Jewish Theatre: A Global View (Ijs Studies in Judaica)

Jewish Theatre: A Global View

IJS STUDIES IN JUDAICA Conference Proceedings of the Institute of Jewish Studies, University College London

General Editors

Markham J. Geller Ada Rapoport-Albert François Guesnet

VOLUME 8

Jewish Theatre: A Global View

Edited by

Edna Nahshon

LEIDEN • BOSTON

2009

These volumes are based on the international conference series of the Institute of Jewish Studies, University College London. Issues are thematic, 250–450 pages in length, in English, plus at most two papers in one other language per volume. Volumes focus on significant themes relating to Jewish civilisation, and bring together from different countries, often for the first time, eminent scholars working in the same or allied fields of research. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jewish theatre : a global view / edited by Edna Nahshon. p. cm. — (IJS studies in Judaica, ISSN 1570-1581) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17335-4 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Jewish theater—Congresses. 2. Theater, Yiddish—Poland—Congresses. 3. Theater, Yiddish—Congresses. 4. Jewish theater—Europe, Western—Congresses. I. Nahshon, Edna. PN3035.J496 2009 792.089’924—dc22 2009009017

ISSN 1570-1581 ISBN 978 90 04 17335 4 Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks to Prof. Paolo Puppa (University of Venice) for his insightful comments; Ginny Mathias (UCL) and Melanie Weiss for their editorial assistance and Michael J. Mozina, production editor (Brill). I am grateful to the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation for supporting the publication of this volume. Edna Nahshon

In memory of John D. Klier (1944–2007) Scholar, Colleague, Friend.

CONTENTS List of Figures .............................................................................

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Contributors to the Volume .......................................................

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Introductory Essay: What is Jewish Theatre? ............................ Edna Nahshon

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SECTION ONE

THE WORLD OF YIDDISH Ritual Space as Theatrical Space in Jewish Folk Theatre .................................................................................... Ahuva Belkin

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Jacob Gordin’s Dialogue with Tolstoy: Di Kreytser Sonata (1902) ........................................................... Barbara Henry

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Isaac Bashevis-Singer’s Attitude to the Yiddish Theater as Shown in His Works ............................................................... Nathan Cohen

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SECTION TWO

BETWEEN JEWS AND POLES Józio Grojseszyk: A Jewish City Slicker on the Warsaw Popular Stage .......................................................................... Michael C. Steinlauf

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The Polish Shulamis: Jewish Drama on the Polish Stage in the Late 19th–Early 20th Centuries ............................................. Anna Kuligowska-Korzeniewska

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contents SECTION THREE

NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES IN ENGLISH, ITALIAN AND GERMAN Jewish Languages and Jewish Characters in Giovan Battista Andreini’s Lo Schiavetto ................................................................ 101 Paola Bertolone “The Christian will turn Hebrew”: Converting Shylock on Stage ........................................................................................ Shaul Bassi

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Philosemitism on the London Stage: Sydney Grundy’s An Old Jew ............................................................................... Edna Nahshon

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Jewish Self-Presentation and the “Jewish Question” on the German Stage from 1900 to 1930 ......................................... Hans-Peter Bayerdörfer

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Popular Jewish Drama in Vienna in the 1920s ......................... Brigitte Dalinger

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SECTION FOUR

PRESENCE AND ABSENCE IN THE AMERICAN THEATRE On Arriving Front and Center: American Jewish Identity on the American Stage ................................................................ Ellen Schiff Generational Shifts in American Jewish Theatre ...................... Linda Ben-Zvi

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SECTION FIVE

PERFORMING THE HOLOCAUST/DEBATING ISRAEL ON STAGE Staying Ungooselike: The Holocaust and the Theatre of Choice ................................................................................ Robert Skloot

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Job’s Soul and Otto Weininger’s Torments: Jewish Themes in the Theatre of Hanoch Levin and Yehoshua Sobol ......... Freddie Rokem

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Index ...........................................................................................

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APPENDIX Abraham’s Scene (introductory essay) ........................................ Paolo Puppa

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Abraham (dramatic monologue) ................................................ Paolo Puppa

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LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Illustration of 17th Century Purim Players ..............

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Figure 2. Photo of Bertha Kalich in Gordin’s Di kreytser sonata (1905) .................................................................

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Figure 3. Polish actor Ludwik Solski as Józio Grojseszyk ........

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Figure 4. Illustrated portrait of Abraham Goldfaden (1840–1908) .............................................................................

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Figure 5. Illustrated portrait of Giovan Battista Adreini (1576–1654) .............................................................................

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Figures 6 & 7. Photos of the Commedia dell’Arte Shylock produced by the Venetian company Pantakin (2005) ..............................................................................

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Figure 8. Photo of Sydney Grundy (1894) ...............................

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Figure 9. Caricature of John Hare (1890) ................................

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Figure 10. Photo of Israel Zangwill (1904) ...............................

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Figure 11. Photo of Herbert Beerbohm-Tree as Issachar in Hypatia (1893) ..........................................................................

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Figure 12. Photo of Abish Meisels (1896–1959) ......................

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Figure 13. Photo: From the final scene of Lieberman’s Throne of Straw, University of Wisconsin Theatre (1978) ........................................................................

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CONTRIBUTORS TO THE VOLUME Shaul Bassi is Associate Professor of English and Postcolonial literature at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. His research, teaching and publications are divided between Shakespeare studies and postcolonial theory and literature. He has taught at Wake Forest University-Venice, Venice International University, and at the University of California at Santa Cruz. His main publications are Le metamorfosi di Otello: Storia di un’etnicità immaginaria (2000) and Shakespeare in Venice: Exploring the City with Shylock and Othello (with Alberto Toso Fei, 2007). He is currently editing a new Italian edition of Othello. Hans-Peter Bayerdörfer is Professor of Theatre Studies at Munich University. He studied in Tübingen, Hamburg, Berlin (Freier Universität) and New York. He focuses on the history and theory of the German language theatre in Europe since the Enlightenment. His especial interests are Jewish-German culture and theatre since Lessing, the relationship of German theatre with Polish and East European theatres, and the traditional theatre of Japan and Eastern Asia. He participates in research projects and symposia on the theatre worldwide, and is the author of several works on theatre and literature. Ahuva Belkin is Professor of Theatre Studies, Tel Aviv University, where she served as head of the Theatre Arts Department theoretical studies program. She is a former chairperson of the Israeli Society for Theatre Research. Belkin studied Theatre and Art History at the Universities of Toronto and Tel Aviv. She specializes in Jewish theatre, particularly folk theatre (the Purimspiel), the work of Avraham Goldfaden, iconography and theatre, theatrical fools and jesters, and feminist theatre. Her work was published in journals in Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US. Her books include The Joy of Purim in Gluckstadt (1650); Leone de’Sommi and the Performing Arts, and The Purimspiel: Studies in Folk Theatre [in Hebrew]. Linda Ben-Zvi is Professor of Theatre Studies, Tel Aviv University and Professor emeritus, English and Theatre, Colorado State University. Holder of many distinguished posts and awards, she is President of the

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International Samuel Beckett Society, and Editor of Assaph: Studies in the Theatre, the Tel Aviv University English-language theatre journal. Her many published works on the theatre include several books on Samuel Beckett and Susan Glaspell. She is presently editing The Complete Plays of Susan Glaspell (with J. Ellen Gainor). Paola Bertolone is Professor of Performing Arts at the University of Siena. She is the author of several essays on Italian and Yiddish Theatre. Her books include L’esilio del teatro: Goldfaden e il moderno teatro yiddish (Rome, 1994); I copioni di Eleonora Duse (Pisa, 2000). She is co-editor of Café Savoy: Teatro yiddish in Europa (Rome, 2006). Dr Nathan Cohen is Senior Lecturer at the Center for Yiddish Studies at Bar Ilan University, Israel. His research focuses on East European Jewish cultural history in the 19th and 20th centuries. He is author of Books, Writers and Newspapers: The Jewish Cultural Center in Warsaw, 1918–1942 (Magnes Press, 2003) [in Hebrew]. Brigitte Dalinger teaches in the Institute of Theatre, Film, and MediaStudies at the University of Vienna. She is author and co-editor of works on the history of the Jewish theatre in Vienna. Her most recent book is a study of Jewish drama in Vienna, Trauerspiele mit Gesang und Tanz. She is also co-editor (with with Thomas Soxberger) of Abish Meisels’ play Fun sechisstow bis amerika (Vienna, 2000) in a bilingual Yiddish-German edition. Barbara Henry is an Associate Professor of Russian literature at the University of Washington, Seattle. She received her doctoral degree from Oxford University, where she was also Max Hayward Fellow in Russian literature. She was a Mellon Fellow at Northwestern University, where she taught courses on Russian drama and Jewish studies. She has recently completed a book-length study of Jacob Gordin’s adaptations of Russian literature for the American Yiddish stage. Anna Kuligowska-Korzeniewska, whose expertise is the history of theatre in Poland from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, is Professor at Ło’dz’ University and the Alexander Zelwerowicz Theatre Academy in Warsaw. She is the author of Scena obiecana: Teatr polski w „odzi 1844–1918 (1993) and the editor of Teatr żydowski w Polsce (1998)

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and of Wojciech Bogusławski i jego póΩne prawnuki (2007). She serves on the editorial board of Pami\tnik Teatralny and Tygiel Kultury and is the president of the Polish Society of Theater Historians. Edna Nahshon is Professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Senior Associate at Oxford University’s Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. She has written extensively on the nexus of Jews, theatre, and performance. Her books include Yiddish Proletarian Theatre: The Art and Politics of the Artef, 1925–1940 (Greenwood, 1998), From the Ghetto to the Melting Pot: Israel Zangwill’s Jewish Plays (Wayne State University Press, 2006) and Jews and Shoes (Berg, 2008). She is currently working on Countering Shylock, a book that examines Jewish responses to The Merchant of Venice. Other major projects include a book on Jewish mock trials and a biography of Maurice Schwartz and the Yiddish Art Theatre. Paolo Puppa, a native of Venice, is Professor of the History of the Theatre and Director of the Department of the Arts at the University of Venice. He has written numerous books on the theatre and the dramas of Pirandello, Fo, Brook, Ibsen, Rolland, Svevo, and others. He is also author of plays that have been translated and produced in various countries, including the award-winning “La collina di Euridice” (1996), “Zio mio!” (1999) and “Parole di Giuda” (Critics Prize 2006). Recently he was co-editor of The History of the Italian Stage (Cambridge University Press) and Italian Literary Studies (Routledge). Freddie Rokem is the Emanuel Herzkowitz Professor for 19th and 20th Century Art at Tel Aviv University, and permanent visiting Professor at Helsinki University; he was also visiting Professor at Stanford University (2007–2008), the Free University of Berlin and UC Berkeley. His Performing History: Theatrical Representations of the Past in Contemporary Theatre won the ATHE Prize for best theatre studies book in 2001. His most recent books are Strindberg’s Secret Codes (2004) and Philosophers and Thespians. He is editor (2006–2009) of Theatre Research International, published by Cambridge University Press. Ellen Schiff is the author of the pathbreaking From Stereotype to Metaphor: The Jew in Contemporary Drama, and the editor of four volumes of Jewish plays. She publishes and lectures widely on American and international plays of Jewish interest.

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Robert Skloot is Professor of Theatre and Drama and Jewish Studies and a stage director at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he has also been inter alia Director of the Weinstein-Mosse Center for Jewish Studies. He is the author of The Darkness We Carry: The Drama of the Holocaust (1988) and editor of The Theatre of the Holocaust (2 vols. 1981, 1999) and the play “If the Whole Body Dies: Raphael Lemkin and the Treaty against Genocide” (2006). He is the editor of the anthology The Theatre of Genocide: Four Plays about Mass Murder in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia and Armenia (2008). Michael Steinlauf is Associate Professor of History at Gratz College near Philadelphia. He served as the theatre editor of the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (Yale University Press, 2008) and editor of Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 16 (2003), dedicated to Jewish popular culture in Poland and its afterlife. He is also the author of Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust (1997). He currently serves as a member of the planning team of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, scheduled to open in Warsaw in 2011.

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY: WHAT IS JEWISH THEATRE? Edna Nahshon The essays included in this volume were originally presented at an academic conference titled “Jewish Theatre,” sponsored by the Institute of Jewish Studies in June 2002 at University College London. The term “Jewish theatre” was used by the organizers as convenient shorthand for a richly heterogeneous array of topics: Yiddish, Israeli, European and American theatres; playtexts written in Hebrew and Yiddish; others, dealing with Jewish topics in non-Jewish languages, works by Jews and Gentiles, some composed for Jews and others for distinctly non-Jewish audiences (at times even to the detriment of Jewish interests); folk theatre; popular theatre and cabaret. At the conference, the quagmire of defining the precise meaning and boundaries of its title was sidestepped, possibly as a result of academic prudence, for pinpointing the precise nature of “Jewish theatre” and arriving at a consensus as to what to include or preclude in this category is practically a hopeless task. This is so first and foremost because the very complexity of the term “theatre,” which encompasses practitioners (i.e. performers, directors, playwrights, designers, and producers), playscripts and textual material, non-literary elements of performance such as music, costumes and set design, physical spaces where performance take place, and the audiences assembled for a performance. Not only can these be theorized from literary, performative, historical, political, anthropological and sociological perspectives, but although most theatre scholars see the very core of the theatrical enterprise as the transaction between live performer and spectator, in effect most theatrical events are the result of a collaborative effort that cannot claim a single “author,” and they use a multiple syntax of mixed media that reflect their materiality and mutability. Add to this the problematic nature of the designation “Jewish,” which can be interpreted as pertaining to religious, national, ethnic and cultural identities, and you realize that the intersection of the broad, slippery, and continuously evolving concepts of “theatre” and “Jewishness” or “Judaism”, both of which reflect

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changing realities, perceptions and agendas, presents a confounding construct that palpitates with definitional uncertainties. As mentioned, the designation “Jewish theatre” is used as an inclusive and accommodating tent. Though hard to pin down, it is convenient and familiar, inherited from previous generations for whom “Yiddish” and “Jewish” were practically interchangeable. The playwrights, performers and audiences of the Yiddish theatre, located in a somewhat mythical “Yiddishland,” an imagined place whose homogeneity is open to debate, may have indeed shared similar ethical, religious and cultural values, yet clearly, this theatre is largely a phenomenon of the past. The physical, linguistic and cultural topographies of the Jewish world have changed, re-shaped by acculturation, assimilation, genocide and political sovereignty. Today, most of what seems to belong inarguably to the rubric “Jewish theatre” comprises two distinct bodies. The first includes works in non-Jewish languages that are essentially considered part of the theatrical culture of the respective countries within which they were created and which occasionally enter our global theatrical culture. The second group consists of works of the Israeli stage, mostly, though not solely, performed in Hebrew. These are produced primarily (though not exclusively) by Jews for Jews and are strongly connected to various concerns and issues of Zionism and Israeli reality. Given the porous nature of cultural boundaries, works created within these separate spheres often travel in translation, though their transfer nearly always impacts their Jewish (and other) meaning. Given the complexity of the term, it may be instructive to examine definitions of “Jewish theatre” offered by encyclopedias and theatre dictionaries whose organizational system requires precise categorization. Normally, in addition to personal biographies and professional specifics (proscenium arch, props), the two dominant organizational principles of theatre dictionaries and encyclopedias are either genre (farce, romantic theatre), or historic/national/linguistic (Greek theatre, French theatre). Since Jewish theatre is clearly not a genre, one would assume it would be discussed within the “national” rubric. This, however, presents a problem, for while definitions of Russian or German theatre are essentially grounded in territorial domains—“Italian theatre” is, ultimately, understood as theatre made in Italy—the term “Jewish theatre” lacks both geographic and linguistic underpinnings. As a result, both theatre and Jewish studies encyclopedias shy away from the fuzziness inherent in the term and either avoid it altogether or, when offering an entry, tend to immediately subdivide it into separate units such as “Hebrew

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Theatre”, “Yiddish Theatre”, “the Jew in Drama”, biographical entries for individual dramatists, directors and actors, and so forth. The classic Oxford Companion to the Theatre, first published in 1950, does include a long entry devoted to “Jewish Drama”, the title reflecting the now defunct approach that does not distinguish between “theatre” and “drama”.1 Written by E. Harris, it opens with the following statement: Jewish drama has no territorial limits. Its sole boundaries are linguistic—Hebrew, the historical and religious language which has never ceased to be written and has now been reborn as a living tongue; Yiddish, the vernacular of the vast Jewish communities lying between the Baltic and Black Seas, one which emigrants have spread over the world; and Ladino ( Judaeo-Spanish), the speech of the Jews who live round the Aegean Sea.2

Yet Harris immediately modifies this language-based definition, noting that “Even the linguistic frontiers are not clearly defined”, and cites as example the Anglo-Jewish dramatist Israel Zangwill (1864–1926), who wrote in English.3 Harris, however, neglects to mention that Zangwill, though a pioneer and path-breaker, was not a solitary phenomenon, and he ignores the existence of other contemporary Jewish playwrights such as the Dutch Herman Heijermans (1864–1924), the French Henri Bernstein (1876–1953), the Austrian Arthur Schnitzler (1862–1931), and the Danish Henry Nathansen (1868–1944), who wrote plays about Jewish themes in their respective languages. Moreover, by the time Harris had composed his essay, presumably not too long before the Companion’s publication—and certainly at the present time—there existed a very significant cadre of Jewish dramatists who have been writing in English, French, Spanish, Russian and other languages. Indeed, a mere listing of their names would occupy nearly half of this page. If the language-based principle was already obsolete by the time he composed his entry, why did Harris choose to employ it as the basis for definition, especially when Jewish subject-matter could have been used as the criterion? Perhaps this was done in order to avoid

1 E. Harris, “Jewish Drama,” Oxford Companion to the Theatre, ed. Phyllis Hartnoll, Third edition (London: Oxford University Press: 1967) 515–20. 2 Ibid. 515. 3 For further discussion of Zangwill’s Jewish dramas see Edna Nahshon, From the Ghetto to the Melting Pot: Israel Zangwill’s Jewish Plays (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2006).

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another definitional pitfall, for if “Jewish plays” are about Jews, then anti-Semitic works might also fit into the rubric, and authorial intent would need to be introduced into the formula. Additionally, by relying on the language yardstick, Harris avoided the problematic question regarding the Jewishness of Hebrew theatre in Israel, though he surveys Israeli theatre thoroughly. One cannot avoid the impression that Harris sensed the inadequacy of his approach and rushed to conclude his four-sentence introduction with a brief and not very convincing statement that “any study of Jewish drama must be viewed in the light of the Jewish approach to the theatre in general.”4 He then proceeded to offer a historical narrative that begins with the Bible and concludes with modern Israeli drama. The shift in emphasis in theatre studies from drama to performance, with a special interest in ritual, the body, and other non-literary aspects, is reflected in the new and authoritative two-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance (2003), edited by Dennis Kennedy.5 The encyclopedia mostly eschews separate entries for national drama and theatre. Accordingly, the reader who searches for “Jewish theatre” finds the heading on page 647 with the instruction: “See judio, teatro; Yiddish theatre.”6 In this manner, the encyclopedia acknowledges that the term “Jewish theatre” holds some currency while politely declaring it unsuitable for separate discussion. As for Jewish reference materials, a good case in point is the recently revised Encyclopaedia Judaica, whose “Theater” entry offers an extensive multi-authored survey that begins with the Bible and ends with late 20th century developments. The entry does not include a general introduction, or a preliminary discussion of the term “Jewish theater.” Rather, it consists of sub-sections written by various contributors and is organized according to historical, linguistic and geographic principles.7 Similarly, the extensive essay titled “Jewish Theatre” in The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies (2005), a milestone collection whose goal is to reflect the state of scholarship in the field of Jewish Studies and which is geared

Harris. Op. Cit. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance 2 vols., ed. Dennis Kennedy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 6 Ibid. Vol. I 647. 7 “Theater,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. Vol. 19. 2nd ed. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007) 669–685. 4 5

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primarily for academic readers, offers no definition of the field of knowledge that it discusses. The Drama Review (TDR) and Perspectives, two respectable academic journals based in New York and Jerusalem respectively, have each devoted a full issue to “Jewish Theatre.” Definitional nebulousness permeates the “Introduction” to the September 1980 “Jewish Theatre Issue” of TDR, a highly regarded periodical, known for its academic rigor and espousal of theory. Mel Gordon, an American scholar and editor of the special issue, rejected language-based definitions and proclaimed: “For us, Jewish theatre consists of all performances and performance modes that are an expression of Jewish culture.”8 The cautious qualification “for us” is used not only to avoid the usual authorial omnipotence of encyclopedic definitions, but also to concede the possibility of alternative interpretations. Still, the reader is left without any explanation of the editor’s notion of “Jewish culture”. Fernande Bartfeld and Yehuda Moraly, who wrote the “Introduction” for the French-language Perspectives 2003 issue on “Le Théatre Juif ”, open their short essay with the question “Qu’est-ce que c’est le théatre juif ?” (What is Jewish Theatre?)9 They respond that the strictest definition would be a theatrical text (including ballet or song) written by a Jew and inspired by Jewish tradition, though they quickly admit that this definition raises numerous questions for which they provide no answer. Playwright Victor Haim, a contributor to the issue, titled his “Un Théatre Juif ? Une Appartenance Affective” ( Jewish Theatre? An Emotional Attachment), and accordingly opened his essay with the fundamental questions: “Existe-t-il un théatre juif ?” and “Existe-t-il des auteurs dramatiques qui revendiquent leur qualité d’auteur juif ?” (Does Jewish theatre exist? Are there dramatists who keep reasserting their core distinction as that of Jewish writers?) His personal and moving essay ends with no clear-cut conclusions.10 Not only academics but also practitioners need a definition of their field as a compass for artistic and practical navigation. For example, during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, some serious discussion

8 Mel Gordon, “Jewish Theatre Issue: An Introduction,” The Drama Review, 24: 3, (2–4), (1980): 2–3. 9 Fernande Bartfeld and Yehuda Moraly, “Presentation,” Perspectives: Revue de L’Université Hebraïque de Jérusalem, 10, (2003): 5. 10 Victor Haim, “Un Théatre Juif ? Une Appartenance Affective.” Perspectives 243.

