notes

10.

11. 12. 13.

the careers of many key individual émigré Russian performers. The works of Laurence Senelick, Sharon Carnicke, Nahma Sandrow, Nina Warnke, and Edna Nahshon have been invaluable resources for this book. No single study, though, has synthesized these various threads in order to establish an understanding of the dynamic process of cultural exchange between Russians and Americans during these years. See, for example, Fedor Komissarzhevskii, Ya i teatre (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1999), 130, for a discussion of the mismanagement of his sister Vera Komissarzhevskaya’s 1908 tour, and for a discussion of the difficulty of dealing with the press when he came to the United States to direct Peer Gynt for the Theatre Guild in 1922, 147–156. Leonid Leonidov also writes about being overwhelmed by the press when he came with the Moscow Art Theatre in 1923. His account of the American tours of the Moscow Art Theatre and Moscow Art Studio Theatre reveal the difficulties Russian artists faced on their tours in America. Leonid Leonidov, Rampa i zhizn’: vospominania i vstrechi (Paris: Russkoe teatral’noe izdatel’stvo za granitsei, 1955). Leonidov, 182. Ibid. For an in-depth discussion on Russian artists who made a living in the film industry in the 1920s and 1930s, see Harlow Robinson, Russians in Hollywood/ Hollywood’s Russians: Biography of an Image (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2007). For a list of Russians working in the performing arts in 1932, see the Almanac of Russian Artists in America.

PART I

RUSSIANS IN AMERICA: THE EARLY YEARS

1. Oscar Handlin, A Pictorial History of Immigration (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), 242. 2. Jerome Davis, The Russian Immigrant (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1922). 3. Quoted in Julian F. Jaffe, Crusade Against Radicalism: New York During the Red Scare, 1914–1924 (Port Washington, New York and London: Kennikat Press, 1972). 4. Pyotr Tverskoi, “Letters from Russia. Letter III. The Sympathy Felt for Americans by Russians,” in A Russian Discovery of America, ed. Alexander Nikoljukin, trans. Cynthia Carlile and Julius Katzer (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1986), 408–413. 5. Ibid., 409. 6. This was not the first group of Russian Americans, however. A sizable group of Russian immigrants came to California between 1805 and 1841. The settlement of Russians in California attracted later Russian actors, directors, designers, and choreographers to Hollywood from the 1920s to the 1940s.

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7. Shannon Smith, “From Relief to Revolution: American Women and the Russian-American Relationship, 1890–1917,” Diplomatic History 19 (Fall 1995): 601–616. 8. Appears on the front page of the monthly newspaper, Free Russia, published by the Society. 9. David S. Fogelsong, The American Mission and the “Evil Empire” (Cambridge University Press, 2007), 40. In his book, Fogelsong outlines the American interest in Russian freedom from the tsarist era to the post-Soviet era. In the introduction to his book, he argues that Americans have long imagined a Russian democracy in its own image, associated with a religious missionary zeal and a desire to “uplift” Russians with American products. He writes that Americans have tended to represent Russians who fight despotism as martyrs and those who stand in the way of the development of democracy in Russia as diabolical. This notion is supported by the extremely contrasting views and the religious iconography used in representations of Russians in the American press in the early twentieth century. 10. Ibid. 11. Smith, 610. 12. Quoted in Smith, 610. 13. Quoted in Barry V. Johnston, Russian American Social Mobility: An Analysis of the Achievement Syndrome (Saratoga, CA: Century Twenty-One Publishing, 1981), 5. 14. 150. 15. Hutchins Hapgood, The Spirit of the Ghetto: Studies in the Jewish Quarter of New York (New York: Funk and Wagnell’s Company, 1902), 42. 16. See Arthur Hertzberg, The Jews in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 226. 17. Steven Cassedy, To The Other Shore: the Russian Jewish Intellectuals Who Came to America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 64. This changed, though, as the Jewish socialism adopted a nationalist position. By the 1910s, the socialists tended to embrace their Jewish identity, moving away from a predominantly assimilationist stance. See also Jonathan Frankel, Socialism, Nationalism and the Russian Jews, 1962–1917 (Cambridge, New York, London: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 18. 84–85. 19. One of the designers of the Music Hall was the Russian Vladimir Sotlyshnikov. 20. Pyotr Tverskoi, “Letters from America. Letter III. The Sympathy felt for Americans by Russians,” in A Russian Discovery of America, ed. Alexander Nikoljukin, trans. Cynthia Carlile and Julius Katzer (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1986). 21. W. I. Courtney, The Developments of Maurice Maeterlinck and Other Sketches of Foreign Writers (Port Washington, New York, and London: Kennikat Press, 1904), 131.

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172 Notes 22. Ibid. 23. Gordin and this group were sometimes viewed as anti-Semitic due to their attacks of traditional aspects of Jewish life, which members believed resulted in their ostracism from Russian society. In the early 1880s, Gordin shockingly blamed the Jews themselves for the Elizavetgrad pogrom that followed the assassination of Alexander II. While he would never make such extreme claims later, he continued to believe that assimilation was the best path for Jews, though he himself was much more assimilated as a Russian than as an American. 24. For further reading on Gordin’s biography, see the following: Beth Kaplan, Finding the Jewish Shakespeare: the Life and Legacy of Jacob Gordin (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2007); Jacob Gordin, Sophie Glazer, and Ruth Gay, The Jewish King Lear Comes to America (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2007); Melech Epstein, Profiles of Eleven (Detroit: Wayne State University, 1965); “Jacob Gordin Dead; Yiddish Dramatist” New York Times, June 12, 1909. In 1904, Gordin referred the Broadway producer Wagenhals to the New International Encyclopedia (1902–1904), Hutchins Hapgood’s The Spirit of the Ghetto (1902), and Leo Wiener’s The History of Yiddish Literature (1899) for accurate biographies. Letter to Wagenhals in Jacob Shatzky, “Some Letters To and From Jacob Gordin,” YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science 9 (1954): 126–134. 25. Lulla Rosenfeld points out in her commentary in Jacob Adler’s autobiography that the Marinsky theatre sustained such losses when Goldfaden’s Yiddish troupe came to town, that the manager decided to lease the theatre to Goldfaden rather than compete with him. Jacob Adler, A Life on the Stage, trans. and ed. Lulla Rosenfeld (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 127. 26. Ibid., 321. 27. Quoted in Nahma Sandrow, Vagabond Stars: A World History of Yiddish Theatre (New York: Harper and Row, 1977), 139. 28. “Gordin to Wagnalls [sic]” in Jacob Shatzky, “Some Letters To and From Jacob Gordin,” YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science 9 (1954): 136. 29. Joel Berkowitz first made this connection in Shakespeare on the American Yiddish Stage (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2002), 39. 30. Jacob Gordin, The Jewish King Lear, trans. Ruth Gay (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2007), 59. 31. Adler, 323. 32. Gordin, The Jewish King Lear, 14–15. 33. Letter from I. Levy to Jacob Gordin, November 24, 1903, Jacob Gordin Papers, YIVO Institute. 34. Norman Hapgood, The Stage in America, 1897–1901 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1901), 247. 35. Unidentified scrapbook clipping, Jacob Gordin Papers, YIVO Institute. 36. “The Bowery’s Taste in Dramatic Art,” Morning Express, December 5, 1903, Scrapbook Clipping, Jacob Gordin Papers, YIVO Institute.

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37. “This Satan Incarnate: An Artistic creation,” Morning Telegraph, November 28, 1903. 38. “Strunsky to Gordin” in Jacob Shatzky, “Some Letters to and From Jacob Gordin,” YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science 9 (1954): 126–136. 39. Letter from Mr. Hamilton to Gordin referring to earlier agreements, Hamilton was seeking program credit for the Chicago Wagenhall’s production. Postmarked November 10, 1904, Jacob Gordin Papers, YIVO Institute. 40. Letter from David Frohman to Jacob Gordin, April 16, 1904, Jacob Gordin Papers, YIVO Institute. 41. Letter from Wagenhals and Kemper (signed W&K) to Jacob Gordin, 1904 (Full date unreadable) Jacob Gordin Papers, YIVO Institute. 42. “Gordin to Wagnalls [sic]” in Jacob Shatzky, “Some Letters To and From Jacob Gordin,” 135. Shatzky misidentifies Wagenhals (the producer) as Wagnalls (a publisher). 43. Jacob Gordin, The Kreutzer Sonata, adapted by Langdon Mitchell, (New York: Harrison Grey Fiske, 1907), 26. I will use the spellings of the character names as they occurred in this version of the play. 44. Ibid., 60. 45. See Ruth Gay and Sophie Glazer’s essay “Jacob Gordin’s Life,” in Jacob Gordin, The Jewish King Lear: A Comedy in America, trans. Ruth Gay (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), 107–138. 46. Gordin, The Kreutzer Sonata, adapted by Mitchell, 76. 47. “The Art of Acting in Theory and in Practice,” New York Times, September 16, 1906; W. L. Hubbard, “News of the Theatres,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 5, 1904; “Kreutzer Sonata See at Manhattan Theatre,” New York Times, August 14, 1906; “The Much Discussed Kreutzer Sonata,” August 25, 1906, unidentified newspaper clipping; “Kreutzer Sonata is daring,” December 5, 1904, unidentified newspaper clipping, Jacob Gordin Papers, YIVO Institute. 48. “The Art of Acting in Theory and Practice.” New York Times, September 16, 1906. 49. “Kreutzer Sonata is Daring,” December 5, 1904, unidentified clipping, Jacob Gordin Papers, YIVO Institute. 50. Ibid. 51. “The Kreutzer Sonata,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 5, 1904. 52. “Jacob Gordin and the Kreutzer Sonata,” Current Literature, October 1906. 53. Hapgood, 127. 54. Ibid., 130. 55. Ibid. 56. Quoted in Adler, 355. 57. Adler, 367–370. 58. “Jacob Gordin and the ‘Kreutzer Sonata,” Current Literature, October 1906.