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of what constituted “Negro theatre” took place in conjunction with the emergence of the African-American theatre. In 1926, W. E. B. Du Bois formulated his “four fundamental principles” of “a real Negro theatre” as follows: The plays of a real Negro theatre must be: 1. About us. That is, they must have plots which reveal Negro life as it is. 2. By us. That is, they must be written by Negro authors who understand from birth and continual association just what it means to be a Negro today. 3. For us. That is, the theatre must be supported and sustained by their entertainment and approval. 4. Near us. The theatre must be near a Negro neighborhood, near the mass of ordinary people.11

Similarly, if you are involved in an enterprise that defines itself as “Jewish theatre,” you need a clear sense of what this designation means. Yet institutions and organizations committed to the production and promotion of Jewish theatre, notably the Jewish Theatre Association ( JTA) and its later manifestations, have vacillated in their commitment to self-possession and self-expressiveness.12 Writing about the First Jewish Theatre Festival, organized by the JTA at New York’s Marymount Manhattan College in June 1980, and supported by the Foundation for Jewish Culture, co-authors Tina Margolis and Susan Weinacht note that “rather than attempting to define ‘Jewish Theatre,’ the association is interested in presenting the diversity of the work being done.”13 They quote Richard Siegel, then the executive director of the Foundation for Jewish Culture, as proclaiming: “We want to stay away from pat definitions. For us to define the field now would be premature.”14 Margolis and Weinacht, who write from a decidedly American perspective, explain that the JTA was inspired by contemporary (American) Black and Chicano theatre groups, and sees itself “as part of the ethnic theatre movement and is connected to the upsurge in religious theatre of all denominations which is taking place throughout the country.”15 They

11 Quoted from Chidi Ikonné, From Du Bois to Van Vechten: The Early New Negro Literature 1903–1926 (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1981) 99. 12 . The Association for Jewish Theatre began as one of the Councils of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. In 1979, it was reorganized as the JTA. It later split off from the NFJC and became independent, operating under the general network of the JCAA. 13 Tina Margolis, Susan Weinacht, “Jewish Theatre Festival 1980, Introduction,” The Drama Review, 24: (1980): 95. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid.

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state that the JTA’s goal is to bring together artists who are interested in investigating theatrical expressions of Jewish identity and culture, yet emphasize that Jewish theatre is not simply for Jews, that some groups report that a large percentage of their audiences are non-Jews and that some included non-Jewish actors. This pronouncement may have served the operational needs of the organization, but is neither academically satisfying nor does it reflect the full gamut of Jewish theatrical activity taking place in North America at the time. Readdressing the issue in 2005, Mira Hirsch, president of the Association of Jewish Theatres (AJT), the current incarnation of the original JTA, acknowledged the complexity of the question “What is Jewish Theatre?”16 Writing for the AJT bulletin, Hirsch admits that the issue had arisen at every AJT conference she has attended. Her response to the question is liberal and open ended: “. . . for each one of us . . . Jewish Theatre had its own definition. For some—a theatre based on spirituality, for others—theatre originating in Jewish texts, for many more—theatre with a culturally-specific connection to a people, a history, and a tradition.”17 Despite Hirsch’s all-embracing approach, some of the short articles in the publication convey a desire for a more clear-cut definition: Irene Backalenick’s report on the AJT Jewish Theatre Conference held in New York in 2005 begins with the million-dollar question: “How do we define Jewish theatre?” Not surprisingly, Deborah Freedman, covering the International Festival of Jewish Theater held in Vienna in March 2007 for the magazine Jewish Renaissance, titled her essay “So What Is Jewish Theater?” Her answer: “I no longer care whether my theater is Jewish or not. Neither, I can assure you, will theater repair our world. But I can promise you this—at its best, Jewish or otherwise—it reflects and illuminates it.”18 Fuzziness is, however, anathema to academic purists. In 1982, in a review of the First International Conference and Festival of Jewish Theatre held at Tel Aviv University, July 3–9, 1982, Annabelle Henkin Melzer, a professor at the University’s theatre arts department, critiqued the event, noting: “The conference floundered on its inability to confront

16 Mira Hirsch, “A Message from the President,” Association for Jewish Theatre Bulletin, (Fall 2005): 1. 17 Ibid. 18 Deborah Freeman, “So What Is Jewish Theatre?” Jewish Renaissance, July 2007: 33.

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the question, ‘What is Jewish theatre?’ . . . papers were delivered from pigeonholes and all Jewish artists were embraced.”19 According to Mel Gordon, who was present at the conference, presentations sometimes erupted into bitter exchanges, challenging the very concept of “Jewish Theatre.”20 In 2006, Bar-Ilan University in Israel announced the launch of an academic programme in Jewish theatre studies and again needed to respond to the question “What is Jewish theatre?” The explanation it offered was: “Jewish Theatre is a general term that addresses a vast variety of subjects and creative activities with Jewish interest and Jewish values. Jewish Theatre is not necessarily created by Jewish artists but it has to deal with some aspect of the Jewish culture to be included in the Jewish Theatre Studies program.”21 Like the definition, with its use of the vague term “Jewish values,” the sample of topics to be studied in the program is not free of ambiguity. What does Bar-Ilan mean by the topic “Famous Jewish playwrights of our times”? Are these playwrights who were born and/or raised as Jews or Jews who write on Jewish topics? Or take another bulleted topic, “Jews and Judaism in the Israeli theatre.” Does a Hebrew-language production, staged by mostly Jewish artists for mostly Jewish theatre-goers, qualify as “Jewish theatre” or is its identity defined solely on a thematic basis? Even the innocuous “The Bible in the Theatre” does not clarify if the intent is to discuss plays based on biblical text from a Jewish perspective or whether this sub-category includes plays infused with Christian theology and, at times, with anti-Jewish agendas. Again, the criteria are inconsistent, shifting between subject matter and personal identities. The Bar-Ilan definition does make an important point, however, in its mention of “Jewish interest,” which signifies a shift from the fixity of the personal identity of author and playscript to the interpretative meaning attached to a performance by its audiences. Looking at the concept of Jewish theatre from the perspective of its consumer opens new definitional vistas, as noted by Judi Herman in her review of the 2007 Globe production of The Merchant of Venice, a play that never 19 Annabelle Henkin Melzer, “The First International Conference and Festival of Jewish Theatre,” Theatre Journal, 34.4 (December 1982): 519–521. 20 Mel Gordon, “First International Jewish Theatre Conference and Festival,” The Drama Review, 26: 4, (1982): 92. 21 Dan Ronen, “Call for Proposals: Jewish Theatre Studies and International Jewish Theatre Festival at Bar-Ilan University”, .

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fails to arouse Jewish interest but would hardly qualify as a Jewish play. Herman notes that “if it [ Jewish theatre] is any theatre that is of interest to Jewish theatre-goers because of the subject matter, the writer, the actor(s), the character(s), then plays like Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and Christopher Marlowe’s ‘The Jew of Malta’ earn their place here.”22 Clearly, the non-catchy moniker “theatre of Jewish interest” ought to be re-introduced into the conversation about “Jewish theatre”. It is a most useful concept, first, because it is fitting for works like Passion Plays and Shakespeare’s Merchant, and second, because it acknowledges the shifting nature of the theatrical “text.” Even those who regard the written drama as the soul of the theatre would acknowledge that different productions of the very same playscript may result in completely different works—Miller’s Death of a Salesman can be presented as suffused with Jewishness, or as having no ethnic traits whatsoever. Verbal and visual elements can easily Judaize or de-Judaize a production, and at times can even function as tongue-in-cheek commentary that may carry meaning for those in the know: the distinction between a menorah and a candelabra on stage will be noted and registered by some, but would go unnoticed by others with different cultural baggage and sensitivities. It is also clear that a distinction needs to be made between theatre in and outside Israel, as the designation “Jewish” hinges largely on one’s point of view. When discussed from within Israeli culture, a normative production of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House would not be considered “Jewish.” Yet upon considering such productions from without, one could argue the very opposite, making the case that the verbal and physical language and the shared associative system of artists and spectators, which is grounded in Jewish culture and norms, renders practically every Israeli Hebrew language production “Jewish.” Those who despair of the indefinable nature of the term “Jewish theatre” may find consolation in a statement posted recently in the Guardian by Dawn Walton, the new artistic director of the Eclipse Theatre, a London-based black theatre.23 In the post, titled “Stop trying to define black theatre,” Walton protests: “Everyone, it seems, has a really

22 Judy Herman, “ ‘The Merchant of Venice’ at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre” . 23 Dawn Walton, “Stop trying to define black theatre,” Guardian, October 29, 2008. .

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fixed idea of what black theatre is. Everyone wants to define it.” Her answer, with some minimal changes, could be applied to the question of “Jewish theatre,” especially outside Israel. She explains: “To define black British theatre in terms of race alone is to miss the point. Black practitioners are uniquely placed to deliver an incisive view of Britain today because we view it from two perspectives—black and white. We ask more questions, we challenge perceptions, we stimulate more debate.” “What is Jewish theatre?” and “Is there Jewish theatre?” are challenging questions laden with issues of identity. As the questions of who is a Jew and what defines Jewishness have become increasingly complex, and as traditional concepts of theatre are changing, with artists pushing new boundaries, we need to remove the dust from the faded truisms of yesteryear and examine old concepts with fresh eyes. It is my hope that the essays included in this volume will help foster further discussion. Though may be unable to reach a consensus regarding the nature of “Jewish theatre” the very act of problematizing and debating the term will deepen our understanding of a most important aspect of Jewish creativity and identity. Bibliography Bartfeld, Fernande and Yehuda Moraly. “Presentation.” Perspectives: Revue de L’Université Hebraïque de Jérusalem, 10 (2003): 5. Berenbaum, Michael and Fred Skolnik, eds. Encyclopaedia Judaica. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. Freeman, Deborah. “So What Is Jewish Theatre?” Jewish Renaissance 6: 4, (July 2007): 32–33. Gordon, Mel. “Jewish Theatre Issue: An Introduction.” The Drama Review 24: 3 (1980): 2–3. ——. “First International Jewish Theatre Conference and Festival.” The Drama Review 26: 4 (1982): 91–92. Haim, Victor. “Un Théatre Juif ? Une Appartenance Affective.” Perspective: Revue de L’Université Hebraïque de Jérusalem, 10 (2003): 243. Harris, E., “Jewish Drama.” The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, ed. Phyllis Hartnoll. 3rd ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1967. 515–20. Herman, Judy. “ ‘The Merchant of Venice’ at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.” . Hirsch, Mira. “A Message from the President.” Association for Jewish Theatre Bulletin. (Fall 2005): 1. Ikonné, Chidi. From Du Bois to Van Vechten: The Early New Negro Literature 1903–1926. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1981. Kennedy, Dennis, ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

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Margolis, Tina and Susan Weinacht. “Jewish Theatre Festival 1980, Introduction.” The Drama Review 24: 3 (1980): 93–99. Melzer, Annabelle Henkin. “The First International Conference and Festival of Jewish Theatre.” Theatre Journal 34: 4 (1982): 519–521. Nahshon, Edna. From the Ghetto to the Melting Pot: Israel Zangwill’s Jewish Plays. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2006. Ronen, Dan. “Call for Proposals: Jewish Theatre Studies and International Jewish Theatre Festival at Bar-Ilan University.” . Walton, Dawn. “Stop trying to define black theatre.” Guardian 29 Oct. 2008. .

SECTION ONE

THE WORLD OF YIDDISH

RITUAL SPACE AS THEATRICAL SPACE IN JEWISH FOLK THEATRE Ahuva Belkin The Jewish religion has mostly rejected frivolous types of celebration. Holy days have always been solemn occasions, with one notable exception: the holiday of Purim. Celebrated since the second century BCE and based on the canonized Book of Esther, the holiday commemorates Haman’s plan to annihilate the Jews, and their miraculous rescue by the beautiful Queen Esther and her righteous uncle Mordechai. According to the Book of Esther, these events took place during the reign of the Persian King Ahasverus, whose identity and period were later disputed by both ancient sources and modern scholars.1 Over the years, many customs have developed around the holiday, and while Purim has remained an occasion for collective catharsis over a people’s deliverance from its enemies, it has also gradually taken on the attributes of a riotous, licentious feast, into which old rituals have been integrated. The liturgy of the synagogue and the rites at home were supplemented by saturnalian and carnivalesque elements: a mimesis of vengeance against evil through the abuse of Haman, the exchange of gifts, parodies on the liturgy, intoxication and disguise. The fifteenth century saw the development of the Purimspiel—a festive folk theatre of amateur players dressed in costumes and masks, who performed in yeshivas (religious schools), or took their playlets from one house to another.2 According to Victor Turner’s term for a creative, reflective leisure activity, the Purimspiel was a liminoid manifestation. Like other folk dramas, it preserved the dynamic liminal symbols of ritual.3 This essay 1 N. S. Doniach, Purim or the Feast of Esther (Philadelphia: The Jewish Society of America, 1933). 2 Chone Shmeruk, “The beginning of the Purim play and its sixteenth century remnants,” Yiddish Biblical Plays 1697–1750 ( Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Science and Humanities, 1979) [Hebrew]. 3 Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play (New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982).

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Figure 1. Purim Players (From Leondes, “Philologus Hebreo-Mixtus,” 1637).

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focuses on the spatial factor of the Purimspiel, as the locations of its performance—mostly private homes—were characterized by some basic elements of so-called “environmental theater”.4 The locations were not designated places of performance, yet by accepting the invading players who negotiated with them, these dynamic spaces became separated from the mundane world. The interaction between visiting performers and spectators (members of the household and guests) created a shared, overlapping framework where the spectators were not just mute participants invited to attend an iconic space; through the home-based ritual, which repeats the original mythic act, performers and spectators became partners in creating the theatrical fiction, in which the present and the past merged in the very same space. Richard Schechner was the first to coin the term “environmental theater” for the sort of theater that rejects artificial structures, and replaces them with places and instruments of daily life. He wrote: “I call the theater environmental theater because its first principle is to create and use whole spaces—literally spheres of spaces—which contain, or envelop, or reach out into all the areas where the audience is or the performers move”.5 However, the fact that a play is performed on the street or in a village square does not in itself produce environmental theater. In his seminal study of this subject, Michael Kirby pointed out that only when the physical components that surround the spectators constitute an inherent part of the show, and the show, unfolding in an everyday environment, makes use of these components, can one define it as environmental theatre. Though Schechner uses this category in its widest sense and includes in it distinct rubrics such as happenings, street theater, political rallies and ritual plays, scholars tend to associate the term “environmental theater” with a modern movement that studies audience/actor relationships from a theoretical angle and consciously manipulates space in the anti-realistic mode. Kirby regards this as “new”

4 Arnold Aronson, The History and Theory of Environmental Scenography (Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1973). 5 Schechner has observed that where no separation exists between audience and performers, a whole new set of relations becomes possible: physical touch, sound levels, intensiveness of acting and the feeling of a shared experience. The activity “breathes” and the spectators can become part of the scene and even, in certain situations, create a new space and unexpected possibilities. See Richard Schechner, “6 Axioms for Environmental Theater”, The Drama Review, 12 (Spring 1968): 41–46. Schechner later expanded his principles in his Environmental Theatre (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1973).

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theater, yet the “new theater” is far from new.6 Although modern-day environmental theater is not in and of itself the product of long tradition, its approach to the conception of space is manifest throughout the history of Western theater. Moreover, it has practically dominated non-Western theater as well as various forms of the folk theater. The Purim play exemplifies this fully. The disguised Purim players paraded down the streets with songs and music, much like revelers in other European communities—mummers, Fastnachtspieler or Christmas carol singers—who made their way from one house to another, performing their short pieces.7 The movement of the revelers transformed the pedestrian space into a festival arena. Although their activities may be perceived as a series of repeat performances, their use of the town as an encompassing environment and the continuation of the show outside the houses with the costumed players in procession, loudly advertising their show to the amusement of the crowd, argues for its interpretation as a single event. The movement back and forth, from and into homes, produced an audience that was at times stationary, at other times mobile, and on occasion a mixture of both. As the players were marching down the street, they were watched by people looking from the windows of houses, or by passers-by. Some of the crowd even followed the troupe around and accompanied it from place to place. The distances between the houses in which the same play was repeatedly performed (on the same day), and the passage from the open street space to interior rooms, which restricted the development of a proper mise-en-scène, dictated the length of performance as well as its pace and progression.8 The space in which the festive theater took place was thus prone to extremes: from the open air of a public space to the privacy of one’s home. Yet even while the players were inside private homes, the street still remained part of the theatrical space, a sort of off-stage and green room that determined the nature of the relation between the diegetic and the mimetic spaces of the event. While on the street, the players might perform spectacles such as riding hobby horses to

6 Michael Kirby, “Environmental Theatre,” Total Theatre, comp. and ed. E.T. Kirby (New York: Dutton, 1969) 265 ff. 7 See for example Daniel Perski, “Jolly Purim”, Hado’ar (New York, March 1940) [Hebrew]. 8 According to Aaron Lavedav’s account, the organizer of the play in Gomel (Russia) instructed the Purimspilers not to stay a long while in any home and move forward as quickly as possible. See Lavedav, “Lavedav dertseylt,” Frove (New York, Dec. 1943).

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commemorate the abuse of Haman and the glory of Mordechai;9 but once they moved into home interiors, the action became restrained, the atmosphere more intimate, with the players concentrating on text, and the story unfolding primarily in a verbal manner. Clearly, neither the street nor the family room had been originally designed to host theatrical performances, both constituting “found environment”, exploited as is for the presentation of a theatrical performance. Liminoid activities usually take place at times and in places set aside for leisure—in opposition to the workplace. In the Jewish festive atmosphere, where a great part of the liturgy takes place at home on holy days and Friday and Saturday night, with everything mundane and secular set aside, the home is transformed into a sacred domain. The disguised Purim players, who were members of the community, thus burst into the home and turned this “found environment” into leisure-time place. On Purim, the festive rite had already occupied the household space well before the arrival of the players, usually while the family was in the midst of the Purim ritual: the Book of Esther was being read from a scroll—the Megillah—and a festive meal was held to commemorate its events. The costumed players who had been performing in the street now invaded the terrain of the household and expanded the physical and psychological space with the same rite and message that had preceded their arrival, though in parody mode, while appropriating the home for their theatrical burlesque. The family and its ritual were thus drawn into the space and time of the performance, while the performance itself became part of the ongoing ritual. The players organized the theater space and the mimetic space accordingly. Some texts suggest that the players would come in and ask those present to make way for them and their spectacle.10 For example, in an eighteenth century Purimspiel from Prague, a player in the role of a Persian courtier, dressed anachronistically as an Indian nobleman, came into the house and asked the guests to move the chairs and benches away from the door because his majesty the king needed the place to present some interesting history. In other plays the laufer (the crier),

9 Ahuva Belkin, The Purimspiel: Studies in the Jewish Folk Theatre ( Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2002) [ Hebrew]. 10 See for example “Sheyn Purim Spiel (1697),” Yiddish Biblical Plays 1697–1750, ed. Chrone Schmeruk ( Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Science and Humanities, 1979) 15–21 [ Hebrew].