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174 Notes 59. Pavel Orlenev, Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo Russkogo aktera Pavla Orleneva (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo Iskusstvo, 1961). Orlenev writes of his American tour from page 168. 60. “Paul Orleneff, the Russian Actor—His Aspirations and Ideals,” New York Times, April 2, 1905. 61. See, for example, “Paul Orleneff: the Russian Actor,” New York Times, April 2, 1905; Florence Brooks, “The Russian Players in New York,” Century Magazine, April 1906, 301–307; and Homer Saint-Gaudens, “The Russian Players,” The Critic. April 1906, 318. These instances reveal the persistence of the anecdote for Orlenev in the United States. 62. His repertory included plays that did and did not promote a revolutionary movement. He says clearly enough in the first article announcing his visit in the New York Times, “All I care for now is to act.” He contradicted this statement often, stating that he wished to reveal the oppressive state in which Russians live, but this is inconsistent with the repertory offered. Though the plays were either Russian classics or modern European plays, few seem aimed at building support for the revolutionary movement. 63. Orlenev, 162. 64. Laurence Senelick, “The American Tour of Orlenev and Nazimova, 1905– 1906,” in Wandering Stars: Russian Émigré Theatre, 1905–1940, ed. Laurence Senelick (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1992), 5. 65. Emma Goldman, Living My Life, vol. 1 (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1931; reprinted, Dover Publications, Inc., 1970), 359. 66. Ibid., 369–370. 67. Ibid., 368. 68. Ibid., 373. 69. Ibid., 374–376. 70. “$10,000 Fund to Aid Russians,” New York Times, February 11, 1906. The author discusses the fund raised to support Orlenev’s group, refers to them as exiles, discusses the plans for Daniel Frohman to take over the management of the company when he returns from Europe, and discusses the poor quality of the Orleneff Lyceum theatre on Third Street. According to the author, the theatre was below a dance hall, so performances were regularly interrupted by bursts of music, dancing, and applause. It is significant that Otto Kahn contributed so greatly to this group. Kahn persistently contributed to organizations that aided efforts for democracy in Russia and supported equality for Russian Jews. He also contributed to the development of modern theatrical performances. Because he offered almost three times more than any other contributor, he must have viewed the group as important in these three aspects. 71. Homer Saint-Gaudens, “The Russian Players,” The Critic. April 1906. 72. “Russian Actors in Ghosts: Mr. Orleneff ’s Brilliant Performance of Oswald,” New York Times, June 11, 1905. 73. W. L. Hubbard, Chicago Daily Tribune, February 26, 1906.

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74. “The Drama,” The Independent, January 25, 1906. 75. Goldman, 376. 76. There was some confusion about who managed Nazimova during these early performances. The press announced Henry Miller as the manager of these performances, but he later told the press that she was under contract with the Shuberts and merely appeared in the Princess Theatre, which was under his management. He credited Margaret Anglin with discovering her and urging the Shuberts to sign a contract with her before she left for Russia. Because they had no theatre available, Miller agreed to lease the Princess Theatre for Nazimova’s matinee performances of Hedda Gabler. See “Henry Miller Not Nazimova Manager,” New York Times, September 26, 1907. 77. “Mme. Nazimova Great in ‘Hedda Gabler,’ ” New York Times, November 14, 1906. 78. “Nazimova as Nora; First Time in English,” New York Times, January 15, 1907. 79. Both reviews are quoted in the article, “Hedda Gabler,” Current Literature, January 1907, 60. 80. “At Close Range with Alla Nazimova,” New York Times, November 18, 1906. 81. Gavin Lambert’s biography of Nazimova offers one view of her long American career. See Nazimova: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997). In “Alla Nazimova: The Witch of Make-Up” Robert Schanke analyzes her career in terms of her bisexuality. The chapter appears in Passing Performances: Queer Readings of Leading Players in American Theatre History, ed. Robert Schanke and Kim Marra (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998). 82. Burns Mantle, “Alla Nazimova an Example of How Americans Forget,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 10, 1929. 83. Nikoljukin, 415. 84. Ibid. 85. Chaliapin, 175. 86. See Catherine Schuler’s discussion of Komissarzhevskaya in her book, Women in Russian Theatre: the Actress in the Silver Age (London and New York: Routledge, 1996). See also Victor Borovsky, A Tryptich from the Russian Theatre (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2001). 87. Letter to Anton Chekhov, 1899, in Vera Fedorovna Komissarzhevskaia: pic’ma aktrisy vospominaniia o nei materialy, ed. A.Y. Al’tshuller and U. P. Ribakov. (Leningrad: Iskusstvo, 1964), 70. 88. In Theodore Komisarjevsky’s notes of a meeting of the theatre’s directors, including Komissarzhevskaya, Meyerhold, R.A. Ungern, K. Bravich, and Komisarjevsky, he recorded “the path of the theatre is mystical realism.” Fedor Komissarzhevsky, Ya i teatre (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1999), 208. 89. Ibid., 128–130. 90. Ibid., 130.

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176 Notes 91. This production, directed by Meyerhold, was announced as the climax of the company’s New York engagement, but the actress Margaret Anglin held the American rights to the play. Komissarzhevskaya’s company had to withdraw the play prior to its performance. Franklin Fyles, “Margaret Anglin Forbids Rival in Sister Beatrice,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 29, 1908. 92. Komissarzhevsky, 130. 93. “Russian Actress Plays in New York,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 2, 1908. 94. “Russian Actress Appears as Nora,” New York Times, March 3, 1908. 95. “With Less Name and More Art Russian Actress Might Win Fame,” Washington Post, March 8, 1908. 96. Qtd. In “K,” Current Literature, May 1908. 97. “Actors Locked Out At Thalia Theatre,” New York Times, March 22, 1908. 98. “Jacob Gordin on Komisarzhevsky’s Nora,” unidentified newspaper clipping, Jacob Gordin Papers, YIVO Institute. 99. “Enthusiastic Adieu for Komisarchevsky,” New York Times, April 20, 1908. 100. Komisarjevsky, 130. 101. Quoted In Victor Borovsky, A Triptych from the Russian Theatre: An Artistic Biography of the Komissarzhevskys (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2001). 102. Komisarjevsky directed The Lucky One by A. A. Milne, Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen, R. U .R. by Carl Kapek, and The Tidings Brought to Mary by Paul Claudel for the Theatre Guild’s 1922–1924 seasons. He made his career in England and returned to America prior to the outbreak of World War II. He occasionally directed and made several attempts to found a permanent company and school, including the Komisarjevsky Theatre Studio, active from 1941 to 1945. He made a living as an acting instructor, notably, at Yale University, and as a private instructor and coach. 103. Komisarjevsky, 156. 104. Yedlin, 68. 105. Jacob Adler, Jacob Adler: A Life on the Stage, trans. Lulla Rosenfeld (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 335. 106. Sol Hurok, Impresario, 20. 107. Oliver M. Sayler, Our American Theatre (New York: Brentano’s, 1923), 3. 108. Walter Prichard Eaton, At the New Theatre and Others (Boston: Small, Maynard, and Company, 1910). 109. Ibid., 16–18. 110. The artists, who exhibited only this once as a group, included Arthur B. Davies (1862–1928), William Glackens (1870–1938), Robert Henri (1865– 1929), Ernest Lawson (1873–1939), George Luks (1867–1933), Maurice Prendergrast (1859–1924), Everett Shinn (1876–1953), and John French Sloan (1871–1951). 111. The Armory Show of 1913, presenting works by the Fauvists, Cubists, Expressionists, and others was an important event in broadening the appeal

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of European modernism. The exhibit toured New York, Chicago, and Boston and introduced hundreds of thousands of Americans to trends in Europe. Little theatres sprung up in major U.S. cities from 1912 to 1917. Trends in European theatre were introduced to Americans throughout the 1920s, as touring productions and guest artists (such as Max Reinhardt and Jacques Copeau) were brought into the United States by American modernists.