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as well as the actors, moved some of the furniture aside.11 Sometimes the actors deliberately created chaos as if to emphasize the inverted world of the festive play. The spectators, still seated around the feast table, could rearrange their position in order to see the performance better and become involved. The resulting space had no regular theatre seating arrangement. Although everyone saw everything, as in frontal theatre, the frame was fluid. The family, with their invited guests around the feast table, did not leave much room for a large-cast spectacle. The players had to wait outside the door, first for permission to enter, and often also for their cue to enter the house and play their parts. This accounts for the role of the laufer in festive folk plays. The various formulas used by the laufer to address the family upon entering the house were more than a matter of oral tradition passed from one actor to another.12 They point to a genuine attempt at staging a play in homes where such measures were necessary. In order to gain attention and earn goodwill, the laufer of the Purimspiel often wore a fool’s habit, and was the first to enter the house, greet the guests on the occasion of the holiday, announce the play, and ask for permission to present it.13 He delivered the argument or prologue, introduced the characters and gave the players their entrance cues. The laufer’s cues to the waiting players extended the mimetic space beyond the room to “offstage”, from where their voices could be heard, alternating the atmosphere between illusion and reality. The room became the historical site even before the play had begun. The laufer might call from outside: “Allow me, ladies and gentlemen, I ask each and every one of you, let me in to the King”, followed by: “Now that I have reached the King’s door . . .”14 Devoid of any stage-set, these brief verbal hints sufficed to locate the various scenes. Indeed, given the improvised, one-time nature of the space where the performance took place, no attempt was made to create the illusion of a concrete place. The room was not camouflaged and the surroundings

Sigfried Kapper, “Ahasverus—Ein Jüdisches Fastnachtspiel”—Zeitschrift für Literatur, Kunst und Offentliches Leben IV (Leipzig, Deutsches Museum 1854): 490–497; 529–543. 12 Chone Shmeruk, “The beginning of the Purim play and its sixteenth century remnants,” Yiddish Biblical Plays 1697–1750. 13 Ahuva Belkin, “ ‘Habit de Fou’ in Purim Spiel?” Assaph, C. 2 (1985): 40–55. 14 Kapper. 11

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remained familiar. The invading players turned the provisional space into an intimate theatrical space by incorporating the existing state of an ongoing rite. As no less than nine lavish banquets are described in the Book of Esther, the action of the play takes place mainly in Ahasverus’s palace during various feasts. Since the play was performed during the ritual festive meal, the dinner table as “iconic identity”, to cite Kier Elam’s term, provided sufficient background for most of the play’s content.15 Other household objects were also used as needed; this is typical of folk plays, which often transform available items into props that serve as iconic and symbolic stage signs. Benches, chairs, and coat hangers were rustled up in the room where the show was to take place, and helped transport the audience to the throne-room, the royal banquet or the gallows. The absence of a sealed enclosure and the mix of actors and audience in time and space are consistent with the play: the characters do not present a different reality from that of the audience. Temporal and spatial relations between illusion and its destruction, between inclusion of spectators in the show and their separation from it, were intertwined in the Purimspiel. Embodying the ancient myth, the players enhanced the ritual through a fictional world, drawing their audience back in time 2000 years to the palace of the Persian King Ahasuerus. And although the show evolved—or degenerated, as some rabbinic authorities argued—into clownish manipulation that portrayed the mythical heroes as parodies of the contemporary rabbi, matchmaker, cantor and other recognizable community members in which the spectators saw themselves, the liminal symbols were intensified.16 Though the mythical events were represented by “home-spun” actors in a burlesque that evolved into actual parody, the spectators who were performing their ritual in which they were repeating the same myth identified with it. They identified with the plot and the message of the Purimspiel and regarded it as analogous to their situation as Jews in the Diaspora. They were Jews suffering persecutions and gaining redemption; they were the Jews whom Haman disparages in his “delivery”; they were the members of

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Keir Elam, The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama (London: Routledge, 1980). Belkin 2002.

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the community whose institutions and professions, habits and behavior were parodied in the play. For the audience the text was loaded with meaning by way of links to other texts, including non-theatrical texts that the community had created: oral history, tales, legends and mythology. However, the emotional reaction did not only result from sharing cultural and social symbols, as might be experienced by any homogenous group of people. For, whether the Jewish folk play referred to the remote myth or to the spectators’ actual life, the spectators also identified personally with the situation, as they shared the space with the players as part of the play. Unlike other revelers who went from house to house to present shows based on movement, song, clowning and tricks, the Purimspiel players unfolded a dramatic play. In enacting the mythic content of the Purim ritual of abusing Haman and the festive meal, the players simultaneously incorporated the spectators. The visible dining table and its inhabitants related to the diagetic diners: those from the mythical past in the court of King Ahasverus were personified in the spectators, who were declared as the king’s guests and were invited to take part in the narrative as part of the dramatis personae. Their actual seats at the table, from where they watched the show, represented part of the fictional world. Reality mixed with theatre as they sat around a laden table, either as Shushanites partaking of King Ahasverus’s lavish table, or as Jews from Shushan celebrating the first Purim at Mordechai’s command. Though the spectators were themselves, they did not act or do anything special to reinforce the narrative. They were simply part of the performance because they were included in the performance space. The play that invaded their rite put them—according to Kirby’s “amount of acting scale”—somewhere in between “non-matrixed” representation, defined as “when referential elements are applied to the performer and are not acted by him”, and “received acting”, where they were not acting but behaving without pretension, following their routine; they belonged to the category of those we nevertheless “also see . . . as characters”.17 The fluidity between pretense and life, acting and non-acting, also reveals itself in the players, who detached the play from illusion by making the spectators aware of the theatrical mechanism and by slipping in actual traits. The players, as untrained “found actors”, were

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Michael Kirby, “The New Theatre” The Drama Review 10 (1965): 23–43.

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visible within the characters, since they were recognized as community members. They would also improvise, turning to the spectators from time to time, announcing the show, asking them to listen, to keep quiet. They would confront their hosts, even offend them with use of licentious language, and finally they would request an invitation to partake in the food and accept a donation, the collection of money demanding direct interaction with the audience. The players employed exaggerated banquet imagery, commented on the meal in progress, angled for their share and praised the delicacies and the wine. This was flattery of the head of the household, but also of the “King” at whose table they were regaling themselves. Swift shifts between creating an illusion and exiting to reality again, the alternation between myth and everyday life, and the reference to the play while the illusion was being created, alternately cancelled each other out and restored the representative drama. Even when the illusion was shattered, the audience remained under its spell and the necessary artistic distance was maintained. The perception of theater did not vanish even though the holiday performance had abandoned the traditional convention with regard to stage-audience relationship. Although the spectators, their actual rite and mundane life were integrated into the play, as an audience they were involved in the fiction and its experience: suspense, fear, triumph and joy. Sometimes, when the boundaries between fiction and reality became blurred, the spectators even intervened in the proceedings. On one occasion the audience became so excited by the hanging scene that they interrupted the performance in order to save the fellow who played Haman.18 The two worlds, the real and the artistic, merged, producing a balance between involvement and aesthetic distance. Typically, at the end of such folk performances, the players join the watching guests at the banquet table; or else, the spectators join the performers in a song or dance. In the Purimspiel, the performance usually ended with players and audience singing together popular, festive or liturgical songs. The audience, no longer an anonymous and passive congregation, having experienced an ad hoc encounter with the theater, now became an intimate group: the family and its invited guests, and the familiar players, members of the community. Such an ending

18 Leksikon fun yidishn teater, ed. Zalmen Zilbercweig, 3rd vol. (New York, Farlag Elisheva, 1959) 1702.

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could be seen as a reintegration of the players with the community and the final transformation of the theatrical space. The dual aspect of the liminal reality, when feast and drinking to the point of inebriation mingled with the sobriety of religion and tradition, enhanced the sense of illusion of the liminoid performance. The continuity of theater as an institution is associated with a stable, defined space. Yet even without a place set aside for performance, without a stage, scenery, a dedicated building or an organized audience, the Jewish folk play, the Purimspiel, a “poor” theater, stripped down to its basics, nevertheless endured, thanks to a blurred space that brought the spectators into the dramatic process, merging the festive ritual and theatrical ritual into a single holiday catharsis. Bibliography Aronson, Arnold. The History and Theory of Environmental Scenography. Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1973. Belkin, Ahuva. “ ‘Habit de Fou’ in Purim Spiel?” Assaph C: 2 (1985): 40–55. ——. The Purimspiel: Studies in the Jewish Folk Theatre. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2002. [ Hebrew]. Doniach, N. S. Purim or the Feast of Esther. Philadelphia: The Jewish Society of America, (1933). Elam, Keir. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama, London and New York: Routledge, 1980. Kapper, Sigfried. “Ahasverus—Ein Jüdisches Fastnachtspiel,” Zeitschrift fur Literatur, Kunst und Offentliches Leben IV (Leipzig: Leipzig: Deutsches Museum, 1854): 490–543. Kirby, Michael. “The New Theatre”, The Drama Review 10 (1965): 23–43. ——. “Environmental Theatre.” Total Theatre. Ed. E.T. Kirby. New York: Dutton, 1969. Lavedav, Aaron. “Lavedav dertseylt.” Frove (New York, December 1943) [Yiddish]. Perski, Daniel. “Jolly Purim.” Ha’doar (New York, March 1940) [Hebrew]. Schechner, Richard. “6 Axioms for Environmental Theater.” The Drama Review 12 (1968): 41–46. ——. Environmental Theatre. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1973. Shmeruk, Chone. “The Beginning of the Purim Play and its Sixteenth Century Remnants.” Yiddish Biblical Plays 1697–1750. Ed. Chone Shmeruk. Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Science and Humanities, 1979 [Hebrew]. Turner, Victor. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982. Zilbercweig, Zalmen, ed. Leksikon fun yidishn teater. Vol. 3. New York: Farlag Elisheva, 1959. [Yiddish].

JACOB GORDIN’S DIALOGUE WITH TOLSTOY: DI KREYTSER SONATA (1902)* Barbara Henry Sex, violence and classical music: Count Lev Tolstoy’s (1828–1910) scandalous Russian novel The Kreutzer Sonata (Kreitserova sonata, 1889) offered all of these to shocked readers in Europe and America. But Yiddish playwright Jacob Gordin (1853–1909) went further still when he adapted Tolstoy’s novel for New York’s Thalia Theatre in 1902.1 Into Tolstoy’s already inflammatory polemic, Gordin added immigration, a thwarted conversion to Christianity, two illegitimate pregnancies, agrarian utopianism, a double homicide, and trade unions—as well as several musical numbers. Gordin’s Tolstoyan melodrama proved so popular that it was translated into both English and Russian, was performed on Broadway, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and served as the basis for a silent film.2 Gordin’s works were one of the cornerstones of the American Yiddish repertoire from the 1890s through the first decade of the 20th century. His plays are regarded as the first instances of more naturalistic drama on the Yiddish stage, for their use of colloquial language, contemporary * The present chapter is a substantially revised version of an article, “Tolstoy on the Lower East Side: Di Kreytser Sonata,” published in the Tolstoy Studies Journal 17 (2005): 1–19. 1 Kreytser sonata: a drame in fir aktn fun Yankev Gordin (New York: M. Mayzel, 1907). All subsequent quotations are from this edition. All translations from Yiddish are my own. I have standardized Gordin’s spelling to reflect modern usage. 2 There are two English translations of Gordin’s Kreutzer Sonata, the first by Samuel Schiffman, the second by Langdon Mitchell. The latter was used for the 1906 production at New York’s Lyric Theatre, which proved to be Yiddish actress Bertha Kalich’s (1876–1939) breakthrough English role. The play was revived in 1924, in a production at the Frazee Theatre. Mitchell’s translation was also adapted in 1915 by Herbert Brenon for the film version, starring Nance O’Neil as Ettie (“Miriam”) and Theda Bara as Celia. There are several Russian translations. Za okeanom was translated by S. M. Gennerman and used for a production in 1911 at Moscow’s Korsh Theatre, and for a revival in Petrograd in 1916 at the Teatral’nyi Zal “Pollak.” A second translation (also as Za okeanom), by Z. M. Erukhimovich, was probably used by the Moscow Maly Theatre in 1927. Gordin’s play was also performed in St Petersburg in Yiddish in 1908, 1909, and 1917. The most recent and faithful translation of Gordin’s play, by Ruth Levin, appears in Polveka evreiskogo teatra: 1876–1926, ed. Boris Entin (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Paralleli”, 2003).

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settings and focus on modern social problems. Di Kreytser sonata is typical of Gordin’s dramas in that it borrows the structure, themes, and title of a well-known work of non-Jewish literature, shifts the action to contemporary Russia and New York, and uses the borrowed work to address issues of importance to Jewish immigrant audiences. This working method was envisioned as a means of reforming the “low” and “parochial” Yiddish stage through adaptation for it of “high” and “universal” works of secular, non-Jewish art. The practice was meant to signal to Jewish audience members not only the relevance of non-Jewish culture for their own lives, but to assert that they too had a stake in that culture—that it belonged to them as it did to the nations that had created it. Jewish interests were not alien to world culture, but a part of it. To this end, Gordin borrowed freely from a variety of writers, including Shakespeare, Ibsen, Goethe, and Turgenev, and was always careful to incorporate information on the source within the play itself. Despite its melodramatic turns, the Yiddish Kreytser sonata is a complex interrogation of its source material which aims to pique an audience’s interest in Beethoven and Tolstoy, while illustrating Gordin’s own cherished views on socialism, women’s emancipation, and trade unionism. Of these, only the issue of women’s emancipation features in any meaningful way in Tolstoy’s original, and even then Tolstoy’s arguments can hardly be said to constitute a transparently feminist view. In order to render Tolstoy’s work more conducive to conveying Gordin’s own ideas, the Yiddish playwright substantially reorganizes and reinterprets the source material. The resulting play offers some surprising insights. Di Kreytser sonata presents an original critical perspective on the novel that departs significantly from traditional readings of it as a warning against the fatal link between musical sensuality and human sexuality. Rather, the emphases of Gordin’s play suggest that the novel is really about the dangerous powers of fiction itself, both as art form and as social performance. This idea, in turn, becomes the subject of Gordin’s play, in which he examines the manifold destructive effects of performance, pretense, and literary fiction on one Russian-Jewish immigrant family. The process of “Judaizing” works of non-Jewish literature emerges as a genuine confluence of Jewish and non-Jewish, Russian and American, novelistic and dramatic forms, that yield new insights into the processes of cultural assimilation and adaptation that are the hallmark of the immigrant experience. Jacob Gordin enjoyed a reputation in New York’s immigrant community as a passionate follower of Tolstoy, a renown derived in large

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part from the Yiddish writer’s social and political activism in Ukraine prior to his emigration in 1891. From 1880 until 1891, Gordin had led a Jewish sectarian commune in Ukraine called the “Spiritual Biblical Brotherhood” (Dukhovno-bibleiskoe Bratstvo).3 The Brotherhood rejected Talmudic authority, advocated a return to “pure” biblical Judaism, and urged Jews to take up “productive” agricultural labor, rather than commerce.4 The consonance of the Brotherhood’s ideas with Lev Tolstoy’s own recommendations, from the 1880s on, for spiritual and social renewal, contributed greatly to Gordin’s standing as a Tolstoyan reformer. This link was reinforced by the fact that Tolstoy himself came, as one of Gordin’s biographers, Zalmen Zylbercweig, notes, to be regarded among American Jewish immigrants as the “spiritual father of agricultural sectarians in Tsarist Russia”.5 While Gordin’s Brotherhood initially had more in common with the ideals of Russian For histories of the Spiritual-Biblical Brotherhood see N.A. Bukhbinder, “Iz istorii sektantskogo dvizheniya sredi russkikh evreev: Dukhovnobibleiskoe Bratstvo,” Evreiskaya Starina 11 (1918): 238–65; L. Burshtein, “Kistorii ‘Dukhovno-bibleiskogo bratstva,” Perezhitoe 1 (1908): 38–41; John D. Klier, “From Elisavetgrad to Broadway: The Strange Journey of Iakov Gordin” Extending the Borders of Russian History: Essays in Honor of Alfred J. Rieber, ed. Marsha Siefert. (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2003) 113–125; Ezekiel Lifschutz, “Jacob Gordin’s Proposal to Extablish an Agricultural Colony,” The Jewish Experience in America, Vol. 4. Era of Immigration. (New York: KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1969) 252–64; A.S. Prugavin, “Dukhovno-bibleiskoe bratstvo. (Ocherk evreiskogo religioznogo dvizheniya)”, Istoricheskii Vestnik 18.11 (1884): 398–410; 18.12 (1884): 632–49. Lifschutz (1969), Prugavin (1884). 4 This idea had been a feature of Haskalah discourse since the 18th century, when it was argued that turning Jews to agriculture would relieve Jewish-Gentile tensions by relocating urban Jews to rural areas, and demonstrate that Jews were capable of more than “parasitic” occupations. As early as 1781, the German legal scholar and friend of Moses Mendelssohn, Christian Wilhelm von Dohm (1751–1820) argued for such a plan in his “Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews” (reprinted in The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History, eds. Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, 2nd eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) 32–3. Similar ideas were taken up in Russia in 1802, when Alexander I convened a special committee to investigate the possibility of settling Jews on the land in the southern territories of Novorossiya, annexed under Catherine II. From 1807 until 1866, the Tsarist government offered various (and inconsistent) monetary incentives and military exemptions to Jews who settled on the land in Podolsk, Bessarabia, Kherson, and Ekaterinoslav guberniyas. By the time the Spiritual-Biblical Brotherhood was formed in 1880, Kherson guberniya was home to twenty Jewish agricultural colonies. After the pogroms of 1881, however, the Russian government forbade further Jewish settlement outside of shtetlakh, a move that doomed the Brotherhood’s repeated attempts to buy land for farming. For an authoritative history of the Jewish agricultural movement in Russia in the 19th century. See V. N. Nikitin, Evrei zemledel’tsy: Istoricheskoe, zakonodatel’noe, administrativnoe i bytovoe polozhenie kolonii so vremeni ikh vozniknoveniya do nashikh dnei. 1807–1887 (St. Petersburg: Tipographiya Gazety “Novosti”, 1887). 5 Zalmen Zylbercweig, ed. “Gordin, Yankev,” Leksikon fun yidishn teater, vol. 1 (New York: Farlag “Elisheva” 1964) 86. 3

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Populism and an established tradition of Jewish agricultural settlement than with Tolstoy, as Tolstoy’s reputation as a moral philosopher grew, the linkage of Gordin’s group with Tolstoyanism was inevitable.6 Gordin did not abandon his agrarian dreams when he arrived in New York in July of 1891. Within weeks, Gordin applied to the Baron de Hirsch Fund, a charitable organization responsible for the creation of the Jewish Woodbine Colony in New Jersey. Given the precarious success of Woodbine, and the failure of other Jewish agricultural colonies in Kansas, Oregon and South Dakota, it is not surprising that Gordin’s application was rejected.7 Following this bitter disappointment, Gordin attempted to earn a living as a journalist for New York’s Russian6 There were real links between Gordin’s Brotherhood and Tolstoy, but these dated to June 1885, when Isaak Borisovich Fainerman (1863–1925), who would become a leading member of Gordin’s sect, made a pilgrimage to Yasnaya Polyana to meet Tolstoy. Fainerman remained in the area with his wife, living among the peasants and engaging in manual labor, and was baptised in August, with Tatiana L’vovna Tolstaya standing as his godmother. See N. Gusey, Letopis’zhizni i tvorshestva L.N. Tolstogo, 1828–1919 (Moscow and Leningrad: Akademiya, 1936) 336. His conversion was undertaken so that he might teach at Yasnaya Polyana’s school. Fainerman’s time at Yasnaya Polyana coincided with visits by William Frey (1839–1888, born Vladimir Konstantinovich Geins), a Russian-born non-Jew who was the revered leader of Jewish agricultural settlements in the United States (see Avrahm Yarmolinsky, A Russian’s American Dream: A Memoir on William Frey (Lawrence, Kan.: University of Kansas Press, 1965). The twin presence of Fainerman and Frey may explain certain of Tolstoy’s remarks in Chapter XVII of What Then Must We Do? Discussing the ideal agricultural community, Tolstoy notes that such colonies do in fact exist: “I am not fantasizing when speaking of such societies of men, but am describing what has always taken place and which is taking place now not only among Russian settlers but everywhere, where the natural qualities of man are as yet unviolated” Tolstoy, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v 90-i tomakh, akademicheskoe yubileinoe izdanie (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo Khudozhestvennoi Literatury, 1928–1958) 25:250 [This publication is listed in subsequently notes as PSS]. After joining the Brotherhood in the late 1880s, Fainerman continued to correspond with Tolstoy, and Tolstoy’s circle provided crucial financial support for Fainerman’s agricultural projects. In December 1889, Fainerman leased the shtetl Glodosy in the Ukraine, and settled there with a small group of the Brotherhood’s adherents. Gordin was not among them. The venture was short-lived, and Fainerman and his followers returned after several months to the original Elisavetgrad group (Gusev 1936, 413; Lifschutz 258; Ob obshchestve Elizavetgradskom Dukhovno-bibleiskom bratstve. GARF (State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow) Fond 102, 3-e deloproizvodstvo, opis’ 87, 1889, ed. khr. 606 (1, 2); Ob obshchestve Elizavetgradskom Dukhovno-bibleiskom bratstve. GARF (State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow) Fond 102, 3-e deloproizvodstvo, opis’ 87, 1889, ed. khr. 606 (1, 2) 67). 7 The history of Jewish agricultural colonies in the US has been extensively researched. Among the many works devoted to the topic, both on Frey’s colonies, those of Am Olam, and the de Hirsch Fund, see Brandes, in association with Martin Douglas, Immigrants to Freedom: Jewish Communities in Rural New Jersey Since 1882 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971), Uri D. Herscher, Jewish Agricultural Utopias in America 1880–1910 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981; Ellen