PART II THE RUSSIAN INVASION OF THE AMERICAN THEATRE 1. Sol Hurok, Impresario, with Ruth Goode (New York: Random House, 1974), 5. The important contributions of Sol Hurok, who emulated Gest, will be discussed in Part III. 2. Cruishank, 26. 3. Otto H. Kahn, Art and America (New York: New York Drama League, 1924), 17. 4. Lawrence Langner, The Magic Curtain (New York: E.P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1951), 90. 5. George Cram Cook, Change Your Style in Adele Heller and Lois Rudnick, 1915: The Cultural Moment: the New Politics, the New Woman, the New Psychology, the New Art and the New Theatre (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1991), 299. 6. Quoted in Mary Jane Matz, The Many Lives of Otto Kahn (New York: Macmillan Company, 1963), 55. 7. Quoted in Matz, 55. 8. Gilbert, 2. 9. Otto Kahn, Of Many Things (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1926), 74. 10. Qtd. in John Kobler, Otto The Magnificent: The Life of Otto Kahn (New York: Scribner, 1988), 64. 11. Kahn, Of Many Things, 128. 12. See Sol Hurok, S. Hurok Presents: A Memoir of the Dance World (New York: Hermitage House, 1953), 18–19, and Nesta MacDonald, Diaghilev Observed by Critics in England and the United States, 1911–1929 (New York and London: Dance Horizons and Dance Books Limited, 1975), 129, for details on Gatti-Casazza’s resistance to dance. 13. Hurok, S. Hurok Presents, 53. 14. V. Dandre, Anna Pavlova in Art and Life (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1972), 279. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid., 282. 17. The Russian-born Max Rabinoff (1877–1966) established a career as a music impresario. In 1915, Rabinoff presented Pavlova in collaboration

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178 Notes

18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

with the Boston Grand Opera Company, in a production of The Dumb Girl of Portici, which was labeled a “mimo-dramatic and mim-choreographic novelty” in the souvenir program. Following his work with Pavlova and Mordkin, Rabinoff imported the Russian Imperial Court Andreyeff Balalaika Orchestra and the Ukrainian National Chorus. He founded the Cosmopolitan Opera Association, which presented Opera for the masses at the Hippodrome. In 1922, he launched the American Institute for Operatic and Allied Arts, which encouraged the development of American folk music. He also became an important diplomatic intermediary between Russia and the United States and agitated for recognition of the Soviet Union. He promoted economic relations with the Soviet Union and advised the U.S. government and American businesses on trade with Russia. His arguments for trade with Russia are outlined in the document, “A Plan for Financing American Exports to Soviet Russia: An Address by Max Rabinoff ” given in 1933 for the Conference of Representatives of Industrial and Agricultural Companies Interested in Exports of Their Products to the Soviet Union. The address was delivered upon the invitation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Max Rabinoff Papers, Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The library also houses a letter from L. J. Thomas, president of Standard Oil, dated 1920, asking Rabinoff confidentially to help “put [a] deal through” to purchase refined oil from Russia. Rabinoff ’s career suggests that the American impresarios with affiliations in Russia could have interests and associations that reached beyond the arts into the realms of diplomacy, finance, and industry. Because Rabinoff ’s greatest Russian imports after Pavlova and Mordkin were largely musical imports, his career is not investigated further in this study. Hurok, 54. Nesta MacDonald, Diaghilev Observed by Critics in England and the United States, 1911–1929 (New York and London: Dance Horizons and Dance Books Limited, 1975). This excellent resource duplicates theatrical reviews and other documents related to the tours of the Ballets Russes: 137. Quoted in MacDonald, 139. Quoted in MacDonald, 129. Edward Bernays, Biography of an Idea: Memoirs of Public Relations Counsel (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965), 105–106. Bernays, 109. Marcia Siegel, The Shapes of Change: Images of American Dance (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), 1. Quoted in MacDonald, 156. See Kobler, 65–67. See Matz, 42; “Nijinsky,” New York Tribune, September 6, 1916. Qtd. in MacDonald, 134. Bernays, 122. Bolm cast the American dancer Ruth Page in the leading female role. This established a long time association between Bolm and Page, considered one

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Notes

31.

32. 33. 34. 35.

36.

37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

179

of America’s leading modern dance artists. Page often collaborated with the Russians. She became the first American to appear with the Ballets Russes in 1925 and gave Rudolph Nureyev his first job in America in 1962. See http:// www.ruthpage.org/the_ruth_page_legacy.php for more on p. xxx. Roerich’s art and scenic designs were exhibited periodically in the United States. For example, many of his paintings appeared at the St. Louis Trade Fair of 1904 and in several exhibits culminating in a national exhibit of Russian artists in 1922–23, arranged by Christian Brinton. However, painted backdrops, even Russian ones, rapidly lost favor among theatrical modernists in the early 1920s, and Roerich became less interested in design for the theatre. More important, perhaps, than his occasional designs in the United States, were some of his other activities after his emigration in 1920. For instance, in 1921, he founded the Master Institute for United Arts, which provided lessons in painting, sculpture, writing, and music for students in Chicago. By 1923, this institute became attached to the Roerich Museum and the Corona Mundi Art Museum which exhibited, sold, and protected international works of art. Through these institutions, Roerich aided the cultural exchange of art between the Soviet Union and the United States, even though the two nations had no official trade or diplomatic relations until 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt officially recognized the USSR. “A Russian Painter of the New School,” Outlook, November 27, 1918. Norman Bel Geddes, Miracle in the Evening (New York: Doubleday, 1960), 120. Bernays, 101. See Priscilla Roberts, “Jewish Bankers, Russia, and The Soviet Union, 1900– 1940: The Case of Kuhn, Loeb, and Company,” American Jewish Archives Journal 31, No. 1 & 2 (1997): 9–37. The Wanderer, written by Maurice V. Samuels, was based on Wilhelm Schmidtbonn’s Der Verlorene Sohn. David Belasco directed the production which starred James O’Neill. The producers were Gest, F. Ray Comstock, and William Elliott, Gest’s brother-in-law. 120. Kobler, 4. Channing Pollock, Harvest of My Years (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1943), 148. Alexander Woollcott, Enchanted Aisles (New York: Putnam, 1924). Morris Gest clippings file, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library. Variety clipping from 1926, Gest folder, Otto H. Kahn Papers, Princeton University Library, Manuscripts Division. Morris Gest clippings file, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library. Geddes, 289. Ibid., 200.

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180 Notes 46. For example, Gest’s name shows up nine times in Wandering Stars: Russian Émigré Theatre, 1905–1940, ed. Laurence Senelick. However, a two-sentence footnote is the longest discussion he receives. 47. Telegram dated January 23, 1927, Morris Gest folder, Otto H. Kahn Papers, Princeton University Library, Manuscripts Division. 48. Letter dated November 16, 1925, Morris Gest folder, Otto H. Kahn Papers, Princeton University Library, Manuscripts Division. 49. John A. Pyros, “Morris Gest: Producer-Impresario in America” (PhD Diss., New York University, 1973), 10. 50. “How Jews Capitalized a Protest Against Jews,” The Dearborn Independent, January 22, 1921. 51. “Maury Gest and the Picture Business,” Variety clipping, dated 1926, Morris Gest clippings file, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library. 52. Ibid. 53. Pollock, 149. 54. Oliver Sayler and Marjorie Barkentin, “On Your Toes America! The Story of the First Ballets Russes,” Dance Data 2, No. 1 (1977): 20–28. Both Sayler and Barkentin had worked as press agents for Morris Gest in the 1920s. 55. Ibid., 20. 56. Ibid., 23. 57. Ibid. 58. The flier is duplicated in Sayler and Barkentin. 59. Quoted in Sayler and Barkentin, 27. 60. Quoted in Barbara Naomi Cohen, “The Borrowed Art of Gertrude Hoffmann,” Dance Data 2, No.1 (1977): 2–11. 61. “De La Saison Russe,” album souvenir, reprinted in Dance Data 2, No.1 (1977): 12–20. 62. Sayler and Barkentin assert that Gest had complained, “But you’re ruining the integrity of Russian art!” in objection to Hoffmann’s decision to add the revue, Sayler and Barkentin, 25. However, this is unlikely as Gest was active as a vaudeville producer at this time, and probably saw this as an effective way to expand the potential audience. Only later, when he was producing legitimate Russian theatre companies would he have said this. 63. “Russian Dancers Quit Miss Hoffmann,” New York Times, September 20, 1911. Interestingly, Lopokova spent the next five years entertaining audiences in vaudeville houses until she rejoined Diaghilev’s company when it came to the United States. Lopokova probably found a contractual loophole that would release her from the performances in which she did not emerge as the star. 64. Quoted in Cohen, 9. 65. “How the Nations Dance,” New York Times, March 21, 1915. 66. Grace Kingsley, “Drama,” Los Angeles Times, August 15, 1916. 67. Rambova later married Rudolph Valentino. 68. Grace Kingsley, “Kosloff Signs,” Los Angeles Times, December 18, 1919.