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language newspapers. When this did not prove financially feasible either, Gordin took up a career as a playwright for the entirely disreputable Yiddish theatre; to this undertaking he brought the full force of his Russian Populist and Maskilic sympathies. Gordin is widely regarded as a “reformer” for his use of standard Yiddish, rather than the artificial, Germanized dialect (“daytshmerish”) that had been the theatrical norm, and for his efforts to treat the theatre as a forum for education, as well as entertainment.8 As part of this acculturating mission, Tolstoy was an obvious and bankable source for adaptations. In common with Anglophone America of the period, public interest in the Yiddish community in Tolstoy’s art and politics ran high. Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata itself had been available in Yiddish translation since 1895.9 Yiddish speakers could read translations of Tolstoy’s complete works, see stage adaptations of Resurrection, Yiddish-language productions of A Living Corpse, and Gordin’s own translation of The Power of Darkness.10 The Socialist daily Forverts (Forward) offered volumes

Eisenberg, Jewish Agricultural colonies in New Jersey, 1882–1920 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995). 8 For English-language accounts of Gordin’s place in the American Yiddish theatre see: Joel Berkowitz, Shakespeare on the American Yiddish Stage (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2002); David S. Lifson, The Yiddish Theatre in America (New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1965); Leonard Prager, “Of Parents and Children: Jacob Gordin’s The Jewish King Lear” American Quarterly 18: 3 (1966): 506–16; Nahma Sandrow, Vagabond Stars: A World History of Yiddish Theater (New York: Harper and Row, 1977); JudithThissen, “Reconsidering the Decline of the New York Yiddish Theatre in the Early 1900s,” Theatre Survey 44: 2 (2003): 173–97. See Berkowitz (2002), Lifson (1965), Prager (1966), Sandrow (1977, 1996), Thissen (2003) for English-language accounts of Gordin’s place in the American Yiddish theatre. For Yiddish-language accounts, see B. Gorin, Di geshikhte fun yidishn teater (New York: Literarisher Farlag, 1918), Kalmen Marmor, Yankev gordin (New York: YKUF, 1953); M. Winchevsky, A tog mit yankev gordin (New York: M. Mayzel, 1909); Zylbercweig Leksikon; Zalmen Zylbercweig, Di velt fun yankev gordin (TelAviv: Hadfus “Orli”, 1964). 9 The first Yiddish translation appeared in 1895 in Abraham Cahan’s monthly Di Tsukunft (The Future), in Cahan’s own translation (under the pseudonym David Bernstein). Nina Warnke notes that another translation of The Kreutzer Sonata was published in 1899, in a translation by Dovid Hermalin. Abraham Cahan’s translation was republished in 1910 in the Forverts (Forward) as part of an ongoing posthumous tribute to Tolstoy. In addition, the catalogues of The Institute for Jewish Research (YIVO) list translations of The Kreutzer Sonata in 1906, 1911, 1914, and 1929, in addition to collected Yiddish editions of Tolstoy’s work, which included The Kreutzer Sonata. 10 There is some disagreement as to when this production ran, and what it was called. The actress Bessie Thomashefsky’s memoirs, cited by Zylbercweig in Leksikon 424 list Gordin’s translation as Di makht fun finsternish, and date it to 1902. But B. Gorin is cited by Zylbercweig as noting the play as Di finsternish in rusland, and dating its opening to 1905.

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of Tolstoy as a subscription incentive, while the Yiddish press published interviews with Tolstoy and assiduously reported his pronouncements on war, patriotism, the Russian government, and his excommunication by the Orthodox Church.11 For New York’s Yiddish press, Tolstoy was the model of an artist’s commitment to literature, social justice, and personal integrity.12 In radical circles of the Jewish intelligentsia, Steven Cassedy notes: [. . .] Tolstoy was a hero both because of what they perceived as either anarchist or socialist views in his writings and because of his undying commitment to the welfare of the Russian peasants; to others he was a false prophet; to political moderates and conservatives, he was an object of curiosity as the head of a growing international movement; to all, he was a powerful symbol of resistance.13

The American journalist Hutchins Hapgood (1869–1944), author of a series of sensitive profiles of the turn-of-the-century Lower East Side’s Russian-Jewish immigrants, found that Russian radicals “look up to Tolstoi and Chekhov, and reject all principles founded upon more romantic and genial models.”14 Jacob Gordin, a prominent member of the socialist intelligentsia in New York, was known as a particularly committed Tolstoyan. Gordin’s admiration for Tolstoy, however, did not imply reflexive obeisance to all of the Russian writer’s positions. While Gordin was a tireless champion of Tolstoy the artistic genius, his attitude towards Tolstoy the moralist was more measured, and Gordin’s play itself demonstrates a combative engagement with Tolstoy’s homonymous original.15 11 Among the many articles on Tolstoy in Forverts, see “Tolstoi in kampf,” 18 Mar. 1901: 1; “Tolstoi oysgevizn fun rusland,” 2 Apr. 1901: 1; “Tolstoi tsum tsar,” 21 Apr. 1901: 1; “Tolstoi vegn amerike—an interviu,” 2 Oct. 1901: 4; “Sholem Aleichem un Tolstoi,” 19 Jul. 1903: 4. In Di Arbeter Tsaytung (The Worker’s Newspaper): Kh. Aleksandrov, “Tkhies hameysim: Tolstois letster roman,” 11 Mar. 11, 1900: 4; “Graf Tolstoi in kheyrem,” 10 Mar. 1901: 1; “Tolstois protest-briv,” 16 Aug. 1901:1. 12 See A. Cahan, “Realistishe literature: Zol der shrayber zikh araynmishn in bild?” Forverts, 17 Dec. 1903: 4–5; “In vos beshteyt Tolstois groskayt?” Forverts, 23 Nov. 1910: 4; “Tolstois groskayt als a shrayber,” Forverts, 24 Nov. 1910: 4, 8; M. Rozenfeld, “Ruslands neyr-tomed: Gedankn iber Graf Tolstoi,” Forverts, 19 Nov. 1910: 4. 13 Steven Cassedy, To the Other Shore: The Russian Jewish Intellectuals Who Came to America. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977) 92. 14 Hutchins Hapgood, The Spirit of the Ghetto (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967) 199. 15 An article from 1904 on “Realism and Romanticism” regretfully categorizes contemporary Tolstoy as an adherent of the latter. For Gordin, romanticism was an inherently religious sensibility, concerned with distant ideals and impossible utopias, rather than with empirical realities. The Tolstoy of War and Peace was a realist, but “Tolstoy has become a romantic in his old age. He has begun longing for the old

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Some of the arguments presented in the Russian novel, regarding the economic exploitation of women by men (and that of Jews by Gentiles) were wholly in accordance with Gordin’s own views.16 But Gordin was as staunch an advocate of “free love” as he was of Beethoven’s music, and his play finds neither guilty of inciting the violence and depravity with which they are associated in Tolstoy’s novel. Instead, Gordin’s play finds literary fiction and “fictions” in general to be more culpable in the violent conclusion of his play. Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata takes the form of a long monologue by a repellent anti-hero, Pozdnyshev, an acquitted wife-murderer who relates the tale of his stormy marriage to an unnamed narrator whom he encounters on a train-trip. This framing device brackets a tale that begins with Pozdnyshev’s recollection of his dissolute youth, spent drinking, gambling, and frequenting brothels. He finds nothing shameful in his way of life, nor does he find it absurd that what he allows himself he would not tolerate in a prospective wife. Still, Pozdnyshev wishes the innocent young girl to whom he becomes engaged to know what his life has been like before marriage, and he shows her his diary. Although she is horrified by his promiscuity, she does not break off the engagement. The marriage that follows is not a happy one, but every bout of rage, jealousy and hate is followed by an equally fiery reconciliation, and Pozdnyshev comes to believe that this is the normal state of marriage. Sexual passion merely masks the hate that Pozdnyshev and his wife come to feel for each other. Children are born, but this does little to quell the couple’s enmity. After one difficult birth, the wife—who is never named in the novel—is advised to have no more children. Her doctors instruct her on means of contraception, and Pozdnyshev is horrified to see how happily she embraces this option. No longer hampered by yearly pregnancies, Pozdnyshev’s wife finds more time to enjoy herself, and she takes up the piano once more. Her interest in

Christian past” (Gordin, Ale shriftn fun yankev gordin, vol. 4 (New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, 1910) 180). 16 Gordin first gained notice (and the Jewish public’s justified ire) in Russia for an “open letter to Russian Jewry”, published in Elisavetgradskie Vedomosti and Yuzhnii Krai in 1881, after the outbreak of anti-Jewish pogroms in April 1881. Signed “A Biblical Brother”, the letter argued that Russia’s Jews had brought the hostilities on themselves by engaging in repugnant commercial trades and by their haughty indifference to the non-Jewish majority. The letter was widely marked in the Russian and Jewish press, and was the subject of a scathing editorial in the journal that also reprinted it, Russkii Evrei 3 September 1881: 1424–26.

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music brings a violinist called Trukhachevsky into the family circle. The two begin to practice Beethoven’s “Kreutzer Sonata” for an informal recital. Their musical collaboration leads to Pozdnyshev’s suspecting that his wife and the violinist are lovers. There is never any evidence that this is actually true, and Pozdnyshev leaves for a few days on a business trip. While away, he receives a letter from his wife that mentions that the violinist stopped by to drop off some sheet music. Inexplicably enraged, Pozdnyshev returns home, travelling day and night, arriving home late in the evening. He finds his wife having dinner alone with Trukhachevsky, and, in a fury, he stabs her to death. Only when she lies dying is Pozdnyshev able to see her as a human being, and not as a sexual object. The lesson that Pozdnyshev draws from these events is that marriage demeans both men and women because it legitimizes the destructive sexual instinct. Sexual passion prevents men and women from seeing each other as human beings; only when it is conquered can human beings devote themselves to fulfilling God’s “true plan”—altruistic connection with one another, empathy, and the betterment of human lives. It would be better to live an entirely chaste life, argued Tolstoy himself in a afterword to The Kreutzer Sonata, than to give in to the erotic desires that dehumanize men and women alike. Both Tolstoy and his spokesman Pozdnyshev implicate disparate social and cultural institutions in the pernicious campaign to legitimize sexual passion. The Christian church’s elevation of marriage to a sacrament, over-stimulating arts such as music, duplicitous literary fiction, provocative dress-making, rich foods, indolence, and contraception all contribute to the dehumanization of women, and invite women’s retributive exploitation of men through mens’ own sexual weaknesses. Each form of sensual aesthetic stimulation—particularly that offered by the arts—is a diversion that makes possible a universal avoidance of the “truth” that sexuality is a force of destruction, not love. It is Pozdnyshev’s self-appointed task to reveal the “truth” of our dissembling and the toll that it exacts. Music, long the object of Tolstoy’s troubled affections and repudiations, is impugned in The Kreutzer Sonata as the most “dangerous” art, the one most likely to rouse unproductive emotions and license unseemly appetites of the kind that lead Pozdnyshev to murder. Many critical analyses of the work take their cue from Tolstoy himself regarding the novel’s thematic foci.17 The novel’s title reflects its aesthetic preoccupations 17 See Caryl Emerson’s “What Is Art? and The Anxiety of Music.” Russian Literature 40 (1996): 433–50; and “Tolstoy’s Aesthetics: A Harmony and Translation of the Five

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and structure, and Tolstoy’s own numerous pronouncements on music, both in his letters and diaries, and in the theoretical tract, What is Art? (Chto takoe iskusstvo? 1898), are an important component in the analysis of this work. Gordin’s adaptation of Tolstoy, however, absolves music of any destructive role in instigating or abetting the murders with which Kreytser Sonata concludes. This is only one of many points on which Gordin parts ways with Tolstoy. Where Tolstoy indicts church-sanctioned sexual oppression in marriage, Gordin rails against the hypocrisy of Jewish patriarchal authority. Where Tolstoy argues for chastity, Gordin advocates sexual emancipation and intermarriage. And where Tolstoy implicates music in his novel’s violent end, Gordin uses Tolstoy’s own Kreutzer Sonata as an agent of revelation, and destruction. Gordin’s play is set first in the Russian Pale of Settlement at the turn of the century. At rise, Ettie Friedlander has tried to convert to Christianity in order to marry her Russian officer lover, by whom she is pregnant. The plan is foiled, and in despair, Ettie’s lover kills himself. In order to protect the family reputation, Ettie’s father, Raphael, plans to marry her to an ambitious musician, Gregor Fiedler, and pack them both off to America. “There no one will ask when you were married, and no one will count the months after the wedding.”18 When informed of her fate, Ettie, nervously clutching a book, dutifully agrees to the plan: Ettie: As you think best, Papa. (She presses the book to her heart.) Raphael: (in a friendly tone) Well, why are you standing? Sit down. (She sits) What is that book? Ettie: This is volume eleven of Tolstoy’s works . . . in this book . . . I will tell you the truth, Papa . . . ( frightened) Raphael: (warmly) There, there, now, you can talk calmly about a book. What is it?

Senses.” Tolstoy Studies Journal 12 (2000): 9–17; David Herman, “Stricken by Infection: Art and Adultery in Anna Karenina and Kreutzer Sonata.” Slavic Review 56: 1 (1997): 15–36; Liza Knapp, “Tolstoy on Musical Mimesis: Platonic Aesthetics and Erotics in The Kreutzer Sonata,” Tolstoy Studies Journal 4 (1991): 25–42; Ruth Rischin, “Allegro Tumultuosissimamente: Beethoven in Tolstoy’s Fiction,” In the Shade of the Giant Ed. Hugh Maclean. California Slavic Studies 13 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989) 12–60; Rimvydas Silbajoris, Tolstoy’s Aesthetics and His Art (Columbus: Slavica, 1991); Janneke Van de Stadt, “Narrative, Music, and Performance: Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata and the Example of Beethoven,” Tolstoy Studies Journal 12 (2000): 57–69. 18 Kreytser 1907 10.

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Raphael hands the book—whose powers are such that merely holding it forces Ettie to tell the “truth”—to Ettie’s poisonous younger sister, Celia, as Ettie cannot be trusted with such stirring material. Ettie symbolically buries her past in the novel by putting her lover’s photograph and his last letter to her in its pages, and she resolves to make amends. She will do her father’s bidding, provide her child with a father, and preserve the family honor by fleeing to New York. Before marrying, Ettie confesses her sins to Gregor in a manner that recalls Pozdnyshev’s (and Tolstoy’s own) confession to his fiancée. Gregor, however, is unfazed by Ettie’s sexual indiscretion: “Ah, who among us has not had love affairs? And how many love affairs! As I live and breathe, I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve been in love.” Gregor is more disturbed, though, when he learns that his fiancée is pregnant, a circumstance that will become a source of bitter recriminations as the play unfolds. Ettie swears that she will be faithful to Gregor, but warns that she will never love him. For now, Gregor reckons that Ettie’s generous dowry provides sufficient compensation for a loveless marriage. Seven years later, Ettie, her son Albert, and Gregor are living in Manhattan, where Gregor is the director of a musical conservatory. The rest of the Friedlander and Fiedler families join them in America. Ephraim, Gregor’s exuberant klezmer musician father, struggles with the regulations and fees of the musician’s union. Ettie’s father, Raphael, buys a farm in Connecticut and tries to live a Tolstoyan dream of agrarian redemption. The farm is losing money and alienating his family, who are baffled as to why a once-wealthy businessman needs to spend his twilight years working the land in rural Connecticut. The family spends as much time as possible in the city, where Celia and Gregor carry on a torrid affair while rehearsing Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata. Beethoven’s work figures in a musical competition between Ephraim, Gregor, and Celia. Following Ephraim’s performance of a soulful

19

Ibid. 11.

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klezmer variation, Gregor and Celia enter the fray with the first movement of Beethoven’s sonata—including the Presto that is the object of Pozdnyshev’s most hysterical fears. Embodying Tolstoy’s characterization of a “good” artist—Ephraim—the authentic folk musician is spontaneous, sincere, and joyous. But Gregor and Celia—depraved, cynical, trained professionals—do not entirely conform to the image of “bad” artists that Tolstoy outlined in What Is Art? In Gordin’s play, “bad” artists may be morally corrupt, but they are nonetheless entrusted with introducing the audience to secular, non-Jewish music. The music itself is impervious to corruption, even though it requires a performer as mediator between artist and audience. Ettie finds that when her spouse plays Beethoven, he is transformed, and she forgets all the anguish that he has caused her. On learning the sonata’s title, Ettie says to herself, “The Kreutzer Sonata! The book . . . I need to find it and finish it . . .”20 Out of sight of others, Celia tells Gregor, “When we were playing the sonata I suddenly recalled how Tolstoy described the effect their playing had on his heroes . . . My heart suddenly began racing and the sweet sounds began to merge with the fire in your eyes . . . Were you to always play that way, I would always love you . . .”21 It is not Beethoven’s music, but Tolstoy’s novel that impresses Ettie and Celia; the latter sees Pozdnyshev’s unnamed wife and the violinist Trukhachevsky as the “heroes” (“heldn”) of the novel, and casts herself and Gregor in their roles. When Ettie spies the two embracing, she extracts a promise from her sister that she will end the affair—a promise Celia does not keep. Act Three is set on Raphael’s farm at Christmastime, where Ettie finds her copy of Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata and rereads her lover’s letter, “I will relive the whole terrible drama again, and then I will destroy it, purge everything, forget . . .”22 Gazing at her dead love’s photograph, Ettie reflects, “I belong now to another, to whom I have sworn to be true.” Gregor catches Ettie reading the letter, and snatches it from her, but Ettie betrays a will of steel and commands him to return it. Somewhat fearfully, Gregor does as she wishes. The act includes a raucous scene of song and dance involving caroling farmers, the performance

20 21 22

Ibid. 38. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 52.

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of a wistful song by Ettie, and Celia’s revelation to Gregor that she is pregnant. The final act takes place months later, in Ephraim’s fledgling music school. Raphael has come into town for supplies, and to beg Gregor for money to save the farm. Gregor refuses, and swans off to the opera with Celia, who is lately returned to New York after an unexplained absence of several months. When it is revealed that Gregor and Celia are actually visiting their illegitimate child, Ettie confronts them. She has until now tried to ignore their continued affair, out of a feeling that she, of all people, has no right to cast stones. But this revelation pushes Ettie over the edge. Why does Celia suffer no consequences, while she, Ettie, has endured such torment and misery for her own transgressions? Hysterically, she cries, “That was your last lie! There will be no more lies!” [. . .] Did you think that you’d live out your whole life with opera, songs, and lies? There are no more songs! The terrible end is coming!”23 Gregor tries to calm Ettie by claiming, “Only you are dear to me, only you are truly mine!” But Ettie answers: Ettie: Yours? I know what it means to be “yours”! Your property! My body belongs to you! My body has belonged to you since I was born and will belong to you until I die! When you need my body, you say you love me. When you say you love me, you need my body! You say you’ll protect me, that I am dear to you—like any piece of property! My body interested you, but you murdered my soul every day ten times over! With every look you trampled my human feelings underfoot! For nearly ten years I’ve lived with you, and for not even a minute have you ever thought of me as a person—only as a woman, as a wife, as a servant! You never would or could understand me. You never would or could know what I’ve endured in that time. I swore to endure and keep silent—I have been silent and borne more than I needed! Enough! No longer will I be a piece of property to be trod on and degraded! No! No more!24 Gordin’s gender-switch has the effect of rendering Ettie both Pozdnyshev and his nameless wife, an element that Celia notes, and to which she responds by laughing mockingly and accusing her sister of poaching this

23 24

Ibid. 89. Ibid. 90.

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Figure 2. Bertha Kalich (1874–1939), who played Ettie in both Yiddish and English versions of Di kreytser sonata (1902) pictured on the cover of The Theatre ( July 1905).