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69. Dawn Lille Horwitz, Michel Fokine (Boston: Twayne, 1985), 41. 70. Undated newspaper clipping entitled “Mecca’s Gest’s Crowning Glory: Once Immigrant Lad from Russia Reaches Pinnacle with Century Spectacle,” Morris Gest clippings file, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library. 71. Horwitz, 42–43. 72. Qtd. in Horwitz, 45. 73. “Aphrodite,” Theatre Magazine, January 1920, 61. 74. Mary B. Mullett, “Morris Gest’s Life is Crowded with Gorgeous Adventures,” American Magazine, September 1926, 158–163. 75. “Balieff ’s Chauve-Souris of Moscow,” souvenir program (New York: Morris Gest, 1923). 76. Ibid., 3. 77. A clipping from Dance Lovers Magazine, dated January 1924, notes that the Pulitzer Prize playwright Jessee Lynch Williams proclaimed, “Guess I’ll have to translate the darn thing into Russian!” when he stared into the empty house where one of his plays was being performed. Chauve-Souris scrapbook collection, New York Public Library. 78. Alma Law, “Nikita Balieff and the Chauve-Souris,” in Wandering Stars, 16–31. 79. Helen Bullitt Lowry, “High Art and the Apes,” New York Times, February 26, 1922. 80. See Robert Allerton Parker, “Baliev on Broadway,” The Independent and Weekly Review, February 25, 1922, 205. Alexander Woollcott also wrote several articles on the Chauve-Souris for the New York Times in 1922 that share this view. 81. Robert C. Benchley, “Special To-Day: Yankee Pot Caviar,” Life, February 23, 1922, 18. 82. Sayler, Our American Theatre, 226–227. 83. Although his work was introduced to Americans by Balieff, Balanchine worked as the choreographer and ballet master for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in the late 1920s and toured with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in the early 1930s. His career in America was introduced, not established through this connection with the Chauve-Souris; however, the fame of the Russian tours in the 1910s and 1920s built an audience for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and the American Ballet. With Kirstein, Balanchine established the ballet school and in 1935 presented the first professional work of the American Ballet. See http://www.balanchine.org for an introduction to Balanchine. 84. D. Kogan, Sergei Iur’evich Sudeikin, 1884–1946 (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1974). 85. “The Chauve-Souris,” Theatre Magazine, December 1922, 375–376. 86. Alice Lewisohn Crowley, The Neighborhood Playhouse (New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1959), 117. 87. “Balieff ’s Chauve-Souris of Moscow,” souvenir program (New York: Morris Gest, 1923), 22.

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182 Notes 88. Telegram to Kahn in September 1922, Morris Gest folder, Otto H. Kahn Papers, Princeton University Library, Manuscripts Division. 89. John Corbin, “Chauve-Souris, Fourth Version,” New York Times, January 5, 1923. 90. The list as written in the 1923 program included Kahn as chairman, George Pierce Baker, Mrs. August Belmont, Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, Paul D. Cravath, Walther Damrosch, John W. Davis, Mrs. Marshall Field, Mrs. Charles Dana Gibson, Thomas Hastings, John Grier Hibben, Arthur Curtiss James, Frederic A. Julliard, Thomas Lamont, Clarence Mackay, William Lyon Phelps, Frank Polk, Edward Robinson, Mrs. Willard Straight, Augustus Thomas, Mrs. Henry Rogers Winthrop, and Mrs. H.P. Whitney. 91. Sharon Carnicke, Stanislavsky in Focus (New York and London: Routledge, 1998),13. 92. Carnicke, 15; Anatoly Smeliansky, “In Search of El Dorado: America in the Fate of the Moscow Art Theatre,” in Wandering Stars, 50–51. 93. Jean Benedetti, Stanislavski, 252. 94. Boleslavsky (1889–1937) left Russia during its Civil War. He came to the United States as a director and performer in the Revue Russe, a Russian cabaret in the style of the Chauve-Souris, produced in collaboration with Lee and J. J. Shubert and Elisabeth Marbury. The production ran for three weeks. In America, he worked with the Neighborhood Playhouse before establishing his American Laboratory Theatre in 1923, aimed at nurturing a permanent acting company. See Carnicke’s article, “Boleslavsky in America,” in Wandering Stars, for a more detailed discussion of Boleslavsky’s work as Stanislavsky’s “spokesman.” 95. Leonid Leonidov, Rampa i zhizn: vospominania i vstrechi (Paris: Rysskoe Teatral’noe Izdatel’stvo, 1955), 180. 96. Ibid., 186. 97. Ibid., 186–188. 98. Smeliansky, 59. 99. Harlow Robinson, Russians in Hollywood (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2007). According to Robinson, Tamiroff was the “eternal sidekick . . . but a thinking man’s sidekick,” 73. He notes that Orson Welles and Cecil B. DeMille both held Tamiroff in high regard, appreciating his skill for comedy and his rigorous preparation for his roles, 71–77. 100. Letter to Kahn, April 12, 1925, Otto H. Kahn Papers, Princeton University Library, Manuscripts Division. 101. John Mason Brown, “The Director Takes a Hand,” Theatre Arts Monthly 10, No. 2 (February 1926): 73–85. 102. “Carmencita,” New York Times, January 10, 1926. 103. Leonidov, 205–206.

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104. For Nemirovich-Danchenko’s frustrations, see his letters to Olga Sergeevna Bokshanskaya in Nemirovich-Danchenko, Izbrannie pic’ma, vol. 2 (Moscow: Iskysstvo, 1979), 277–278 and 287–288. They reveal he is becoming exhausted of dealing with the censorship and uncertainty in Moscow at the time. For the suggestion that Gest may have been involved in getting Nemirovich-Danchenko a position, see Leonidov, 206. 105. Leonidov, 185.

PART III REVOLUTIONARY THEATRE: FROM RUSSIA TO AMERICA 1. Oliver Sayler, Russia, White or Red (Boston: Little Brown, and Company), ix. 2. This work was re-issued as The Russian Theatre, with only slight changes, in 1922. 3. Thomas H. Dickinson, “The Mother of Art and Revolution,” The Bookman: A Review of Books and Life, June 1920, 492–494. 4. See Kenneth Macgowan, “Russia and the Modern Drama,” The Bookman: a Review of Books and Life; February 1923, 761. In this article, Macgowan calls Sayler’s The Russian Theatre “one indispensible book in any modern theatrical library.“ John Corbin, “Realism of the Spirit,” New York Times, January 14, 1923. Corbin uses Sayler’s The Russian Theatre as a reference for an article on Stanislavsky. Gene Markey, “Like Russian Plays? Here’s a Hint for You,” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 12, 1924. In this brief article, Markey recommends Sayler’s books to his readers. Huntly Carter, in the introduction to his 1928 book, expressed frustration that people were still quoting Sayler’s The Russian Theatre, as if it were up-to-date. 5. Wiener, an Eastern European Jewish émigré, became the first professor of Slavic Literature in the United States. He made tremendous contributions to Russian-American cultural exchange as a translator and scholar of Russian literature, folk culture, and drama. Wiener tends to dismiss theatrical production. 6. Sayler, reviewing Carter’s The New Cinema and Theatre of Soviet Russia in the New York Times called the book “a soap box” for revolution, December 28, 1924. 7. For example, she compared the Russian response to Mikhail Bulgakov’s Days of the Turbins to the American reaction to Maxwell Anderson’s What Price Glory. She also used American productions of O’Neill for comparison with Tairov’s staging of the American playwright. 8. The American Russian Chamber of Commerce and the American Society for Cultural Relations with Russia sponsored the event. 9. “Russian Exposition Opens Tomorrow,” New York Times, January 29, 1928.

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184 Notes 10. For further reading in English on Russian theatrical production, see Alexander Bakshy, “Ten Years of Revolutionary Theatre,” Theatre Arts Monthly, November 1927, 867–875; Robert Leach, Revolutionary Theatre (New York and London: Routledge, 1994); Alma Law and Mel Gordon, Meyerhold, Eisenstein, and Biomechanics: Actor Training in Revolutionary Russia (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1996); Leach and Victor Borovsky, A History of the Russian Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), Spencer Golub, The Recurrence of Fate: Theatre and Memory in the Twentieth Century (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1994); Robert Russell and Andrew Barrett, Russian Theatre in the Age of Modernism (London: Macmillan,1988); and Konstantin Rudnitsky, Russian and Soviet Theatre: Traditions in the Avant-Garde (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1988). In Russian, see Sovetskii teatr: k tridtsatiletiiu sovetskogo gosudarstva, ed. M.S. Grigor’eva. (Moscow: Vserossiiskoe teatral’noe obshchestvo, 1947); Russkii sovetskii teatr: 1921–1926, ed. A. I. Trabskii. (Leningrad: Iskusstvo, 1975). These sources were consulted for the following overview of Russian and Soviet experimental theatre. 11. Huntly Carter, The New Spirit in the Russian Theatre (New York: Brentano’s, 1929), 137. 12. “Blue Blouses,” Theatre Arts Monthly, January 1926. 13. “Greetings from Soviet ‘Blue Blouse,’ New Masses, October 1930, 20. The letter is signed by Engel, the director and Mrozovsky, the Art Manager. 14. Robert Leach, Revolutionary Theatre (New York and London: Routledge, 1994), 46. 15. Ibid., 46–50. 16. “Protest Nicaragua War: Lenin Memorial Committee Changes Plans,” New York Times, January 7, 192. Also see Edna Nahshon, Yiddish Proletarian Theatre: The Art and Politics of the Artef, 1925–1940 (London: Greenwood Press, 1998). 17. As the previously quoted letter in the New Masses indicated, they also looked abroad for contemporary revolutionary material. 18. Hallie Flanagan, Shifting Scenes of the Modern European Theatre (New York: Coward McCann, Inc., 1928), 115–116. 19. B. Tschemensky, “The Miracle of Maierhold,” trans. Ella Barnett, New York Times, January 23, 1927. 20. Jeffrey Veidlinger, The Moscow State Yiddish Theatre: Jewish Culture on the Soviet Stage (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2000), 37. 21. Ibid., 90. 22. Ibid., 103. 23. “Bar Isadora and Husband,” Los Angeles Times, October 2, 1922; “Isadora Duncan and Poet Husband Detained on Liner,” New York Times, October 2, 1922; “Isadora Allowed to Land,” Washington Post, October 3, 1922; “Red Flag Flaunted by Dancer,” Los Angeles Times, October 23, 1922. For more on this tour, see Sol Hurok, Impresario (New York: Random House, 1946), 100–115.

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24. Hurok. Impresario (New York: Random House, 1946), 139–140. 25. A brief piece in the New York Times announced a meeting at the home of Otto Kahn “to further the cause of the Habima Players and especially to discuss the possibility of the ultimate establishment of that organization in Palestine in a permanent home.“ “Move to Aid Habima Players,” February 21, 1927, 19. 26. Flanagan, Shifting Scenes, 82. 27. Harold Clurman, The Collected Works of Harold Clurman (New York: Applause Books, 1994), 1020. 28. Lee Strasberg, “Russian Notebook (1934),” Tulane Drama Review 17, No. 1 (March 1973): 106–112. 29. See Gad Kaynar’s article, “National Theatre as Colonized Theatre: the Paradox of Habima,” Theatre Journal 50, No.1 (1998). 30. V. Podgornii, “Otribki vospominanii,” in Sostavlenie i kommentarii (Moscow: Isskusstvo, 1939), 401. 31. V. Yakhontov, “Teatre odnogo aktera,” in Evgenii Vakhtangov, eds. L.D. Vendrovskaia and G.P. Kaptereva (Moscow: Vserossiiskoe teatral’noe obshchestvo, 1984), 394. 32. Evgenii Vakhtangov. Sostavlenie i kommentarii (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1939), 119. 33. Evgenii Vakhtangov. Evgeny Vakhtangov, eds. Lyubov Vendrovskaya and Galina Kaptereva, trans. Doris Bradbury (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1982), 97. Bradbury’s transliteration is used when referring to this translation. 34. Alexander Karev, “Veseyi, neuemnyi khudozhnik,” in Evgenii Vakhtangov, eds. L. D. Vendrovskaia and G. P. Kaptereva (Moscow: Vserossiiskoe teatral’noe obshchestvo, 1984), 395–396. 35. The letter from Meyerhold to Vakhtangov is dated January 3, 1922. While visiting Moscow, Meyerhold stopped by to visit Vakhtangov and see his work. Vakhtangov had been very ill, so he had missed Meyerhold’s visit and expressed great disappointment and regret in a return letter dated January 17, 1922. In Evgenii Vakhtangov, eds L.D. Vendrovskaia and G.P. Kaptereva (Moscow: Vserossiiskoe teatral’noe obshchestvo, 1984), 386–387. 36. Evgenii Vakhtangov, Evgeny Vakhtangov, trans. Doris Bradbury, 141–142. 37. Ibid., 140. 38. S. Ansky was the pseudonym for Shloyme-Zanvl Rappaport (1863–1920), who was born in the Russia in 1863. At one time, Ansky served as the secretary to the Russian revolutionary philosopher, Piotr Lavrov. In 1911, Ansky embarked on an ethnographic expedition to areas in Russia’s Pale of Settlement, rich with Jewish folk traditions. There he recorded his impressions through photography. Photographs of this trip are published in Photographing the Jewish Nation: Pictures from S. An-sky’s Ethnographic Expeditions, eds. Eugene M. Avrutin, Valerii Dymshits, Alexander Lvov, Harriet Murav, and Alla Sokolova (Brandeis University Press, 2009). This trip inspired his play, The Dybbuk. 39. Emanuel Levy, The Habima: Israel’s National Theatre (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979).

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186 Notes 40. Natan Altman (1889–1970) designed the sets and costumes for the Habima’s production of The Dybbuk. He worked independently in St. Petersburg, while Vakhtangov rehearsed the actors in Moscow. According to Altman, Vakhtangov had staged the first act of the play, guided by the actor’s knowledge of Jewish folk customs, in a realistic manner before he received the designs from Altman. Upon receiving the designs, which revealed grotesque, distorted, and fractured images and spaces, Altman claimed, Vakhtangov reworked the entire first act according to a style of performance more suitable to the designs he received. He incorporated more exaggerated, twisted, and ecstatic movement and a vocal style to match the cubo-expressionism of the designs. Altman’s notes on his work on The Dybbuk can be found in his “Moia rabota nad gadibikom,” in Evgenii Vakhtangov, eds. L. D. Vendrovskaia and G. P. Kaptereva (Moscow: Vsepossiiskoe teatral’noe obshchestvo, 1984), 389– 390. Altman, a well-known artist and colleague of Marc Chagall, designed for the Habima and GOSET. 41. Vladislav Ivanov, “An-sky, Evgenii Vakhtangov, and The Dybbuk,” trans. Anne Eakin Moss, in The Wolds of S. Ansky: A Russian Jewish Intellectual at the Turn of the Century, eds. Gabriella Safran and Steven J. Zipperstein (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006). A longer version of this essay is available in Russian in Vladislav Ivanov, Russkie sezony teatre gabima. (Moscow: Artists. Rezhisser. Teatr., 1999). 42. Mikhail Chekhov, “Zhizn i vstrechi,” in Evgenii Vakhtangov, eds. L. D. Vendrovskaia and G. P. Kaptereva (Moscow: Vsepossiiskoe teatral’noe obshchestvo, 1984), 394. 43. Alexander Karev, 395. 44. Ibid., 395. Karev says that Vakhtangov showed every performer their dance, instructing one how to dance as a blind beggar, another to dance as a lame beggar, etc. 45. Quoted in Levy, 35. 46. M. Zagorskii, “Gadibuk,” review of The Dybbuk, in Evgenii Vakhtangov, ed. L. D. Vendrovskaia and G. P. Kaptereva (Moscow: Vsepossiiskoe teatral’noe obshchestvo, 1984), 400. 47. Samuil Margolin, “V raskrivayushchikhcya skitakh,” in Evgenii Vakhtangov, ed. L. D. Vendrovskaia and G. P. Kaptereva (Moscow: Vsepossiiskoe teatral’noe obshchestvo, 1984), 398. 48. J. Brooks Atkinson, “The Dybbuk in Hebrew,” New York Times, December 22, 1926. 49. Marc Chagall and others found the play to be heavily influenced by his artistic style. According to Vladislav Ivanov, some observers stated that the actors looked as if they had been lifted from a Chagall painting. See his work, Russkie sezony teatre Gabima, 107. 50. Levy, 73. 51. While Vakhtangov was the primary director, others worked in this capacity between rehearsals with the very busy Vakhtangov.