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speech from Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata. Ettie warns Celia to stop laughing, and seizes a bottle of carbolic acid from the bag of supplies that Raphael has left on the piano. Ettie threatens to burn out her sister’s eyes “so that you can’t look at other people’s husbands!” If Celia is hideous to men, screams Ettie, perhaps then she will remember that she is a mother. When Gregor and Celia wrest the bottle of acid from her, Ettie reaches for Raphael’s loaded revolver, also lying (conveniently) on the piano. She shoots Gregor and then pumps the remaining five bullets into Celia. The curtain falls as Ettie collapses, delirious, crying to her nanny that she cannot see. The audience is left not knowing Ettie’s ultimate fate. Clearly, Gordin’s play is far from a straightforward transfer of Tolstoy’s novel to the Yiddish stage. Rather, Gordin’s treatment emphasizes those aspects of the original text that coincide with his own aesthetic and political sympathies. Particularly striking in this respect is his exoneration of Beethoven’s “terrible” sonata. On one level this is not surprising, given that music features prominently in nearly every one of Gordin’s plays.25 Yet while Yiddish theatrical convention all but required some musical elements, the symbolic significance that Gordin attaches to music in his plays suggests that his use of it was less a capitulation to public demand than a conscious aesthetic strategy. Indeed, in an essay entitled “Drama”, Gordin describes the range and depth of the playwright’s art itself in musical terms. He aligns the playwright with the pianist, a solitary voice that blends with the orchestra but nonetheless remains a distinct, guiding presence: The piano is a unified entity, a common force of sounds. The talented pianist commands a great sea of sweet, strong, and powerful tones; he

25 Gordin’s Russian writings also reveal a strong interest in and love for music. An early series of sketches for the St. Petersburg newspaper, Nedelya, “Tipy shtundistov” (15: 518–24; 24: 679–86; 35: 1158–62, 1884), feature folk and spiritual songs as expressions of faith and integrity. In Gordin’s story cycle, “Evreiskie siluety”, serialized in Nedelya’s literary supplement, Knizhki Nedeli, heroes are always possessed of good singing voices and musical talent. In Gordin’s Yiddish treatment of the Faust legend, God, Man, and Devil (1900; published as Got, mentsh un tayvl: drama in 4 aktn mit a prolog, New York: Internatsyonale Biblyotek Pablishing Komp., 1903), the protagonist’s violin is the voice of his soul, and its silencing coincides with his own corruption. Zelig Itsik the Fiddler (unpublished, manuscript copy at YIVO, in the Jacob Gordin Papers), an adaptation of Schiller’s Kabal und Liebe, features a violinist as tragi-comic hero, and the heroine of Khasye the Orphan Girl (1903; published as Di yesoyme: drama in fir aktn fun yankev gordin. spetsyele geshribn far madam k. liptsin. New York: no publisher listed, 1903), sings Russian songs until she is silenced by family betrayal.

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harmonizes, creates varied combinations, and plays on all manner of feelings . . . Among the arts, the drama occupies a position that is analogous to that of the piano among musical instruments. The playwright has all of the arts at his command. He has in his hands an immense sea of disparate psychological tones; he an ocean of colors, a world of feelings and ideas. He has only to combine these to suit his own desires . . .26

Gordin’s Kreutzer Sonata features both “bad” musicians and “good” ones, but no morally corrupting forces are attributed to the works of Beethoven, or even to the opera (Tolstoy’s most despised musical form for its artifice and excess), which makes a late appearance in Act Four. Rather, it is literary fiction, and in particular, Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata, that play a pivotal role in the play’s violent dénouement. From her first appearance, clutching a volume of Tolstoy, Ettie Friedlander demonstrates a powerful identification with fiction, such that her father has to confiscate the offending material, lest it prove too stimulating in her vulnerable state. But it is too late—Tolstoy has awakened her to the ugly truth of human relations, and no amount of pretense can now conceal it. Though Ettie acts as a dutiful daughter, devoted mother, and obedient wife, her family regards her as simply playing a role. She is accused of reiterating an “old routine” (“an alte shtik”),27 of behaving like a “big hero” (“a gantser held”).28 As Ettie begins to unravel she intones, “I am afraid I will depart from my role . . . the end is coming! The end! The end!” (“Ikh hob moyre, ikh vel aroys fun mayn role . . . der sof kumt! Di ende! Di ende!”).29 Ettie herself sees that she is playing a role, and goes so far as to emphasize the Germanic “ende”, used to describe dramatic and novelistic “ends”, in contrast with the more conversational Hebraic “sof ”.30 Part of the failure of her performance owes to the incompatibility of Ettie’s adopted roles with the one that has been established for her from Act One, that of the “fallen woman”. Fallen women are traditionally accorded few narrative options in 19th century fiction—social exclusion, removal of their children, death, or all three, as in the case of Tolstoy’s own Anna Karenina. As a woman of the 20th century, Ettie suffers none of the traditional consequences that are the fallen

26 27 28 29 30

Gordin 1910 53. Kreytser 1907 31. Ibid. 55. Ibid. 87. Ibid. 80.

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woman’s lot—she departs from this “role” as well. Ettie’s final act of rebellion is to depart even from the role of Pozdnyshev’s wife, to take up that of Pozdnyshev himself. This act of literary homage, which would appear to confirm age-old Platonic suspicions of the perilous powers of mimesis, reflects the symbolic and practical functions that Gordin’s play assigns to Tolstoy’s novel. The novel is an agent of revelation; a repository for Ettie’s memories, romantic dreams and ideals; a catalyst for family antagonism, and finally a model for conduct. It is a far more potent and volatile work than Beethoven’s, and is the real focus and namesake of Gordin’s play. Ettie is many respects an “ideal reader”, in that she finds Tolstoy’s novel so distressing (“it makes life so ugly, so much uglier than I had thought before”). This is exactly the reaction that Tolstoy intended it to have. Awakening readers to the lies that surround them was the first step to seeing the “truth” and making efforts to live by that truth—which in Tolstoy’s case meant his heretical variety of revisionist, radical Christianity. Yet the means through which this awakening is effected—literary fiction—was fundamentally suspect. Tolstoy’s own grave doubts about literary fiction’s suitability as a vehicle for aesthetic and moral reform led him in the 1880s to repudiate his own novels, including Anna Karenina and War and Peace, as “bad” works of art that served no redeeming social or aesthetic purpose. While Kreutzer Sonata’s enlightening mission presumably absolved it of charges of also being a “bad” work of art, its medium nevertheless remained open to suspicion. Gordin’s dramatic emphasis on the potential of literary fiction to act as a stimulant to extreme action is one measure of just how dangerous it could be. His play draws attention to this anti-literary aspect of Tolstoy’s original, an attribute that has been little remarked upon in critical literature. Pozdnyshev, the anti-hero of Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata, himself despises narrative fiction, which he accuses of fostering illusions in its gullible readers. In answer to a remark that love is a preference for one person for one’s whole life, Pozdnyshev snorts, “Oh, but that happens only in novels and never in real life. In real life this preference for one over another might last for years—that’s very rare—more often for a few months, or perhaps for a few weeks, days, or hours,” he said, evidently aware that he was astonishing everyone with his views, and was pleased by this. (Tolstoy, PSS 27: 13)31 31 I am indebted to one of the Tolstoy Studies Journal’s anonymous readers for this observation. Poetry that suggested that there was truth to be found in ancient literature,

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Pozdnyshev continues his anti-literary tirade in a speech about novels’ contributing to the fiction of male chastity before marriage. Pozdnyshev complains that men are “married” dozens, perhaps hundreds or thousands of times before they are legally wed: And everybody knows this and pretends not to know it. In all the novels they describe in detail the heroes’ feelings, and the ponds and bushes by which they walk, but when describing their great love for some maiden, nothing is written about what has happened to him, this interesting hero, before: not a word about his frequenting certain houses, or about maids, cooks, other people’s wives. If there are such improper novels, then they’re not put into the hands of those who most need to know all of this—unmarried girls. In front of these girls they first pretend that this debauchery, which fills half the life of our towns and even villages, does not exist at all. Then we are so accustomed to this pretense that finally, like the English, we ourselves truly begin to believe that we are all moral people and live in a moral world.32

As the passage continues, Pozdnyshev’s diary—ostensibly a work of non-fiction—is accorded powers of revelatory truth that counter the illusions of fiction. In contrast, Gordin’s play uses fiction itself—Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata—as a source of terrible truths. Where Tolstoy and Gordin converge is in their confidence that fiction has the power to affect conduct. Pozdnyshev’s vile fictions are complicit in the social conspiracy that hoodwinks innocent girls into depraved marriages. Ettie’s reading reveals to her the scope of this conspiracy, but offers her no escape route from it save by the violent means that Pozdnyshev himself takes. In Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata, Pozdnyshev’s loathing of the lies and “pretense” (pritvorstvo) that he finds in literary fiction extends to all activities invested with any degree of artifice—be it the arts, personal appearance, or social relations. He draws no distinction between the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of pretense, takes no account of the blurring of the feigned and the creative.33 Novels, plunging necklines, and arranged

but not in contemporary works: Even if one allows that Menelaus might prefer Helen for his whole life, Helen would prefer Paris, and that is how it always was and is in the world. It cannot be any other way, any more than there can be two marked peas lying side by side in a cartload of peas. Besides, it is not just the unlikelihood of this, but the inevitable satiety of Helen with Menelaus or vice versa. The only difference is that with one it comes earlier and with the other, later. It is only in stupid novels that they write that they loved one another their whole lives. And only children can believe that (Tolstoy, PSS, 27: 295–6). In the final version of the novel, the epic received no dispensation from the accusation that fiction fosters lies. 32 Tolstoy, PSS 27: 21–2. 33 His morbid preoccupation with pretense merges most vehemently with his loathing of the visual display of performance, rather than with the aural experience of music,

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marriages are all symptoms of the same disease to Pozdnyshev. Music only becomes a source of Pozdnyshev’s anxiety in the latter half of the novel because experience of it does not exist outside of performance, and for Pozdnyshev, performance is indivisible from pretense. These anxieties surface when his wife meets Trukhachevsky, the violinist. Their excitement at playing together is conveyed not through music, but through visual exchanges, which Pozdnyshev takes for feigning: But catching sight of me, she immediately understood my feeling and changed her expression, and a game of mutual deception began. I smiled pleasantly, pretending that I liked it very much. He, looking at my wife as all lechers look at beautiful women, pretended that he was only interested in the topic of conversation—namely, that which no longer interested him at all. She tried to seem indifferent, though my false smile of jealousy, which was familiar to her, and his lewd gaze, evidently excited her.34

Pozdnyshev’s tirade against the “irritating” properties of music—which make him feel what he does not truly feel, understand what he does not truly understand, and do what he is normally incapable of doing—is not, however a spur to his jealous rage, but a brief, if illusory, respite from it. Far from providing him with a license to kill, the music awakens in Pozdnyshev a feeling of joy. Similarly, in Gordin’s play, Ettie is able to forget who Gregor is when he plays the piano, and forgive him—for a time—for his ill-treatment of her. Her murderous rage is not triggered by Beethoven, or even by Tolstoy, but by the lies that Gregor and Celia tell about their affair. This echoes Pozdnyshev’s own burst of homicidal rage, which also takes place after a period of seeming calm. After the recital, Pozdnyshev leaves on a business trip, still “in the very best and calmest of moods”.35 His mood is altered disastrously, though, by the receipt of a letter from his wife. He regards the letter as a duplicitous fiction, much as he regarded the narrative fiction that he dismissed as “pretense” in the first chapter of the novel. The next morning he dashes off to Moscow, where he stabs his wife to death.

a trait which is emphasized through pervasive references in Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata to “appearances” actual and metaphoric. Indeed, the novel’s very first lines point to the fatal role of the visual in determining its murderous conclusion. The biblical epigraph from Matthew 5:28, “But I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart,” presents the eye, not the ear, as the agent of the adulterous fall. 34 Tolstoy, PSS 27: 53. 35 Tolstoy, PSS 27: 63.

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For Jacob Gordin, condemnation of “performance” and “pretense” is of course more problematic in the theatre, an art that relies entirely on obfuscating the distinctions between what is, and what appears to be. In Gordin’s Kreutzer Sonata, “pretense” and “role-play” do not lead to a critique of the theatrical medium itself, but refer instead to the veneer of bourgeois propriety that the Friedlanders work furiously to sustain. Pretense is the foundation of the social code that necessitates Ettie’s unhappy marriage, the family’s immigration to the U.S., the lies surrounding her son’s parentage, and the concealment of Celia and Gregor’s own child. Shoring up this façade is his characters’ attachment to status symbols such as titles, reputations, costly clothing and jewelry, which lend the appearance of successful assimilation into Russian and then American society. The villainous Gregor works the most successful transformation, remaking himself as the spurious “Professor Fiedler”, establishing his own conservatory, cutting off ties with his embarrassingly humble parents, and lavishing expensive gowns on the indifferent Ettie, while refusing to loan her desperate father the money that he needs. Money itself is the measure of Ettie’s existence and the instrument of her fate—she is the sum of her dowry and the price of passage to New York, where “no one will count” the months to determine the true date of her son’s conception. Numbers themselves are a recurring motif in the play, reflecting the characters’ obsessive concern for money and status. Figures tally the number of Gregor’s lovers, the cost of Raphael’s watch, the streets of midtown Manhattan, the acreage of Raphael’s farm, the taxes owed on it, and the miles from Russia to America. Ettie is even given to paraphrasing Pozdnyshev himself, who is fond of quoting invented statistics and percentages to support his outrageous remarks. Ettie notes of her married life, “As always, two days in love, two weeks of conflict. [. . .] Of a thousand married couples, as I see it, nine-hundred and ninety live as I do.”36 The surfeit of numbers in Gordin’s play at times approaches the absurd, as when Ettie and Celia’s ne’er-do-well brother, Samuel, asks Raphael: “Papa, why do you need the farm? With your capital you could have seventy-seven thousand businesses right here in New York. When there was a panic on the stockmarket my broker made eighty-four thousand dollars in exactly sixty-five minutes—eighty-four thousand to a cent, I swear.”37

36 37

Kreyster 1907, 48. Ibid. 41.

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Natasha, the Friedlanders’ faithful Russian peasant nanny, argues with Celia in the play’s opening exchanges about the girl’s age—is she seventeen or eighteen? Celia snarls, “You can’t even count past eleven.”38 Natasha’s ignorance of numbers is also played for laughs, as when she reasons that Christmas must come twelve days earlier in America than it does in Russia because Americans are always in such a hurry.39 But her innocence of numerical values is also a mark of her goodness, of her indifference to financial capital as constituting any real measure of worth. Ettie, on the other hand, is alternately vague and canny about money. In Act One, she discusses her dowry with Raphael: Raphael: [. . .] I have promised him only twenty-five hundred for the dowry, not five thousand, as I figured on giving before. Why are you looking at me like that? Ettie: Papa, don’t be angry, but I think he might treat me better if you didn’t scrimp. Raphael: (angrily) Scrimp? I know what kind of a dowry you deserve! Five thousand! I must say . . .40 In Act Four, however, when Ettie begs Gregor for a loan for Raphael’s farm, she asks, “Gregor [. . .] how much money do you have? You have never once told me, and I have never asked.”41 Yet four pages later she is pressing her estranged mother, Khava, to give the six-hundred dollars that Ettie “knows” she has in the bank to Raphael for the taxes.42 The extent to which money determines identity is most pronounced in the case of Raphael, as is evident from his negotiations with Gregor over Ettie’s dowry: Raphael: [. . .] After the wedding I will give you twenty-five hundred. Gregor: I know . . . and the truth is, twenty-five hundred is not at all bad. Raphael: I will not deceive you. She was long ago promised for five thousand.

38 39 40 41 42

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

6. 47. 11. 77. 80.

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Gregor: Oh! You want to take twenty-five hundred away from me because now you are unhappy with her? Raphael: That is what she thinks. I can say to you that I will take nothing away . . . Three years after the wedding you will receive the remaining twenty-five hundred, with interest. Do you hear me? Friedlander’s word is as good as a Kaiser’s bond. Yes! With interest . . . Of course, that’s if you are living as people should . . . and if she has no reason to complain . . .43 The terms of Raphael’s agreement with Gregor necessitate the pretense that Ettie’s marriage is a happy one. Filial duty, always a contested issue not just in Gordin’s dramas but for the Jewish immigrant audience as a whole, is here allied with the destructive forces of social pretense, hunger for wealth, and the commodification of women. Ettie’s rebellion against her role as an object of trade is declared in her climactic speech, in which she repudiates Gregor’s “ownership” by proclaiming that she will no longer be trod upon “like a piece of property”.44 Her rhetorical independence is short-lived, though, as she swiftly proceeds to enact a murderous revenge that replicates Pozdnyshev’s own. And like Tolstoy’s anti-hero, Ettie faces an uncertain future: will she be arrested and hanged? Will she commit suicide, or be acquitted? Neither character’s story is given a conclusive ending. Pozdnyshev finishes his monologue only to board another train in search of a confessor, and Ettie’s only certainty is another night’s performance, during which she will “relive the whole terrible drama again”.45 For both, eternal reenactment of their sin is sentence itself. For Tolstoy’s Pozdnyshev, this is a fate worse than death, for there can be no greater punishment for a man who despises fictions and “pretense” than to become a storyteller himself. Tolstoy’s novel attempts to cast Pozdnyshev’s purgatorial existence in a more productive light via an afterword, in which the author outlines a radical Christian alternative to the life of violent sexuality and sensual indulgence that the novel describes. For Gordin’s audience, of course, Tolstoy’s religious solution is hardly feasible. The crucial failure of Raphael Friedlander’s farm in Di Kreytser sonata also casts doubts on the other key element of Tolstoy’s

43 44 45

Ibid. 18. Ibid. 90. Ibid. 52.

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program for redemption—useful agrarian labor. This solution—to alienated labor, to Jews’ concentration in “parasitic” professions—may have seemed promising in peasant Russia, but was less practicable in the United States, as Gordin’s own experiences had shown. Only one of the factors that Tolstoy finds complicit in the ills that plague his characters—performance—emerges in Gordin’s play as anything like a redeeming feature. By categorizing “pretense” and “performance” in Di Kreytser sonata as a social and economic condition, rather than an artistic one, Gordin exempts music, theatre, and literature from Tolstoy’s assessment of them as likely to net destructive results. Music—Beethoven’s, opera, and Jewish folk music—is absolved of culpability in the play’s murders. Literature itself, while stimulating and provocative, is not a source of lies but of terrible truths which society is not prepared to address. And performance as a theatrical mode is a key element in Gordin’s own recommendations for Jewish renewal and redemption. These are the proper domain of art itself—through the communal experience of the theatre, whose enlightening aspirations offers a more productive example of the “performance” that is the target of Pozdnyshev’s and Tolstoy’s opprobrium. Kreytser sonata is evidence of Gordin’s steadfast commitment to his medium, despite the corrupting potential that always threatens to render “performance” mere “pretense”. The play is evidence both of his continuing debt to Tolstoy, and a sign of his emancipation—a Jewish “son’s” acknowledgement of, and liberation from, his Russian “father’s” influence. My thanks to Nina Warnke, Joel Berkowitz, Michael Denner, Andrew Wachtel, and the Tolstoy Studies Journal’s four anonymous readers for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper; John Klier for his article on Gordin’s political career; David Herman for an expanded copy of his article on art and the Kreutzer Sonata, and Steven Cassedy for his great generosity with his invaluable index of Yiddish newspapers. Bibliography Advertisement. “Kreytser sonate, oder etiniu fridlender: a familien drama in fir aktn fun yankev gordin.” Forverts, Jan. 9, 1902: 2. [Yiddish] ——. “Yankev gordins naye drama.” Forverts 10 Jan. 1902: 2. [Yiddish] Berkowitz, Joel. Shakespeare on the American Yiddish Stage. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2002.