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52. December 26, 1926. 53. John Mason Brown, “The Gamut of Style,” Theatre Arts Magazine, February 1927, 86–93. 54. J. Brooks Atkinson, “Qualities of the Habima Troupe,” New York Times, December 26, 1926. 55. Burns Mantle, “Russia Once More Invades Broadway,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 19, 1926. 56. Karev, 396. 57. Crowley, 217. 58. Ibid., 117. 59. Horwitz, 65. 60. Crowley, 213. 61. In an editorial in the New York Times, November 14, 1926, author Marion Greenspan argues that Vardi should be given credit in discussions of the Habima’s productions of The Dybbuk. Greenspan writes, “It was Vakhtangov himself who said, ‘Without Vardi there would have been no ‘Dybbuk.’ ” She argues that Vardi guided Vakhtangov through an understanding of the characters and largely staged the production. While this is surely an overstatement, it is known that due to his busy schedule and illness, Vakhtangov relied on some members of the company to rehearse the cast, explain the characters, and develop some staging. 62. “The Dybbuk Revived in Grand Street,” 27. 63. “The Dybbuk in Hebrew,” 24. 64. Benjamin Zemach (1902–1997) choreographed a number of important Broadway productions, including Kurt Weill’s celebrated The Eternal Road, which opened in 1937, and was directed by Max Reinhardt. Zemach’s celebrated Jewish Ballet company, based in Los Angeles, developed its dance methods by exploring Jewish folk traditions and customs and translating them into movement. His acting students included Lee J. Cobb, Alan Arkin, Sam Jaffe, and Adeline Gibbs. He choreographed a famous dance, “The Beggars Dance,” which his Jewish Ballet company performed regularly. In 1968, he directed a very popular musical revue, Let’s Sing Yiddish, which ran for six months in New York before moving to Los Angeles. A reviewer wrote, “Here is the unashamed, simple power of large gestures, grotesque body movement . . . without losing characterization.” Peter Lob, ‘‘ ‘Sing Yiddish’ Plays at Judaism Theatre,” Los Angeles Times, December 6, 1978. For more on Zemach, see the chapter on his work in Hollywood in Naima Prevots, Dancing in the Sun: Hollywood Choreographers, 1915–1937 (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1987), 197–220. Also see an obituary by Anna Kissellgoff in the New York Times, “Benjamin Zemach, 95, Dancer; Worked in Theater and Films,” June 30, 1997, http://www.nytimes .com/1997/06/30/arts/benjamin-zemach-95-dancer-worked-in-theater -and-films.html. 65. Quoted in Levy, 377.

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188 Notes 66. See Edna Nahshon, Yiddish Proletarian Theatre: The Art and Politics of the Artef, 1925–1940 (London: Greenwood Press, 1998), 24. 67. Levy, 377. 68. J. Brooks Atkinson, “New Yiddish Theatre,” New York Times, November 18, 1926. 69. John Mason Brown, “The Gamut of Style,” Theatre Arts Monthly, February 1927, 89. 70. Quoted in Levy, 357. 71. See Nahshon, 24. 72. Quoted in Rich, 10. 73. Theatre Arts Monthly, February 1926, 131. 74. Rich, 10. 75. Ibid. 76. Nahshon, 21. 77. Joshua Kunitz, “The Theatre,” New Masses, November 20, 1934. Artef Scrapbook, Jacob Mestel collection, box 24, YIVO Institute. 78. Gold, born Itzok Isaac Granich on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, visited the Soviet Union in 1925. Upon his return, he made several attempts to organize a proletarian theatre, including the Workers’ Drama League and the New Playwright’s Theatre (with John Howard Lawson). He eventually became editor of the New Masses, and later worked as a writer for the Daily Worker, where he made his greatest efforts to support Soviet culture and political organizations. 79. Kunitz. 80. Many other workers’ theatres in the 1930s maintained a connection to Soviet artists through the organizations of the Comintern; others were linked to the Moscow Blue Blouse, which corresponded with the Workers’ Laboratory Theatre in New York, for example, in the early 1930s. For a discussion of Soviet ties to international workers’ groups in the 1930s, see Lynn Mally, “Exporting Soviet Culture: The Case of Agitprop Theatre,” Slavic Review 62, no.2 (Summer 2003): 324–342. 81. See Nahshon, 20. Nahshon’s excellent study, the first to treat the Artef in depth, details the political life of the Artef. In the work, she adeptly examines the development, major productions, critical responses to, and the decline of the Artef in America. I was introduced to the theatre and came to see it as a significant barrier of Soviet culture thanks to this study. 82. “The First Ten Years of Artef are Hardest,” New York Times, March 7, 1937. 83. Nahshon, 35. 84. “The First Ten Years of Artef are Hardest,” New York Times, March 7, 1937, 165. 85. See Nahshon for a detailed account of actor training, 82–92. 86. Artef Scrapbook. Jacob Mestel collection, box 24, YIVO Institute. Articles on Schneider from the New York Times include “A Note on the Artef ’s Director,” New York Times, January 19 1936; “At the Artef Theatre,” New York Times,

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Notes

87. 88.

89.

90.

91.

92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97.

98.

99. 100. 101. 102. 103.

189

May 2, 1935; “Artef Opens Uptown in Noteworthy Play,” New York Times, October 13, 1934; “Return of the Artef,” New York Times, October 8, 1939; “The First Ten Years of Artef.“ A. B. Magill, “Artef Theatre Opens Trikenish (Drought,)“ New Masses, December 1931, 26–27. Morris Moi Solotaroff was born in Elizabethgrad, Russia c. 1891 and died in Los Angeles in 1970. He designed most of the sets for the Artef. He maintained an association with Benjamin Zemach and designed for many of Zemach’s productions in Los Angeles. Berensohn (sometimes spelled Berenson) performed with the Neighborhood Playhouse before becoming the instructor of plastic movement in the Artef Studio. In 1937, she appeared in Kurt Weill’s The Eternal Road on Broadway, a piece choreographed by another Artef choreographer, Benjamin Zemach. A. B. Magill, untitled review of Kirsch Lekhert, New Masses, June 1933, 30. In this review, Magill notes that the Artef has taken a giant leap forward in developing proletarian culture. Although he critiques one moment of the play on an ideological level, he calls the work “a creative achievement that bites into the imagination and whips the emotion into play.” “The First Ten Years of Artef are Hardest,” New York Times, March 7, 1937. Nathaniel Buchwald, “The Artef on Broadway,” New Theatre, clipping, February 1935, Artef Scrapbook, YIVO Institute. Kunitz. Emanuel Eisenberg, “Out of The Sweatshops,” in Ten Years of Artef, anniversary program, 1937, 10, Harvard Theatre Collection. Ibid. “The Artef in Yiddish,” The New York Times, March 12, 1935. Levine, 88. Daniel Friedman, “A Brief Description of the Workers’ Theatre Movement” in Theatre for Working Class Audiences in the United States, 1830–1980, eds. Bruce McConachie and Daniel Friedman (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985). See The Secret World of American Communism, ed. Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995); and Klehr, The Heyday of American Communism (New York: Basic Books, 1984) for in-depth studies of communism in America in the late 1920s and 1930s. “A Theatre is Born,” Theatre Arts Monthly, January 1931, 915. 112. Lynn Mally, “Exporting Soviet Culture: The Case of Agit-prop Theatre,” Slavic Review 62, No. 2 (Summer 2003): 327. See Nahshon’s study of Artef for an in-depth look at the struggles and successes of the company, artistically and politically. See Mally, 324–325.

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190

Notes

104. See Harold Clurman, “The Group Theatre,” Daily Worker, October 25, 1933, and Lee Strasberg, A Dream of Passion: the Development of the Method (New York: Plume, 1988). 105. Friedman, 117. 106. Rich, 10.

APPENDIX 1. This list contains the work of artists whose work appealed to Anglophone sections of the public, though it may have been designed for Russian or Yiddish-speaking audiences. The list includes the work of individuals presented in the United States prior to 1933, but includes performances they were involved in after those dates. At times, an artist appears on the list, although that artist was not in the United States at the time. This includes the work of Evgenii Vakhtangov (who died before his work was presented in the United States) and George Balanchine (whose choreography was performed prior to his arrival in the United States in 1933). The appendix is designed to reveal the lasting involvement and impact of Russian artists, whose work arrived in the United States during the early decades of the twentieth century. Although the list is not comprehensive, I have aimed to show the variety and diversity of activities these artists engaged in over time. For this reason, I have listed nonprofessional and community theatre, as well as professional theatre, when that information was available. Numerous resources were consulted in compiling these lists (see Bibliography). At times, the Internet Broadway Database served as a useful starting point. Birth and death dates have been given when available. 2. For a slightly extended list see Frank Rich and Lisa Aronson. The Theatre Art of Boris Aronson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987. 3. Benois designed multiple productions of Boris Godunov from the 1910s to 1940s for organizations in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Boston, Atlanta, Maryland, and Washington, DC. 4. Kutai’s 1964 performances were part of a tour of the Habima, Israel’s National Theatre. 5. This included scenes called “Jewish Mother,” Japanese Diplomat,” and a burlesque of Chaliapin.

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Bibliography ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard Theatre Collection Serge Soudeikine Collection Theodore Komisarjevsky Papers Stravinsky-Diaghilev Foundation Collection Theatre Arts Magazine Photography and Program Collections

New York, New York Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Max Rabinoff Papers, 1908–1961 New York Public Library Billy Rose Theatre Collection Jerome Robbins Dance Collection Rogers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound (Various collections with materials on Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, the ChauveSouris, Michel Fokine, Morris Gest, Gertrude Hoffmann, Sol Hurok, Anna Pavlova) YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Jacob Gordin Papers Jacob Mestel Papers, Artef Scrapbooks

Princeton, New Jersey Manuscripts Division, Princeton University Library Otto Kahn Papers, 1908–1934

Library of Congress, Washington D.C. Prints and Photographs Division

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Schuler, Catherine. Women in Russian Theatre: the Actress in the Silver Age. London and New York: Routledge, 1996. Senelick, Laurence. The Chekhov Theatre: A Century of the Plays in Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. ———. “Seduced and Abandoned: When Hollywood Wooed the Moscow Art Theatre.” Film History10, no.4 (1998): 492–500. Senelick, Laurence, ed. Wandering Stars: Russian Émigré Theatre, 1905–1940. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1992. Seymour, Martin Lipset and Gary Marks. It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States. New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000. Sheean, Vincent. The Amazing Oscar Hammerstein: The Life and Exploits of an Impresario. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1956. Siegel, Marcia. The Shapes of Change: Images of American Dance. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985. Smith, Shannon. “From Relief to Revolution: American Women and the RussianAmerican Relationship, 1890–1917.” Diplomatic History 19 (Fall 1995): 601–616. Smith, Wendy. Real Life Drama: The Group Theatre and America, 1931–1940. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990. Sokolova, Lydia. Dancing for Diaghilev. Edited by Richard Buckle. London: John Murray, 1960. Stanislavsky, Constantin. “Stanislavsky to His Players.” Translated by Lucie R. Sayler. Theatre Arts Magazine, January 1923, 28–39. Strasberg, Lee. A Dream of Passion: The Development of the Method. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1987. ——— with Paul Ryder Ryan. “Russian Notebook (1934).” Tulane Drama Review17, no. 1, Russian Issue (March 1973): 107–112. Sullivan, Laurence. “Nikita Baliev’s Le Théâtre de la Chauve-Souris.” Dance Research Journal 18, no.2 (Winter 1986–87): 17–29. Strong, Anne Louise. “The Cubist Theatre of Moscow: As it Looks to an American Layman in the Audience.” Theatre Arts Magazine, July 1923, 224–227. Ten Years of Artef. Souvenir Program. Harvard Theatre Collection. Terry, Ellen. The Russian Ballet. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1913. Theatre Arts Magazine (later Theatre Arts Monthly) (volumes 1916–1939). Timberlake, Craig. The Bishop of Broadway: The Life and Work of David Belasco. New York: Library Publishers, 1954. Tomko, Linda. Dancing Class: Gender, Ethnicity, and Social Division in American Dance, 1890–1920. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999. Tverskoi, Pyotr. “Letters from America.” In A Russian Discovery of America, edited by Alexander Nikoljukin. Translated by Cynthia Carlile and Julius Katzer. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1986: 404–413. Vakhtangov, Evgenii. Vakhtangov: zapiski, pis’ma, stati. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1939.

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Index 2 x 2 = 5, 127 Adler, Celia, 9, 124 Adler, Jacob, 9, 23–4, 26, 37–8 Adler, Luther, 9 Adler, Stella, 9, 38, 110 Adolph Bolm Ballet Intime, 71 agitprop, 101, 131, 135, 136, 137, 140 definition of, 134 Alaska purchase, 14 Almanac of Russian Artists in America, 1 Altman, Natan, 114, 186 American Ballet Theatre, 86 American Laboratory Theatre, 2, 98, 129, 130 American Russian Relief, 73 Andreev, Leonid, 50, 53, 120 Andreeva, Maria, 52 Anisfeld, Boris, 3, 10, 58, 67, 72, 90, 108, 125, 140, 147 Ansky, S. (Shloyme Zanvl Rappaport), 114, 115, 119, 126, 185 Anti-Bolshevism, 8, 73, 97 Anti-tsarism, 8, 15–16, 17, 41 Aphrodite, 80, 86–8 The Aristocrats, 130–1 Aronson, Boris, 3, 7, 108, 124, 125–8, 147–8 Artef, 122, 127–8, 128–34 Baker, George Pierce, 54, 58, 182 Bakst, Leon, 67, 83, 86, 91, 108, 149 Balanchine, George, 92–3, 100, 139, 149, 181

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Balieff, Nikita, 4, 57, 88–95, 144, 155 Moscow Art Theatre, 88, 94–5 see also Chauve-Souris Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, 86, 143, 181 Ballets Russes (Dighilev’s organization), 57, 61, 64, 65–70, 71, 72, 74, 79, 81, 85, 86, 90, 108, 111, 125, 144 American tours, 65–70 designers of, 67, 72, 108 émigré artists in America associated with, 70–2, 86, 124, 181 Ben-Ami, Jacob, 3, 9, 90, 119, 123, 125, 140, 153 Benois, Alexander, 151, 190 Bernays, Edward, 67, 70, 73, 169 Biomechanics, 102, 107, 109, 137 Blue Blouses, 5, 105, 107, 134, 135, 188 Boleslavsky, Richard, 2, 9, 77, 98, 99, 121, 169, 182 Bolm, Adolph, 2–4, 9, 70–1, 94, 139, 142, 144, 151 Brinton, Christian, 72, 179 The Bronx Express, 126–7 Buchwald, Nathaniel, 124, 130, 131 Bulgakov, Leo, 9, 11, 98–9, 104, 152 Bulgakova, Barbara, 9, 11, 98–9, 151–2 Can You Hear Their Voices?, see Trikenish (Drought) Carter, Huntly, 101, 102, 105, 183 Chagall, Marc, 109, 125, 132, 186 Chaikovsky, Piotr, see Tchaikovsky, Piotr

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206

Index

Chaliapin, Fedor, 48, 51, 52, 55, 66, 90, 94 Chauve-Souris, 57, 75, 88–95, 111, 120, 140, 145 American tours, 75, 88–95 background of, 88 Moscow Art Theatre, 88, 90, 94–5 see also Balieff, Nikita Chekhov, Anton, 4, 19, 20, 21, 32, 48, 50, 53, 88 Chekhov, Michael, 109, 114–15, 139, 142, 143 Chicago Russian culture and performance in, 15, 30, 35, 43, 44, 70, 71, 72–3, 94, 125, 179 Chicago Allied Arts, 71 Chirikov, Evgenii, 41–2 choreographers from Russia, 9, 70–2, 81, 84–6, 86–7, 92, 122, 124, 130, 136, 149, 151, 153–4, 155–6, 158, 167 The Chosen People (Chirikov’s Evrei), 41–2 Civic Repertory Theatre, 3, 7, 58, 61, 123, 127 Clurman, Harold, 11, 101, 110 Columbian Exposition of 1893, 15 Comintern, 110, 134 communism, 5, 7, 8, 124, 134 in America, 8, 88, 106, 128, 129, 131, 136 Communist Party, 110, 128, 129, 134, 135 fear of, 88, 90, 127 Comstock, F. Ray, 79 Constructivism, 101, 102, 108, 124, 125, 126, 127, 131, 137 Crowley, Alice Lewisohn, 121 Daykarkhanova, Tamara, 9, 94, 139, 153 de Mille, Agnes B., 84

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designers from Russia (scenic and costume), 67, 70–2, 93–4, 124, 125–8, 130, 147–9, 151, 162, 164, 165 Diaghilev, Serge, 7, 57, 64, 65–70, 72, 74, 81, 85, 144 directors, see stage directors from Russia Dostigayev, 132, 133 Dostoevsky, Fedor, 19, 20, 44, 90 Duncan, Isadora, 7, 61, 107, 110 The Dybbuk, 111–22, 130, 132, 144 Eastern European immigration, 1, 2, 8, 13, 16 Elias, Miriam, 114, 153 Ermoloff, George, 153 Evreinov, Nikolai, 102, 106 famine, in Russia, 1, 14–15, 69 Federal Theatre Project, 105, 122, 136 Fiske, Harrison Grey, 29, 30, 31, 33–4, 54 Flanagan, Hallie, 9, 102–3, 105, 106, 107, 111, 131, 135, 137 on Russian theatre, 102–3, 105, 106, 107 trip to Russia, 9, 103 on workers’ theatre, 135, 137 Fokina, Vera, 75, 87–8, 143, 144, 153 Fokine, Michel, 3, 9, 75, 82, 86–8, 121, 124, 130, 143, 144, 153–4 Friends of Russian Freedom, 15, 41, 42, 43 Frohman, David, 29–30 Futurism, 101, 103, 108, 126, 127 Gavrilov, Alexander, 154 Germanova, Maria, 154 Gest, Morris, 3–4, 6–7, 57, 68, 75–100 Chauve-Souris tours, 75, 88–95 descriptions of, 75–6 early career, 78–81