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Brandes, Joseph, in association with Martin Douglas. Immigrants to Freedom: Jewish Communities in Rural New Jersey Since 1882. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971. Bukhbinder, N. A. “Iz istorii sektantskogo dvizheniya sredi russkikh evreev: Dukhovnobibleiskoe Bratstvo,” Evreiskaya Starina 11 (1918): 238–65. Burshtein, L. “Kistorii ‘Dukhovno-bibleiskogo bratstva,” Perezhitoe 1 (1908): 38–41. Cassedy, Steven. To the Other Shore: The Russian Jewish Intellectuals Who Came to America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Eisenberg, Ellen. Jewish agricultural colonies in New Jersey, 1882–1920. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995. Emerson, Caryl. “What Is Art? and The Anxiety of Music.” Russian Literature 40 (1996) 433–50. ——. “Tolstoy’s Aesthetics: A Harmony and Translation of the Five Senses.” Tolstoy Studies Journal 12 (2000): 9–17. Gordin, Yakov. Letter to the editor. Russkii Evrei. 3 September 1881: 1424–26. ——. “Tipy shtundistov.” Nedelya 6 April 1884: 518–62; 13 May 1884: 679–86; 26 August 1884: 1158–62. ——. Za okeanom: P’esa v chetyrekh deistviyakh Ya. Gordina. perevod Z. M. Erukhimovicha, censor’s typescript, St. Petersburg Theatrical Library, No. 49134 [no date]. ——. (Yankev), Got, mentsh un tayvl: drama in 4 aktn mit a prolog. New York: Internatsyonale Biblyotek Pablishing Komp., 1903. [Yiddish] ——. Di yesoyme: drama in fir aktn fun yankev gordin, spetsyele geshribn far madam k. liptsin, New York [no publisher listed], 1903. [Yiddish] ——. Kreytser sonate: a drame in fir aktn. New York: M. Mayzel, 1907. [Yiddish] ——. “Drama.” Ale shriftn fun yankev gordin, vols. 4. New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, 1910a. 53–62. 4 vol. [Yiddish] ——. “Realizm un romantizmum.” Ale shriftn fun yankev gordin, 1910a. 176–84. [Yiddish] ——. Kreitserova sonata: Drama v chetyrekh deistviyakh, soch. Ya. Gordina, perevod M. S. Kogana, 1910; censor’s typescript. St. Petersburg Theatre Library, No. 33775/33663. 1910. ——. Yankev gordin: dray drames. Khasye di yesoyme, got, mentsh un tayvl, mirele efros [reprint, reliable]. Buenos Aires: Yosef lifshits-fond fun der literature gezelshaft baym yivo, 1973. [Yiddish] ——. “Kreitserova sonata: Drama v chetyrekh deistviyakh,” perevod Rut Levina, Polveka evreiskogo teatra. 1876–1926: Antologiya evreiskoi dramaturgii. Ed. B. Entinym, Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Paralleli”, 2003. Gorin, B. Di geshikhte fun yidishn teater. New York: Literarisher Farlag, 1918. [Yiddish] Gusev, N. Letopis’ zhizni i tvorshestva L.N. Tolstogo, 1828–1919. Moscow and Leningrad: Akademiya, 1936. Gustafson, Richard F. Leo Tolstoy, Resident and Stranger: A Study in Fiction and Theology, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. Hapgood, Hutchins. The Spirit of the Ghetto, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967. Herman, David. “Stricken by Infection: Art and Adultery in Anna Karenina and Kreutzer Sonata.” Slavic Review 56: 1, 1997: 15–36. Herscher, Uri D. Jewish Agricultural Utopias in America, 1880–1910. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981. Kaplan, Beth. The Shakespeare of the Jews. Ottawa: National Library of Canada, 1988. Klier, John D. “From Elisavetgrad to Broadway: The Strange Journey of Iakov Gordin.” Extending the Borders of Russian History: Essays in Honor of Alfred J. Rieber. Ed. Marsha Siefert. Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2003. 113–125. Knapp, Liza. “Tolstoy on Musical Mimesis: Platonic Aesthetics and Erotics in The Kreutzer Sonata.” Tolstoy Studies Journal 4 (1991) 25–42.

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Kopper, John M. “Tolstoy and the Narrative of Sex: A Reading of Father Sergius, The Devil, and The Kreutzer Sonata.” In the Shade of a Giant. Ed. Hugh McLean. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. 158–86. LeBlanc, Ronald D. “Tolstoy’s Way of No Flesh: Abstinence, Vegetarianism, and Christian Physiology.” Food in Russian History and Culture. Eds. Musya Glants and Joyce Toomre, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. 81–102. Lifschutz, Ezekiel. “Jacob Gordin’s Proposal to Establish an Agricultural Colony.” The Jewish Experience in America Vol. 4. Era of Immigration. New York: KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1969. 252–64. 5 vols. Lifson, David S. The Yiddish Theatre in America. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1965. Mandelker, Amy. Framing Anna Karenina: Tolstoy, the Woman Question, and the Victorian Novel. Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1993. Marmor, Kalmen. Yankev gordin. New York: YKUF, 1953. [Yiddish] Mendes-Flohr, Paul and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Nikitin, V. N. Evrei zemledel’tsy: Istoricheskoe, zakonodatel’noe, administrativnoe i bytovoe polozhenie kolonii so vremeni ikh vozniknoveniya do nashikh dnei. 1807–1887. St. Petersburg: Tipographiya Gazety “Novosti”, 1887. Ob obshchestve Elizavetgradskom Dukhovno-bibleiskom bratstve. GARF (State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow) Fond 102, 3-e deloproizvodstvo, opis’ 87, 1889, ed. khr. 606 (1, 2). Prager, Leonard. “Of Parents and Children: Jacob Gordin’s The Jewish King Lear.” American Quarterly 18: 3 (1966): 506–16. Prugavin, A. S. “Dukhovno-bibleiskoe bratstvo. (Ocherk evreiskogo religioznogo dvizheniya)”, Istoricheskii Vestnik 18.11 (1884): 398–410; 18.12 (1884): 632–49. Rischin, Ruth. “Allegro Tumultuosissimamente: Beethoven in Tolstoy’s Fiction.” In the Shade of the Giant Ed. Hugh McLean. California Slavic Studies 13, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. 12–60. Sandrow, Nahma. Vagabond Stars: A World History of Yiddish Theater. New York: Harper and Row, 1977; Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1996. Silbajoris, Rimvydas. Tolstoy’s Aesthetics and His Art. Columbus: Slavica, 1991. Thissen, Judith. “Reconsidering the Decline of the New York Yiddish Theatre in the Early 1900s.” Theatre Survey 44: 2 (2003): 173–97. Tolstoy, L. N. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v 90-i tomakh, akademicheskoe yubileinoe izdanie, Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo Khudozhestvennoi Literatury, 1928–1958. Van de Stadt, Janneke. “Narrative, Music, and Performance: Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata and the Example of Beethoven.” Tolstoy Studies Journal 12 (2000): 57–69. Warnke, Nina. “Kreutzer Sonata or What Is To Be Done?” Unpublished paper given at “Russia/US: Reflecting Cross-Culturally: A Conference on Interaction between Russian and American Cultures.”, Indiana University, Bloomington, 24 April 1999. Winchevsky, Morris. A tog mit yankev gordin. New York: M. Mayzel, 1909. [Yiddish] Yarmolinsky, Avrahm. A Russian’s American Dream: A Memoir on William Frey. Lawrence, Kan.: University of Kansas Press, 1965. Zylbercweig, Zalmen, ed. “Gordin, Yankev.” Leksikon fun yidishn teater. Vol. 1. New York: Farlag “Elisheva”, 1931. 392–461. 6 vols. [Yiddish] ——. Di velt fun yankev gordin. Tel-Aviv: Hadfus “Orli”, 1964. [Yiddish]

ISAAC BASHEVIS-SINGER’S ATTITUDE TO THE YIDDISH THEATER AS SHOWN IN HIS WORKS Nathan Cohen During the last two decades of the 19th century and up to the First World War, Warsaw developed into a large and active Jewish cultural center. The presence of writers such as Yitskhok Leybush Peretz (1852–1915), Dovid Frishman (1860–1922), Hilel Tzeytlin (1872–1942), Nakhum Sokolow (1860–1936) and other Jewish cultural figures attracted young writers and cultural activists. Within a short time, a wide range of Yiddish and Hebrew newspapers began to appear in Warsaw, and the local Jewish publishers and printing houses established global connections. When the theatrical company, the Vilner Trupe (The Vilna Troupe), settled in Warsaw with Ester Rokhl Kaminski (1870–1925) as its leading actor, the city became an important center of Yiddish theater.1 During the inter-war period, Warsaw’s Jewish population increased from 310,334 in 1921 to 368,394 in 1938, now constituting a third of the entire population.2 The city’s position as the largest and most important Yiddish cultural center became firmly established, and served as a Mecca for young Jews with artistic aspirations, many of them arriving from the provinces. They made pilgrimages to the literatn farayn (the Association of Jewish Writers and Journalists) at 13 Tlomackie Street to pay homage to their admired writers and to submit their first literary works, dreaming of gaining recognition as writers or perhaps landing a job in one of the daily Yiddish newspapers. Aspiring actors

1 For general information on the beginnings of the Yiddish cultural center in Warsaw, see: Stephen D. Corrsin, Warsaw Before the First World War: Poles and Jews in the Third City of the Russian Empire 1880 –1914 (New York 1989); Chone Shmeruk, “The Yiddish Press in Eastern Europe,” The Jewish Quarterly XXXIII no. 1/121 (1986): pp. 24–28; idem, “Aspects of the History of Warsaw as a Yiddish Literary Center”, Polin 3 (1988), 140–155; Piotr Wrobel, “Jewish Warsaw Before the First World War”, idem, 156–187. 2 Gabriela Zalewska, Ludnosc zydowska w Warszawie w okresie miedzywojennym [The Jewish People in Interwar Warsaw] (Warsaw: PWN, 1996) 53.

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joined Mikhael Vaykhert’s (1890–1967) Yiddishe dramatishe shul (Yiddish Dramatic School), and later the Yiddishe teater studye (Yiddish Theater Studio) in order to train as actors for the Yiddish art theaters, a formal training that was considered unnecessary for the many popular Yiddish theatrical troupes that functioned alongside the art houses, and were in fact much more popular with the theater-going public.3 Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904–1991)—Nobel prize laureate (1978) in literature, and one of the most prominent Yiddish writers in the 20th century—was among the young men who flocked to the capital. The descendant of rabbis and pious Jews, Bashevis had been initially brought to Warsaw by his parents at the age of four, but some years later, toward the end of the First World War, when hunger and living conditions became unbearable, he and his younger brother were taken back by their mother to Bilgoraj, her home town. In 1923, Bashevis returned to Warsaw as an independent young man, skeptical and doubtful regarding his religious faith and general worldview. By then his older brother, Israel Joshua Singer (1893–1944) had established for himself a reputation as an important Yiddish writer, and Isaac’s access to the Jewish literary milieu was thus relatively easy. Within a short while he gained recognition and status as a writer in his own right.4 In later years, in an effort to preserve the memory of Jewish life in Poland, Bashevis repeatedly described in great detail the Jewish literary life in Warsaw. His two works devoted entirely to the “Association of Jewish Writers and Journalists”,5 and his many autobiographical and works of fiction, offer an accurate portrait of the Jewish literary scene, and familiarize the reader with a variety of writers, journalists and cultural activists.

3 In 1935 there were six popular Jewish stages functioning in Warsaw (Venus, Scala, Centralna, Eldorado, Elizeum, Nowosci).. For detailed descriptions of the Yiddish theater in interwar Poland, see: Yitskhok Turkov-Grudberg, Yiddish teater in poyln [Yiddish Theater in Poland] (Warsaw: Yiddish-bukh, 1951); Mikhl Vaykhert, Zikhroynes—varshe [Memoirs – Warsaw] (Tel Aviv: Menorah, 1961); Yiddish teater in eyrope tsvishn beyde velt milkhomes [Yiddish Theater in Europe Between Two World Wars] 1st Vol. (New York 1969) 53–168; Nahma Sandrow, Vagabond Stars (New York: Harper and Row, 1996) 303–336. 4 More detailed biographical information see: Janet Hadda, Isaac Bashevis Singer—A Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). 5 Yitskhok Varshavski I. [= Bashevis Singer], “Der shrayber klub” [The Writers’ Club], Forverts 13 Jan. 1956–28 Dec. 1956, and Yitskhok Bashevis Zinger, “Figurn un epizodn fun literatn farayn” [Figures and Episodes from the Writers’ Club], Forverts 28 Jan. 1979–4 Jan. 1980.

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In contrast, the Yiddish theatre—which played a significant role in Warsaw’s cultural life—is hardly mentioned in Bashevis’ works. His work offers scant information on the Yiddish theater, its repertoire and its audience, and when a theatrical reference is given it is usually short, one-sided and reveals the author’s negative attitude toward the Yiddish stage.6 Despite their colorfulness, Jewish plays and players make only small and marginal appearances in his work. For example, in my survey of nine novels and some two hundred and fifty short stories authored by Bashevis Singer, I came across only ten names of Yiddish plays performed in Poland: Khinke pinke, Dos pintele yid (The Spark of Jewishness),7 Onkl sem (Uncle Sam),8 Prints chardash (Prince Chardash),9 Di terkishe khasene (The Turkish Wedding),10 Mirele efros (Mirele Efros), Zayn vaybs man (His Wife’s Husband),11 Khassye di yesoyme (Khassye the Orphan),12 Tzvey kunni leml (Two Kunni-Lemls), and Shulamis (Shulamith).13 Though the Yiddish stage in Poland offered a large range of original and translated plays, some of them of high literary merit, and hosted some of the best Yiddish troupes in the world, nearly all the plays that Bashevis mentions by name are associated with the popular theater, considered by many cultural activists as “Shund”.14 This is not accidental and bespeaks Bashevis’ overall low opinion of the Yiddish stage. Bashevis devoted much attention in his works to a rich gallery of female characters. It does not take much to realize that while he was greatly attracted to the new liberated Jewish woman, he had little respect for her, saving his genuine admiration for the traditional woman, for 6 For easier orientation in the different references, see the bibliography for a list of Bashevis’ works mentioned in this paper, also under I. Varshavski [= I. Bashevis Singer], “Der shrayber klub” (1956), and Yitskhok Bashevis Zinger, “Figurn un epizodn fun literatn farayn” (1979–80). If a reference is to a certain story in a book, only the name of the story will be mentioned. 7 “Der shrayber klub,” 2 Mar. 1956, and Shosha (1979) 62. 8 “Yarme un Keyle,” 17 Dec. 1976. 9 The Certificate (1992) 62. 10 “The Briefcase” (1974) 115. 11 Love and Exile (1985) XVIII; 162. 12 “A Peephole in the Gate” (1990) 98. 13 “Di gest,” 3 May 1972. 14 The source of the term shund, which played a crucial role in Yiddish cultural history, is the abattoir. The term originally designated the stench of an animal carcass after it had been skinned. In 19th-century Germany, shund was used in a literary context for a work of low artistic value that was considered morally harmful to its readers and therefore, it was often argued, ought to be banned. Since the end of the end of the 19th century this term was used in this context also in the Yiddish literary environment.

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which his mother served as prototype. In his memoirs he noted: “They [modern Jewish women] were amazingly like me—just as lecherous, deceitful, egotistical and eager for adventures”.15 A closer look at the actress characters that appear in his literary corpus makes it clear that his opinion of them was even more condescending. Of the ten actresses only one—the most talented—is loyal and devoted to her husband, even though he is treacherous and uncaring.16 All the other actresses are depicted as little-talented amateurs who have no morals and are willing to bed every theater director in order to get a part.17 Take, for example, Lena Stempler, who has come to Warsaw to study in a Polish dramatic studio in order “not to became a hanger-on in the Yiddish theater”.18 She falls in love with a Yiddish stage manager who destroys her life, and is haunted by rumors that she offered her body to a theater critic in exchange for a favourable review.19 Ethel Sirota, a less talented actress, sells herself willingly for a part.20 Although members of the Jewish Writers’ Club differ in regards to the merits of Liza Motzkin’s acting talent (the latter can be easily identified as the well-known actress Clara Segalovitch [1896–1943]); one thing about her is acknowledged by all, that her beauty can get her whatever she desires from the many lovers whom she changes “like gloves”.21 We learn that Mania, who is dreaming of becoming “a cheap operetta singer”,22 had sung lascivious songs in a Jewish night-club in Galicia before she was accepted to the Warsaw Opera choir. Her body, Bashevis tells us, “was nothing more than a piece of flesh for her to give away for the slightest favour, for a bit of flattery or for the mere curiosity of tasting another male”.23 Flora (the main character in Di gest) began her career as a prostitute in her youth,24 and even though she had never learned to read, became an actress on the Yiddish stage. Flora marries a pimp who is unaware of her background. She goes with him to Buenos Aires, where they open

Love and Exile 109. “The Manuscript” (1980). 17 “The Impresario”, “A Peephole in the Gate” (1990), “One night in Brazil” (1980), “The Conference”(1989), “Di Gest” (1972). 18 “One Night in Brazil” (1980) 9. 19 Ibid. 5. 20 “A Peephole in the Gate” (1990). 21 “Der shrayber klub”, 13 Apr. 1956. 22 “The Impresario” (1990). 23 Ibid. 136. 24 Another actress supposed to be a prostitute was Malka Lemer (“Der shrayber klub,” 20 Jul. 1956). 15 16

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a bag-factory and become what seems like a respectable couple. Yet when she goes back to Warsaw for a visit she reunites with the actor who years earlier had taken her out of the brothel, and he convinces her to go on stage again—a destructive step that makes her feel worthless, and brings about the failure and subsequent termination of both her marriage and her relationship with this actor. The most complex of the actress characters is Betty Slonim in Shosha. Unlike the others, she is educated, is an avid reader and we are told that she even played on the Russian stage, a mark of genuine artistry in the Yiddish theatrical world. She is described as a “superb actress”25 who “despises the ‘dance, song and strut’ of the Yiddish theater in America”26 into which she can never fit although she does adopt all its external mannerisms.27 She makes it clear that she cannot stand the company of male actors, whom she regards as bores, and dislikes her female colleagues, who are jealous of her attractiveness to men.28 Still she cannot resist the scheme set by Bashevis and becomes the lover of an elderly and rich theater “angel” (Sam Dreiman). While in Warsaw, she also conducts a passionate love affair with Aron Greidiger—the novel’s narrator, who is the literary stand-in for Bashevis. Betty Slonim is an outsider everywhere, except in Warsaw, which captivates her despite the hardship and dangerous conditions that precede the outbreak of World War II. At times thoughts of suicide cross her mind, but there is always something that stops her. At the end, even her marriage to an American gentile colonel fails to save her from her inner turmoil. She finally kills herself. Male actors are even rarer in Bashevis’s works. We are told that Fritz Bander from Berlin (Shosha) and Jacques Kohn (A Friend of Kafka) had quite successful careers in Central Europe. Bander emigrated to Warsaw with his Christian sweetheart because of growing anti-semitism in Germany, but failed in his attempt to resume his acting career. Jacques Kohn moved to Warsaw when his career was already in decline, but for a while he managed to perform on stage. In the early 1930s, Bander and Kohn spend their time at the Writers’ Club recounting all their love affairs and romantic adventures. These characters are based on real personalities. Jacques Kohn is a replica of the well-known Viennese 25 26 27 28

Shosha 47. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 109. Ibid. 34–35.