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Index early life, 78–9 extravaganzas, 85–7 ‘La Saison Russe’, 81–4 Moscow Art Theatre Musical Studio tour, 99–100 Moscow Art Theatre tours, 75, 94–8 relationship with Otto Kahn, 74–5, 77 Geva, Tamara, 92, 93, 139, 154–5 Gippius, Zinaida, 120 God, Man, and Devil, 28 Gold, Mike, 128, 188 Goldman, Emma, 18, 41–5 Gordin, Jacob, 3, 6, 11–12, 22–39 early life, 222 feminism, 22, 26, 33 God, Man, and Devil, 28 influence on Group Theatre, 11 The Jewish King Lear, 27 on Komissarzhevskaya, 50–1 The Kreutzer Sonata, 28–36 socialism, 22, 23, 24, 26 Spiritual Biblical Brotherhood, 22 views on drama, 25 work with Jacob Adler, 24–6 Gorky, Maxim, 21, 28, 37–8, 41, 49, 51–3, 88, 132–3, 135 GOSET, Moscow State Yiddish Theatre, 7, 109–10, 111, 116, 122, 123, 124, 129, 132 Granovsky, Alexander, 109–10 Group Theatre, 4, 11, 38, 126, 127, 136 Habima Theatre, 7, 57, 104, 109, 110–22, 123, 130, 139 Hamilton, Clayton, 28, 39 Hapgood, Elizabeth Reynolds, 39, 104 Hapgood, Hutchins, 18–19, 28, 36, 39 Hapgood, Norman, 27, 39 Hoffmann, Gertrude, 66, 68, 81–4, 87 Hollywood, 47, 80, 94, 98, 99, 136, 170 Hurok, Sol, 40, 48, 52, 58, 65, 66, 88, 90, 98, 110, 139, 140, 141, 143

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207

Ibsen, Henrik, 29, 37, 41, 44, 49, 50, 53 Jewish Art Theatre, 94, 123 Jewish Ballet, 122, 144 The Jewish King Lear, 25–7 Jewish Labor Movement, 129 Kahn, Otto, 6–7, 43, 57–8, 59–75, 90, 95–7, 111, 139, 142, 174, 185 anti-Bolshevism, 73 on the arts, 63 Ballets Russes tours, 61, 64, 66–70, 71–2 banking career, 61–2 early life, 61–2 Metropolitan Opera Company, 62–4, 65–8, 70 New Theatre, 54–5, 64 Pavlova tours, 61, 64–6 Till Eulenspiegel, 70 work with Morris Gest, 74–80, 86, 100 Kalich, Bertha, 12, 31, 33–6 Kemper, Collin, 28, 30 Kingsley, Sidney, 110 Komisarjevsky, Theodore, 3, 10, 48, 49, 51, 52, 99, 155 Komissarzhevskaya, Vera, 6, 48–51, 55, 56, 155 Kosloff, Alexis, 81, 84, 85–6, 155–6 Kosloff, Theodore, 4, 68, 70, 81, 84–5, 86, 144, 156 The Kreutzer Sonata, 28–36 Kutai, Ari, 157 Lenin Memorial Celebration, 106 Leonidov, Leonid, 9, 98–9, 170 Leontovich, Eugenie, 157 The Living Corpse, 37–8 living newspapers, 101, 105, 140 Lopokova, Lydia, 81, 84, 157, 180 Love for Three Oranges, 73

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208 Index Mansfield, Richard, 20 Massine, Leonid, 158 Mecca, 74, 86–7 Meyerhold, Vsevelod, 4, 7, 49, 107–9, 113, 128 American interest in, 102, 107 The Miracle, 74, 77, 80, 98, 110 Mitchell, Langdon, 39 modernism in America, overview, 52–5 Mordkin, Mikhail, 3, 9, 62, 64–6, 73, 81, 82–3, 86, 124, 142, 158–9 Moscow Art Theatre, 3–4, 9, 22, 39, 57, 76, 90, 94–9 American tours, 94–9 Moscow Art Theatre Musical Studio, 7, 99–100, 104 American tour, 99–100 Moscow State Yiddish Theatre, see GOSET Nazimova, Alla, 6, 41, 43–8, 49, 50, 52, 139, 159–60 Neighborhood Playhouse, 2, 53, 94, 104, 106, 118, 119, 125, 129, 130 production of The Dybbuk, 118–22 work with Russian artists, 119–21 Nemirovich-Danchenko, Vladimir, 94, 99, 160 New Theatre, 54–5 Nijinsky, Vaslav, 62, 64, 67, 69–70, 160 Orlenev, Pavel, 4, 40–5, 47, 52, 139, 160, 174 Ostrovsky, Alexander, 6, 37, 49 Ouspenskaya, Maria, 9, 98, 160–1, 169 Page, Ruth, 92, 178–9 Pavlova, Anna, 7, 57, 61, 64, 65–70, 72, 82–3, 87, 110, 161 The Peasant Girl, 84–5 Porgy and Bess, 145 Power of Darkness, 37

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Proletkult, 112, 129, 134 Provincetown Players, 7, 39, 58, 61 Provincetown Playhouse, 36 Pushkin, Alexandr, 20, 88 Rabinoff, Max, 65, 83,139, 143, 177 Ratoff, George, 161–2 The Recruits, 132–3 Red Cross, 14 Remisoff, Nicolai, 3, 9, 88, 94, 125, 162–3 Resurrection, 30, 35, 37 Revue Russe, 182 Roerich, Nicholas, 3, 10, 72, 90, 179 Russian Arts and Crafts Studio, 125 Russian Ballet Technique, 86 Russian Exposition of Handicrafts, Theatre, Science, and Industry, 103 Russian Information Bureau, 73 Russian Jewish intelligentsia, 18–19 Russian realism, 20–1, 25, 36–7 Russia revolutionary movement, 41–2, 45, 51, 59 Russian Revolution of 1905, 43 Russian Revolution of 1917, 73, 92, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106 Sayler, Oliver, 3, 7, 53, 54, 82, 90, 92, 102, 104, 107, 180, 183 Our American Theatre, 54, 92 The Russian Theatre, 97, 183 The Russian Theatre Under the Revolution, 102, 107 trip to Russia, 102 Schéhérazade, 68, 81, 82 Schneider, Benno, 3, 9, 122, 129–31, 132, 136, 164 American recognition of, 131, 132 Artef leadership, 130 career of, 122, 130, 136, 164 emigration of, 122 Habima membership, 122

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Index Schwartz, Maurice, 103, 110, 123–6, 129 Siberia, 11, 24–5 The Snow Maiden, 72 socialism in America, 8, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 45, 52, 53, 129, 171 in Russia, 8, 12, 21, 22 socialist realism, 8, 110, 135 Solotaroff, Moi, 130, 131, 164, 189 Soudeikine, Serge, 3, 88, 93, 125, 140, 145, 165, 169 stage directors from Russia, 98–9, 121, 130–1, 150, 152, 153, 154, 155, 159–60, 164 Stalin, Joseph (Iosef Vissarionovich Stalin), 8, 101, 134, 136, 143 Stanislavsky, Konstantin, 2, 3–4, 11, 38, 39, 77, 94–9, 100, 111–12, 140, 165 American tours, 94–9 influence of, 2, 3–4, 11, 38, 98 see also Moscow Art Theatre Stereotypes of Eastern European Jews, 17–18 of Russians, 13, 17–18 The Storming of the Winter Palace, 106 Strasberg, Lee, 110, 111, 119 Stravinsky, Igor, 70, 72 Tamiroff, Akim, 98, 166, 182 Tchaikovsky, Piotr Ilyich, 19, 72 The Tenth Commandment, 123–4 Thomashefksy, Boris, 23, 24

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209

Tolstoy, Leo, 19, 20, 21, 22, 30, 37–8, 90 Trikenish (Drought), 131 Tucker, Benjamin, 21 Turgenev, 19, 20, 25, 90 Vakhtangov, Evgeny, 2, 7, 109, 111, 112–22, 130, 131, 136, 166, 186 Vardi, David, 2, 117, 119, 121–2, 166, 187 Vereshchagin, Vasily, 19 Vilna Troupe, 110, 119, 122, 125 Volinine, Alexander, 81, 84, 167 Wagenhals, Lincoln 25, 28, 30 Walsh, Blanche, 30, 34–5 Washington Square Players, 7 Wiener, Leo, 102, 183 Williams, Albert Rhys, 104 Workers’ Drama League, 128 Workers’ Laboratory Theatre, 135, 188 workers’ theatre movement in America, 134–7 Yiddish Art Theatre, 103, 110, 118, 119, 122, 125 Yiddish Progressive Dramatic Club, 119 Yiddish theatre, 7–8, 12, 22–3 Yiddish art theatres, 37, 122–5 Zemach, Benjamin, 3, 122, 129, 130, 135, 139, 144, 167, 187, 189 Zemach, Nahum, 122, 167

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