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actor Yitskhok Jacques Levi, who had a close relationship with Franz Kafka and corresponded with him for some time. Chatting with his young friend (Bashevis) at the Writers’ Club, Kohn, the actor’s literary simulacrum, mocks Kafka for praising the popular Yiddish theater and for what he described as Kafka’s falling “madly in love with a ham actress”,29 who had nothing to offer “except a body”.30 Thinking about it makes Kohn “ashamed for man and his illusions”.31 Another actor mentioned by Bashevis is the less famous, but equally womanizing, Fayvele Shekhter (Di Gest.) In the first decade of the 20th century, Shekhter played on the Yiddish popular stages of Warsaw and in New York, where he was the consummate comedian, who “after every third word of his the audience used to burst into laughter”.32 He confesses that he never read his role and on the stage just said whatever came into his mind, much to the delight of the audience. Shekhter is ashamed of what he did, but says he could not resist the impulse. He was once offered a part in a better-quality, literary play, but when he read the script—“the scribble,” in his words—he immediately refused to do it, to the amazement of the producers. Fayvl Shekhter claims that there have been no true Yiddish playwrights, and that those who did exist were deficient. Hence, he says, the so-called “literary play” ought to be thrown into the fire.33 In his post-war novel Shadows on the Hudson, Bashevis described in some detail Yasha Kotik, a well-known comedian who for many years had played in Berlin, then fled to the Soviet Union, where he survived untold trouble and finally managed to emigrate to the United States. Kotik looked for parts in Hollywood and on Broadway (and finally got them), but at the same time, was willing to play on the Yiddish stage, though he had little respect for it.34 Before the war, Kotik had married a wealthy Polish Jewish girl, but then destroyed her life. Now in New York, he met her again and wanted to re-marry her. He ws described by one of his acquaintances as “one of the most depraved brutes I’ve ever encountered in my life [. . .] He’s a psychopath. He comes from the “A friend of Kafka” (1970) 6. Ibid. 13. 31 Ibid. 6. For more about Kafka’s affair with the Yiddish actress Manya Tshisik, see: Evelyn Torton Beck, Kafka and the Yiddish Theater (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1971) 12–30, 19–20, 17–20. 32 “Di gest,” 6 May 1972. 33 Ibid. 12 May 1972. 34 Shadows on the Hudson (1998), 250, 341. 29 30

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vilest and meanest, from the lowest dregs of the earth”.35 Elsewhere, Bashevis added to this description: “He was always emotionally drunk [. . .] somehow he had been born drunk”.36 Fayvl Shekhter explains that in America, you win over the women in the Yiddish audience by bringing tears to their eyes with the recitation of the obligatory prayer for the dead, the “Kaddish”, and with the introduction of a young orphan girl who is getting married. In mockery, he says that in one and the same Yiddish play one can find both a cantor (“Khazn”) who becomes an opera singer, and an uncle who is thought to have been killed in a pogrom and turns out to be the owner of a gold-mine in Alaska. The uncle dances in a pair of gold boots and donates a million dollars for a synagogue, dedicated to the memory of his dead mother.37 The evaluation of the Yiddish theatre in America offered by Betty Slonim and Sam Dreiman is not any better. Betty describes the plays as mainly “dance, song and strut”,38 filled with “stale jokes and . . . sixty-year-old yentas [who] play eighteenyear-old girls”. Watching such fare twice a week, she says, caused her “physical pain”.39 Sam Dreiman, a sponsor of this sort of theatrical fare, who according to Slonim “never read anything”,40 stands for the common audience and rejects every attempt to produce materials that might not prove popular with the public, and that are not written in simple everyday language. Dreiman’s ideal was, indeed, the kind of theater that contemporary Jewish common audiences wanted to attend. The story tells us that a rather successful director by the name Margolis failed in convincing a wealthy American Jewish businessman to invest in a serious literary

Ibid. 349 ff. Ibid. 494. 37 “Di gest,” 12 May 1972. According to the lame Max (in “Yarme un keyle,” 24 Dec. 1976), in the same period of time (the beginning of the 20th century) the Jews of New York already mocked this kind of (shund, sentimental) plays, but their counterparts in Warsaw were still delighted to attend them. Bashevis himself did not have any better description of the Yiddish theater of that period in essays he wrote for The New York Times on the history and character of the Yiddish theater (“Once on Second Avenue There Lived a Yiddish Theater [Did it Really Die?]” 17 Apr. 1966; “Yiddish Theater Lives Despite the Past” 20 Jan. 1985), and in a report by Elenore Lester, “At 71 Isaac Bashevis Singer Makes His Broadway Debut”, ibid., 26 Oct. 1975, where it is emphasized that “Singer sees himself as still only on the threshold of playwriting [. . .]”. 38 Shosha 32. 39 Ibid. 122. 40 Ibid. 225. 35 36

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Yiddish theater in Warsaw.41 In his frustration, Margolis proclaimed on another occasion: “A [serious] theater could exist, but the public wants shund (trash). Give them ‘Khinke pinke’”.42 In a story bearing his name, Sam Palka, a wealthy man who supported the Yiddish theater in New York, tells Bashevis that, in the old days when he hardly earned a living, he used to buy popular Yiddish books and go to the theater, where he idolized the actors, for when they spoke “each word had to do with love”.43 Similarly, Sam, the hero of another story, “A Peephole in the Gate,” recalls the “good old days” in New York, when as a young carter, he used to watch like many other young Jewish immigrants “King David, Bathsheba, the Destruction of the Temple—real history!” at the Yiddish theater.44 A similar description of the Yiddish theater in Warsaw in the thirties is given by Khayimke Tshentshiner in Shosha, where he confesses that every time he and Celia go to the Yiddish theater they “vow it’s the last”.45 Morris Feitelzohn, also in Shosha, summarized the content of Yiddish plays in one sentence: “Today’s Jews like three things—sex, Torah, and revolution, all mixed together”.46 In his memoirs, Bashevis claimed that the plays modern Jewish women saw (as well as the novels and magazines they read) “all mocked the husband [. . .] and glorified the lover who got everything for free”.47 In The Penitent, Yoysef Shapiro recites almost the same words and concludes: “Making a joke out of the family has to bring lawlessness and destruction”.48 According to Shapiro, the advertisements for “Shund plays” in Tel Aviv weren’t different from those in “Paris, Madrid, Lisbon and Rome”.49 What about the play going public? At the beginning of the 20th century, according to Bashevis, in Argentina Jews of every age and standing attended the Yiddish theater. Bashevis claimed that in America and in Poland it was mainly youngsters: workers, apprentices, shop assistants, salesmen and maids who went to the theater. As they were not religiously

“Der shrayber klub,” 2 Mar. 1956. Ibid. 20 Jul. 1956. 43 “Sam Palka and David Vishkover” (1975) 135. 44 “A Peephole in the Gate” (1990) 107. 45 Shosha 62. 46 Ibid. 36. See also Bashevis’s essays in The New York Times (note 37 above), in which he writes about “dynamite” or “dramatic effects” the audience had to be given in order to keep them quiet and concentrated. 47 Love and Exile 110. 48 This phrase was not translated into English and it appears only in the Yiddish version (Der bal-tshuve, Tel Aviv 1979) 17. 49 The Penitent (1986) 76. 41 42

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observant and did not mind, they often went to the theatre on the Sabbath afternoon, Saturday being their only free day from work.50 For many, this was an opportunity to “widen their horizons”. For example, Maks Barabander, the main hero of Scum, did not have any formal education. He taught himself to write Yiddish by reading newspapers and popular novels. We are told: “He picked up modern expressions from the Yiddish theater and from listening to lecturers”.51 Sonya, a Warsaw acquaintance who had fallen in love with the young Bashevis, was a salesgirl in a women’s underwear shop and a housemaid in the shop owners’ flat. Bashevis described her in his memoirs: “She thought herself as enlightened [. . .] The Yiddish theater, the songs sung there, the comedies and tragedies performed, and the speeches the heroes spoke—this constituted all the culture Sonya had; it was the source of her education”.52 Sonya tried to take Bashevis with her to the theater but he refused.53 He agreed to go to the cinema (for the first time in his life), where he saw The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, which did not leave much of an impression on him.54 On the other hand, Edusha, a distant relative of Bashevis (for whom he had more respect) was fond of modern literature. She knew Zusskind Eikhl, (more commonly known now as Peretz Markish), and, unable to afford an opera ticket, she sneaked into the Opera House nevertheless.55 Some young women from traditional homes strove to attend the Yiddish theater as a symbolic act of modernity. Such was the case with Flora in Di Gest, Hinde-Ester Singer (Bashevis’s sister in Love and Exile)56 and Tzirele—her prototype in Scum.57 The more educated Bashevis’s young characters are, the more likely they are to go either to the high-quality Polish theater in Warsaw or to the English theater in New York.58

See for example: The Certificate (1992) 22; Scum (1991) 132; “Sam Palka and David Vishkover” (1975) 135; “A Peephole in the Gate” (1990) 98, 107. 51 Scum 180. 52 The Certificate 22. 53 Ibid. 62. According to Elenore Lester Bashevis kept away from the theater up to the age of 24. 54 Ibid. 93. 55 Ibid. 46, 69–70. 56 Love and Exile XVII–XVIII. 57 Scum 47, 111. 58 See for example: The Family Moskat (1967) 127–128; The Certificate 69–70; “A Peephole in the Gate” 112. 50

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Members of the underworld constituted a different and significant type of audience both in Warsaw and in Buenos Aires. According to Bashevis,59 many were prostitutes and pimps. In Yarme un Keyle there is a detailed description of various criminals attending the theater both for entertainment and social purposes, i.e. meeting friends and enemies.60 We are told that in turn-of-the-20th-century Buenos Aires, pimps “were the bosses in the Yiddish theater. When they didn’t like a play it was immediately taken off the boards”.61 This explains the theatrical partnership of Maks Shpindler (Di Gest) and Maks Barabander (Scum), two shadowy characters who run suspicious businesses. In the light of what has been said up to now, it is not surprising to hear Morris Feitelzohn—a character highly appreciated by Arn Greidiger in Shosha—make the provocative generalization: “Theater is trash by definition”.62 Thus, it is also hardly unexpected that Greidiger fails in his attempt to write a play according to the instructions he got from Betty Slonim and Sam Dreiman, especially after his constant claim: “I’m not a playwright”.63 On various occasions Bashevis reiterated his unflattering view of theater and cinema as corrupters of literary works. Even Maurice Schwartz’s highly praised theatrical production of his brother I. J. Singer’s Yoshe Kalb did not satisfy him, and he labeled Schwartz “a kitsch director.”64 He regarded directors and producers as spoilers of whatever materials fall in their hands,65 and argued that the Yiddish intelligentsia looked upon nearly everything that was created for the Yiddish stage as kitsch.66 It is well known that he himself, though involved in the

59 See also: A. Mukdoni, “Zikhroynes fun a yidishn teater kritiker,” Arkhiv far der geshikhte fun yidishn teater un drame (Vilne – New York 1930) 367–368. 60 “Yarme un keyle” 23 Dec. 1976, 24 Dec. 1976, 31 Dec. 1976. 61 “Di gest” 13 May 1972; “The Colony” 209. 62 Shosha 36. 63 Ibid., 35, 49. It might be suggested that Graydiger’s failure to write a play in Shosha implies Bashevis’ unfulfilled attempt to dramatize Der sotn in goray (Satan in Goray) (see n. 70 below). 64 “My brother and I: A Conversation with Isaac Bashevis Singer,” Encounter 2/LII (1979): 23. It is noteworthy that four years earlier in a report by Elenore (note 37) Bashevis recalled Yoshe kalb as “the first really good play he saw.” 65 Ibid. See also: Grace Farrell, ed., Isaac Bashevis Singer: Conversations ( Jackson: University of Mississippi Press 1992) 178. 66 Isaac Bashevis Singer, “Once on Second Avenue There Lived a Yiddish Theater”, The New York Times 17 Apr. 1966.

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dramatization of some of his works, was unhappy with the results.67 As a gifted and self-sufficient writer, Bashevis rejected any attempt of others to intervene in his works. He declared: “I only feel about a work that it’s mine if I write it . . . I love the creativity which belongs to one man”.68 Through his long and prosperous career as a writer, Bashevis attempted probably only once to write an original play, but the work was never published or staged. Still, Bashevis did try to adapt some of his works for the Yiddish stage, but none of these adaptations was actually performed.69 What was the cause for Bashevis’ hostility toward the theater in general and the Yiddish theater in particular? It is probably goes deeper than his failure at playwriting and dramatization and his dissatisfaction with the results of his works that had been adapted for stage and screen. It seems more likely that Bashevis’ antagonism resulted from traditional concepts he had absorbed in his youth. In the same way that he rejected the theoretical concept of a modern liberated woman although he was very attracted to her, he was also unable to accept the theater, which for many generations was considered alien to traditional Judaism. In his memoirs In My Father’s Court Bashevis recalls an event when a troupe of actors appeared in Bilgoray and his grandfather, the town’s rabbi, “went to the barn where they were performing and

67 Isaac Bashevis Singer and Richard Burgin, Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer (New York: Doubleday, 1985) 143–144. For more details on Bashevis and various dramatizations of his works, including the problematic production of Yentl the Yeshiva Boy, see Hadda, 185–206. 68 Farrell 178. 69 The first attempt to dramatize a work, with the encouragement and participation of Yoel Entin, was Der sotn in goray (Satan in Goray) (sometime between the end of 1933 and the beginning of 1935, and prior to Bashevis’ emmigration) as shown by Chone Shmeruk, “Der proyekt tsu instsenizirn yitskhok bashevises ‘der sotn in goray’” [The Project to Dramatize Isaac Bashevis’ ‘Satan in Goray’], Yerushalaymer almanakh 25 (1996), 264–269. Another early dramatization attempt was that of Bashevis’ first serialised novel in Forverts (5 Oct. 1935–22 Feb. 1936), Der zindiker moshiakh ( yankef frank) [The Sinner/sinful Messiah: Jacob Frank] as shown by Avraham Novershtern, Kesem hadimdumim: apokalipsa umeshikhiyut besifrut yiddish [The Lure of Twilight: Apocalypse and Messianism in Yiddish Literature] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2002) 370–371. Apart from these there are some other, later, adaptations in Yiddish of works like: Der roye ve-eyne nire [The One that Can See and Can’t Be Seen]; Di bal [The Ball]; Got un opgot [God and Idol]; Di likvidatsye [The Liquidation]; Sam palka [Sam Palka]; A parti in miami [A Party in Miami]; and Ven shlemiel iz gegangen keyn varshe [When Shlumiel Went to Warsaw]. I wish to thank Dr. Joseph Sherman, who worked on Bashevis’s personal archives for providing me this information, which is still provisional and needs to be verified in the archives themselves.

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drove them out along with the audience”.70 In his autobiography Love and Exile, he tells of an argument between his father and brother in which the father referred to the theater as a place where “charlatans sit all day long, eat pork, play around with loose women, and speak profanities”.71 Elsewhere in this book he writes about his father’s visit to Warsaw, which must have taken place in the early nineteen-thirties. The father asked his son for the meaning of the title, “His Wife’s Husband”, that he had seen on a theatrical street poster. In response to Bashevis’ explanation, the father commented: “Everything the Mishna predicted has come true. High time the redemption came, high time”.72 Reading Bashevis’s few descriptions of the Yiddish theater, its actors and audience, which were written many decades after the events in the above-mentioned anecdotes occurred, one cannot ignore the echoes of the words and deeds of previous generations. Bibliography Bashevis Singer, Isaac. “The Briefcase.” A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1973. 110–134. ——. The Certificate. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1992. ——. “The Colony.” A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories, New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1970. 205–218. ——. “The Conference.” The Image and Other Stories. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1989. 204–210. ——. The Family Moskat. New York: Bantam, 1967. ——. “Figurn un epizodn fun literatn farayn.” (Figures and Episodes from the Writers’ Club) Forverts 28 Jun 1979–4 Jan 1980. [Yiddish] ——. “A Friend of Kafka.” A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1970. 3–16. ——. “Di gest” (The Guests). Forverts 17 Apr.–18 Aug. 1972. [Yiddish] ——. “The Impresario.” The Death of Methuselah and Other Stories, London: Penguin, 1990. 131–145. ——. In My Father’s Court. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1966. ——. Love and Exile. London: Cape 1985. ——. “The Manuscript.” Old Love. London: Cape, 1980. 221–231. ——. “My brother and I: A Conversation with Isaac Bashevis Singer.” Encounter 2/LII, (1979). ——. “One Night in Brazil.” Old Love. London: Cape, 1980. 3–20.

In My Father’s Court 46. Love and Exile XVIII. Bashevis needed to mention his father’s idea of the theater also in his essay in The New York Times, 20 Jan. 1985 (see note 37) and in Lester, The New York Times, 26 Oct. 1975. 72 Love and Exile 162. 70 71

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——. “Once on Second Avenue There Lived a Yiddish Theater.” The New York Times 17 Apr. 1966: 21. ——. “A Peephole in the Gate.” The Death of Methuselah and Other Stories. London: Penguin, 1990. 93–120. ——. The Penitent. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986. ——. “Runners to Nowhere.” The Death of Methuselah and Other Stories. London: Penguin, 1990. 164–175. ——. “Sam Palka and David Vishkover.” Passion and Other Stories. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1975. 133–147. ——. Scum. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1991. ——. Shadows on the Hudson. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1998. ——. Shosha. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979. ——. “Yarme un keyle” (Yarme and Keyle). Forverts 9 Dec.–13 Oct. 1977. [Yiddish] ——. “Yiddish Theater Lives Despite the Past.” New York Times 20 Jan. 1985: Hl. ——. and Richard Burgin. Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer. New York: Doubleday, 1985. Beck, Evelyn Torton. Kafka and the Yiddish Theater. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1971. Corrsin, Stephen D. Warsaw Before the First World War: Poles and Jews in the Third City of the Russian Empire 1880–1914. Boulder: East European Monographs, 1989. Farrell, Grace, ed., Isaac Bashevis Singer: Conversations. Jackson: University of Mississippi, 1992. Hadda, Janet. Isaac Bashevis Singer—A Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Lester, Elenore. “At 71 Isaac Bashevis Singer Makes His Broadway Début.” New York Times 26 Oct. 1975: 131. Mukdoni, A[leksander]. “Zikhroynes fun a yidishn teater kritiker.” Arkhiv far der geshikhte fun yidishn teater un drame, ed. Jacob Shatski. Vilna-New York: Yidisher visnshaftlekher institute, teater-muzey, i.n. Ester-Rokhl Kaminska, 1930. 367–368. [Yiddish] Novershtern, Avraham. Kesem hadimdumim: apokalipsa umeshikhiyut besifrut yiddish (The Lure of Twilight: Apocalypse and Messianism in Yiddish Literature). Jerusalem: Mages, 2002. [Hebrew] Sandrow, Nahma. Vagabond Stars. New York: Harper and Row, 1977; Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1996. Shmeruk, Chone. “The Yiddish Press in Eastern Europe.” The Jewish Quarterly XXXIII 1/121 (1986): 24–28. ——. “Aspects of the History of Warsaw as a Yiddish Literary Center”, Polin 3 (1988): 140–155. ——. “Der proyekt tsu instsenizirn yitskhok bashevises ‘der sotn in goray.’ ” (The Project to Dramatize Isaac Bashevis’ ‘Satan in Goray’). Yerushalaymer almanakh 25 (1996): 264–269. [Yiddish] Turkov-Grudberg, Yitskhok. Yidish teater inpoyln (Yiddish Theater in Poland). Warsaw: Yidish-bukh, 1951. [Yiddish] Varshavski, I. [I. Bashevis Singer] “Der shrayber klub.” (The Writers’ Club). Forverts 13 Jan. 1956–28 Dec. 1956. [Yiddish] Vaykhert, Mikhl, Zikhroynes—varshe (Memoirs – Warsaw). Tel Aviv: Menorah, 1961. [Yiddish] ——. Yidish teater in eyrope tsvishn beyde velt milkhomes (Yiddish Theater in Europe Between Two World Wars), vol. I, New York 1969. [Yiddish] 2 vols. Wrobel, Piotr, “Jewish Warsaw Before the First World War.” Polin 3 (1988): 156–187. Zalewska, Gabriela. Ludnosc zydowska w Warszawie w okresie miedzywojennym (The Jewish People in Interwar Warsaw). Warsaw: PWN, 1996. [Polish]

SECTION TWO

BETWEEN JEWS AND POLES

JÓZIO GROJSESZYK: A JEWISH CITY SLICKER ON THE WARSAW POPULAR STAGE Michael C. Steinlauf Some fifteen years ago, while writing a dissertation on the Polish-Jewish dramatist Mark Arnshteyn (Andrzej Marek), I came across some tantalizing references to the work of a playwright named Feliks Schober. According to Witold Filler, the historian of the nineteenth-century Warsaw popular stage, Schober (Szober, 1846–79) was the author of several celebrated plays featuring a character named Józio Grojseszyk.1 The first of these, Podróż po Warszawie (A Journey Through Warsaw), was first staged in September 1876, at the Tivoli theatre2 (the same year that Avrom Goldfadn launched the first professional Yiddish theatre in Jassy, Rumania). Józio, whose Yiddish-Polish surname means big chic, is apparently the ultimate urban connoisseur, a high-spirited wheelerdealer who knows all the ins and outs of contemporary Warsaw night life. Józio was paired with his opposite, a country squire named Barnaba Fafuła, a native of the village of Woli Ogon (Ox tail). The premiere of Podróż po Warszawie drew much attention and attracted an audience of 2,000, doubling the theatre’s previous attendance record. While theatre critics railed against Schober’s supposedly message-less entertainment,3 Warsaw horse-cab drivers would ask the actor who played Barnaba, “Where to, Sir Fafuła?” [“Gdzie mam jechać, jaśnie panie Fafuła?”], while Jews would point out “Józio” on the street and exclaim, “Kikste, Józio!” [“Look, Józio!” in Warsaw Yiddish].4 Schober capitalized on his success with a sequel entitled Barnaba Fafuła i Józio Grojseszyk na wystawie paryskiej (Fafuła and Grojseszyk at the Paris

1 Witold Filler, Melpomena i piwo (Warsaw: Pańtstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1960) 121–28. 2 Podróż po Warszawie: Operetka komiczna w 7-miu obrazach (Warsaw, 1878). 3 Filler 128. 4 Kolce, September 23, 1876, cited from Filler 123.

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[World] Fair), which he supposedly wrote in two days.5 In addition, Schober authored two other works, Ulica Marszałkowska [Marszałkowska Street] and Piekło [Hell],6 but it was Barnaba and Józio who apparently rooted themselves in the public imagination: for several decades after their author’s early death, these characters reappeared on Polish stages in revivals of his plays as well as in numerous sequels and adaptations ( Józio Grojseszyk Across the Ocean, Józio Grojseszyk Gets Married, etc.).7 A photograph from about the turn of the century shows us Józio, played by the famous Ludwik Solski, posing in a plaid suit, holding up a massive walking stick and an enormous cigar.8 In Warsaw, Barnaba and Józio even materialized in the traditional miniature puppet plays known as szopki that were performed in Catholic homes at Christmas time.9 In 1924, the celebrated director Leon Schiller revived Podróż po Warszawie in one of the so-called monumental productions of his Teatr Bogusławskiego in Warsaw. But thereafter Józio Grojseszyk seems to have faded into obscurity. To what extent was Józio a Jewish character, and what can his popularity on the Polish stage teach us about Polish-Jewish relations in the burgeoning metropolis of Warsaw in the second half of the nineteenth century? Such questions had to wait until I was able to obtain copies of Schober’s plays, since the historian Filler, in a manner typical of most Polish scholars under communism, does not directly address the Jewish context of these plays, but rather only hints at it, or rather, winks at it. This is symptomatic. There are great silences about these issues in most of the available historical material, memoirs as well as histories, Jewish as well as Polish. Much of my research, therefore, has consisted of teasing out some sense of the variegated cultural borderlands that accompanied the development of both Polish and Jewish theatre in Poland in modern times.

5 Barnaba Fafuła i Józio Grojseszyk na wystawie paryskiej: Śmiesznostka w 5 aktach (Warsaw, 1878). 6 Ulica Marszałkowska (after a fashionable Warsaw street), a re-working of a play by J. Zapalski, and Piekło: Operetka komiczno-fantastyczna w 5 aktach (Warsaw, 1880) were first staged in 1879. 7 Filler 128. 8 Solski, Wspomnienia, 1855–1893 (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1955) 206. And see also Adam Grzymała-Siedlecki, Świat aktorski moich czasów (Warsaw: Pańtstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1957) 246–47. 9 Jolanta Czubek, “Szopka warszawska w XIX wieku,” Pamietnik Teatralny, 1968, 76.

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Figure 3. The celebrated Polish actor Ludwik Solski (1855–1954) as Józio Grojseszyk (from Solski’s memoirs, Wspomnienia, 1855–1893, Kraków, 1955).

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Before turning to Schober’s plays themselves, let us make use of some of this research as a context for the present discussion. The canonized Polish theatre of the nineteenth century, unlike its western European counterparts, owed little to popular traditions. Created by the last Polish king on the eve of the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, by the second half of the nineteenth century the State Theatre, housed in a huge building rising above Warsaw’s Theatre Square, performed a repertoire overwhelmingly influenced by French models that primarily attracted Polish high society. This theatre, it must nonetheless be emphasized, was the only Polish institution untouched by russification, and in the aftermath of the failed Polish uprising of 1863, it was only on the stage of the State Theatre that the Polish language was permitted public expression. Paradoxically perhaps, considering its repertoire and audience, this theatre became an object of enormous public preoccupation. Though the European theatre of the nineteenth century was strongly defined by star worship, the fervor surrounding Polish theatre concerned not only its stars, but also something larger. Polish theatre was the incarnation of a national mission; in the words of one writer, it was “a holy inheritance,” “a priestly mission,” “a national pantheon of virtue.”10 Until the late 1860s, the State Theatre was a protected monopoly, but this status could not be maintained as Warsaw transformed itself into a center of new urban culture. In the aftermath of the 1863 uprising, Warsaw began to experience tumultuous economic growth that filled the city with great numbers of emancipated peasants, ruined gentry and Jews from throughout Russia and Poland. In the period from 1865 to 1909, the population of Warsaw rose from 244,000 to 764,000, its Jewish portion from 77,000 to 282,000.11 These masses sought work, but in their free hours sought inexpensive entertainment. Beginning in 1868 and continuing for some forty years thereafter, on warm summer evenings these crowds flooded the streets and frequented a new form of entertainment, the so-called garden theatres [teatrzyki ogródkowe], located in the courtyards of restaurants and cafés.

10 J. Kościelski, “Prolog na otwarcie Teatru Polskiego w Poznaniu,” “Proscenium”— Teatr Polski 1875–1965 (Poznań: Pańtstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1965) 54, as cited in Stanisław Marczak-Oborski, Teatr w Polsce 1918–1939; Wielkie ośrodki (Warsaw: Pańtstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1984) 7. 11 Maria Nietyksza, Rozwój miast i aglomeracji miejsko-przemysłowych w Królestwie Polskim, 1865–1914 (Warsaw, 1986) 115, 217.

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By 1876, there were twenty such theatres in Warsaw; in the years following, as many as thirty. At first, their audience consisted primarily of artisans and their families. Soon, however, they began to attract a more upscale audience as well. Seating began to reflect class divisions, with wealthier patrons in armchairs and the poorer clientele standing behind wooden barriers. The repertoire changed somewhat as well. Plays which premiered in the State Theatre were revived in the gardens, and occasionally a popular garden theatre hit made it to the State Theatre. Still, most of the garden theatre repertoire continued to consist of farce, operetta and cancan. As the press decried the “immorality” of the garden theatres,12 its stars, like those of the State Theatre, became the object of public fascination, but in this case, typically of a prurient sort. By the mid-nineteenth century, Jews were a fixture in the audiences of the State Theatre. A new class of Jewish financiers and merchants, often patrons of Polish literature and art, filled the theatre’s front seats and avidly participated in the so-called theatremania of fashionable Warsaw. In the upper balcony, known as “paradise,” Yiddish-speaking Jews sat alongside vociferous contingents of students and artisans. These Jewish audiences found more attractive entertainment in the garden theatres. An excellent description of the ambience of the garden theatres, which at once makes explicit reference to the large-scale presence of Jews, is offered by novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz in a feuilleton written in 1875. His account is worth citing in full: These theatres are peculiarly enticing and seductive to our public. How much freedom there is in all this and how colorful! Theatre and bazaar, drama and cigarettes, scenic enchantment and starry night overhead— what contradictory elements. In the chairs, patrons with hats pushed to the back of their heads; behind the barrier, the public: artless, impetuous, fascinated, constantly calling: “Louder! louder!” at interesting moments not stirring from their places even in a downpour, prone to applause and impatient. Finally, what a mixture! Young gentlemen who have come expressly for the radiant eyes of Miss Czesia [Czapska, a contemporary heart-throb]. They converse of course in French, while Prince Lolo, unrivalled in the realm of chic, wipes his opera classes, and the “divine”

12 See, for example, Henryk Sienkiewicz’s remarks in “Sprawy bieżAce,” Niwa, 8 (1875): 451–58, reprinted in his Sprawy bieżAce (Warsaw: Pańtstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1950) 215; and in “Chwila obecna,” Gazeta Polska, 1875, no. 198, reprinted in his Chwila obecna (Warsaw: Pańtstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1950) v. 2, 120–22. And see also Filler’s citations from the contemporary press, 236–37.

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michael c. steinlauf Comte Joujou grasps one leg and crosses it over the other, thereby permitting the rabble to marvel at his genuine fil d’Ecosse stockings; then several gentry of bronzed face and serene glance “my-dear-sir” each other about the price of wool instead of the play, and crops instead of actors. Further a group of counting-house clerks in collars which can only be seen in the Journal Amusant converse softly, and only occasionally can one overhear in the “national langauge” the phrases: “żewu zasiur, Michasz” or “antrnusuadi, Staszu!”13 Behind the barrier one hears the dialect of Franciszkaner Gasse [i.e., Yiddish].14 There too ladies of the demi-monde swish their dresses, and chattering, dart flashing looks from darkly painted eyes. Elsewhere several artisans argue with a Jew [żydek] about a spot near a pillar; overhead the leaves of trees rustle, from the snack bar threatening exhortations; in a word: a mixture of voices, languages, social classes, manners, moods; a veritable Tower of Babel of people linked only by the hope of relaxation, freedom and entertainment.15

The Jewish presence in this description is striking: the sound of Yiddish is the first thing Sienkiewicz mentions when he turns to the area behind the partition, and two of the three elements which make up his description of that scene concern Jews. Moreover, his concluding lines perfectly characterize the special context within which powerful barriers could disappear, and masses of Poles and Jews come into temporary but regular contact. It is noteworthy that this same citation appears in the work of a Polish theatre historian, but with all the references to Jews omitted.16 Jews were also increasingly evident on the stage, at first as musicians, gradually in singing and acting roles as well. The most celebrated Polish actor of the nineteenth century, Bogumił Dawison, was the son of a Warsaw Jewish innkeeper. In the 1880s, after Avrom Goldfaden‘s theatre came to Warsaw, numerous Jewish performers of the garden theatre stage made their way to Yiddish theatre. Above all, however, Polish stages were filled with imaginary Jews of various sorts. Most deeply rooted in theatrical convention was the figure of the comical little Jew (żydek), grimacing, dancing and singing, babbling a stylized Polish-Jewish jargon, and endlessly exclaiming “aj waj!” On garden theatre stages, such “Iceks,” “Bereks” and “Moszeks” were ever

A parody of polonized French: “Je vous assure,” “Entre nous soit dit.” Germanizing, that is, “yiddishizing” the name “Franciszkańska,” the name of a main street in the Jewish quarter, drives home the point. 15 Gazeta Polska, 115 (1875); cited from his Chwila obecna, v. 1, 171–72. 16 Zygmunt Szweykowski, “Teatrzyki ogródkowe w Warszawie,” Pamietnik Teatralny (1958): 438. 13 14

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present. Increasingly they were joined by a more contemporary figure, that of the assimilating Jewish banker or industrialist. While the latter was often also the butt of laughter, his presence served other functions as well, linked to profoundly ambiguous Polish feelings about the nature of modernity. Most often seen as the corrupter of an idyllic feudal past, this Jew also represented, after all, the forces of “progress.” These various stage Jews, be they Iceks or Moneybags, reflected a larger political context. In the period after the 1863 uprising, the Polish intelligentsia began to develop modern notions of national identity, expanding the idea of “Polishness” by turning first of all to the peasants as partners in building a Polish nation. Some sought even greater inclusiveness, mobilizing women, Germans, and Jews as well. Others sought a more exclusionary identity based in Polish ethnicity, Roman Catholicism, and hostility to minorities. By the end of the century, these tendencies developed into political ideologies that would shape Polish national consciousness in the twentieth century. But in the 1870s, antipathy to Jews was chiefly associated with hostility to modernity. Conservative critics, seeking to reform the peasants but little else, argued for turning the garden stages into a “folk theatre” [teatr ludowy] that would function as a “school of life.”17 A genre of plays appeared in which the heroes were landowners and peasants oppressed by loathsome Jewish and German speculators. This development inspired the following “recipe for folk plays” in the Warsaw press: “Take a female boozer and a peasant with bad instincts, add to this a scoundrelous Jewish tavern keeper, mix together with the kindly oldest patriarch in the village, baste with a sauce of pseudo-poetic bucolic idyll, sprinkle everything with spells, prayer, wonders, and you will have a folk play.”18 One of the most popular of such plays, Władysław Ludwik Anczy’s Emigracja chłopska [Peasant Emigration], premiered at the Tivoli just prior to Podróż po Warszawie. Schober’s plays represent a very different world. The plots are minimal; they function primarily as devices on which to hang singing, dancing, tableaus and scenic effects. In Podróż po Warszawie, Barnaba Fafuła, his battle-axe of a wife Kunegunda, daughters Kizia and Kocia, the governess Mademoiselle Chiffon, various servants, and Barnaba’s agent

17 Konstanty Tatarkiewicz, “Kilka słów w sprawie letnich teatrów ogródkowych,” Kłosy, 13 June 1871, cited in Filler 235. 18 Tygodnik Illustrowany, 9 July 1881, cited from Filler 147.

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Szmuł the Jew, set out for Warsaw. They go, according to Kunegunda, in order to “sacrifice for progress”,19 experience the pleasures of Warsaw, and find wealthy husbands for their daughters. The girls have no dowries; indeed, to finance the trip, Barnaba keeps selling pieces of the family forest to the Jew Jankiel. As they arrive at the Warsaw train station, they are immediately spotted by Józio Grojseszyk and his buddies Edward, a Pole, and Wilhelm, a German, who think they have stumbled on the rich brides they have been dreaming of. While Edward and Wilhelm spirit the girls away, Józio keeps Barnaba busy by supplying him with a succession of women. At the end of the play, the Fafuła family is reunited and happily chooses to return to Woli Ogon, the girls to their country boyfriends, but only after they have toured all the major sites of Warsaw street life and night life. The Warsaw locales of the play shift from the train station to the outdoor cafés of Saska Kepa on the banks of the Vistula, then to the huge Dolina Szwajcarska [Swiss valley] establishment (where twenty years later the “father” of modern Yiddish literature, Y. L. Peretz, and his entourage would pass many a night), then to a garden theatre, then to the Old City marketplace, and finally to a fancy dress ball and masquerade. Each of these sites presents a panorama of lavishly costumed Warsaw humanity, group scenes of singing and dancing often climaxing with fireworks and Bengal lights. Such scenes are enhanced by the mechanical marvels of the new world; Józio introduces Barnaba to the carousel (“You’ll get there faster than by train,” Józio counsels Barnaba),20 the phonograph, the bicycle, and the hot air balloon. Interspersed among such spectacles are individual performances by “types” singing of their lives.21 In the garden theatre, for example, the song of the “ladies’ doctor” is followed by those of the pensioner, the spoiled young girl, the old maid, the impoverished gentleman, the brewer, and the demimondaine. In the Old City, cobblers’ apprentices and market women sing, dance, and quarrel. Throughout the play, there are references to actual Warsaw personages, places, and even commercial products. “Brawo, brawo, Sonnenfeld!” sings the crowd as the curtain rises over the Dolina Szwajcarska, referring to Adolf Sonnenfeld, the

Podróż 12. Ibid. 88. 21 The divisions of the play are called obrazy, meaning images or pictures, rather than acts. 19 20

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composer (of Jewish origin) who wrote the play’s music.22 The dress ball in the final act takes place at the Tivoli, the same hall where the audience would have watched the play’s premiere. While Polish theatre historians have been reticent about the Jewish context of Józio and his world, there is no coyness about it in Schober’s texts. The very first song of the play, sung by Szmuł in a stylized JewishPolish jargon as the Fafuła family prepares for the trip, warns them what to expect. Here in the country even a Jew is good, sings Szmuł. When he cheats, everyone knows it. But in Warsaw, when some sucker arrives, he doesn’t even know he’s been had. And Szmuł concludes: DrA tam żydzi oj! oj! oj! A drze wiecej każdy goj! ( Jews there flay you, oy, oy, oy / But even more does every goy).

And this is how Józio Grojseszyk presents himself when he bursts onto the stage in the play’s final act dressed in top hat and tails: Choć szwiat czasem na to szwista Żem żyd, Jestem sobie kantorzysta, Ganz git. Pryncypała sze ni boje, Z nim gaj Bo mam przecie rozum swoje Aj waj! Pape, co miał pejsy duże Na pisk, Wołał handel na podwórze Dla zysk. Lecz że już nie zacofany Ten kraj, Jestem cybulizowany, Aj waj!23

By way of mispronunciations and bits of pseudo-Yiddish, this approximately means: “Though the world sometimes whispers / I’m a Jew, / I’m a counting-house clerk. / Real good. / The boss he doesn’t scare me, / I’m with him / Cause I’ve got my own sense / Aj waj! / Papa, who had long peyes / On his face / Hawked goods in the courtyard / To make some dough. / But since no longer backward is / This land,

22 23

Ibid. 91. Ibid. 153–54.

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/ I am now civilized, / Aj waj!” The word cybulizowany in the place of cywilyzowany plays on cybułkes [tsiblkes], Yiddish for onions, which was seen as a favorite Jewish food. This song must have been very popular, because in the sequel to the play set in Paris, the curtain rises in Act I to Józio singing the same song with some new lines: Że me serce tam sie zbliża Gdzie raj, Przyjechałem do Paryża, Aj! waj!24 (Because my heart expands / Wherever paradise is found, / Here I am in Paris, / Aj! waj!)

Józio is not rich, but he has access to as much money as it takes to have his way. “O yes, I have money,” he exclaims. “Whatever I want has to happen.” And in the next breath he specifies the inevitable object of his desires: “I’ll give a girl so many pleasures, you won’t believe.”25 In Józio’s world, there is no such thing as true love. Even Barnaba’s daughters, who are made to abandon their country boyfriends at the start of the play, explain that they only loved them because Mama said they should.26 In Warsaw, every woman is either a courtesan or longs to be one. If a man spends enough money on her, shows her a good enough time, it is assumed that she will “love him.” “Are you in love with us yet,” Edward and Wilhelm keep asking the girls as they lead them through the pleasure spots of Warsaw. Every woman that Józio brings to Barnaba makes him forget the previous one; each new face or leg reigns supreme. This is a world of pure appearance; only the surface rules, the pose is all. “Chic and Warsaw youth have become one,” declares Edward. “The biggest trick is not to let anyone unmask you. Ah chic!—chic!—what a great invention!” And Józio, true to his surname, exclaims, “Ah! chic, chic, it’s my beloved property.”27 After he has dressed the servant girl Marysia to look like a lady, she sings: Byłam sługA, dziś sie bawie, Strój na grzbecie modny mam;

24 25 26 27

Wystawa 7. Podróż 51. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 33, 32.

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Przez turniure nikt w Warszawie Nie rozróżni sług od dam. (I was a servant, today I play, / On my back a stylish dress; / Because of the corset no one in Warsaw / Can tell the lady from the maid.)

To which Józio replies: Dziś dziewczyne w modne stroje Może ubrać tylko żid.28 (Today a girl in stylish fashion / Can only be dressed by a Jew.)

The plots of these plays are driven by disguises which regularly transgress both class and gender lines. Most of the action in Paris, for example, is instigated by Barnaba’s jilted Warsaw girlfriend, who, in order to wreak vengeance on him, pretends to be a male Parisian bon vivant. Many of the stage directions for production numbers call for the dancers to cross-dress; this may have been a convention of the garden theatres, but Schober exploits it to the fullest. Language, too, is confused. The speech of Józio and all the other Jews in these plays is, of course, shot through with conventional malapropisms, mispronunciations, and stylized yiddishisms. In Podróż po Warszawie, there is also considerable fun with the French-accented speech of Mademoiselle Chiffon and the German Polish of Wilhelm’s father. But it is when Józio and Barnaba arrive in Paris that language confusion takes center stage. They become “Barnab de Faful” and “Juś de Grosik, un garçon de kantor.”29 Declares Józio to the Warsaw courtesan who is pretending to be a Parisian dandy: “I greet you as my best friend. And perhaps you also speak Yiddish.”30 And this is how Szmuł from Woli Ogon addresses a supposed French couple: “A! . . . git morgen mojsie Francuz i madame jego kobita . . . Cher mojsie, etez vous gesund? Ja parlez français. Voulez-vous zrobić geszeft? Ich vill łarżan.” The response is in perfect Polish: “A niech mnie kule bijA! tóż to żydek z nad Wisły” (I’ll be a monkey’s uncle, if it isn’t a little Jew from the banks of the Vistula).31 Further, there are choruses in pseudo-Spanish, pseudo-Italian, and pseudo-German, but above all encounters with so-called “wild people”

28 29 30 31

Ibid. 74–75. Wystawa 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 40.

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[dzicy ludzie]: Chinese, Japanese, and Africans. Józio explains to Fafuła that speaking these languages isn’t hard: “Whoever has his own good language will manage to communicate with anyone. So to speak Chinese isn’t hard. If you just say: ‘czi, cze, kon, pin, pang, ho, fu, fo’—then every Chinese will understand you. With a Japanese person it’s a little harder, but I can manage too.” Several minutes of nonsense dialogue follows with two Chinese and one Japanese character, until, fatigued by the conversion, Fafuła turns to French, at which the Chinese couple break out in Jewish Polish. It turns out they’re from Fafuła’s village, and recognized him when he began to speak French because “You speak French just as they do in Warsaw.”32 The Japanese man turns out to be Wilhelm’s father from the previous play, and Fafuła concludes, “One could think that Paris is Warsaw!” That, of course, is the point: this is a polono-judaized Paris, for Józio has transformed the world in his image. In a manic climax, having pursued an African woman through several acts, Józio tries to kiss her. She rebels and reveals herself to be Barnaba’s agent Szmuł. “You Jew!” explodes Józio. “How could you dare make fun of Mr. Grojseszyk.” To which Szmuł replies, “You’re a Jew yourself. I’m a Jew, but honest, but Jews like you shame honest Jews, of whom there are very many. You are an outcast of our nation.”33 Scattered throughout the fun in Schober’s plays are such moments of moral unease, expressed in comparisons between the old Jew and the new. This reaches its fullest expression in Schober’s last play Piekło, which features two Jews, the impoverished but honest Chaim from Warsaw, father of a large family, and the corrupt Viennese capitalist Geschefter. Laments Chaim: Dzisiaj goje krzyczA na żyda, Wszyscy jak robaka chcA zgnieść . . . Lecz nie wszyscy żydzi bankierzy, A ja z nedzy wołam aj waj!34 (Today the Gentiles yell at the Jew, / They all want to crush him like a bug . . . / But not all Jews are bankers, / And out of poverty I cry aj waj!)

32 33 34

Ibid. 80, 86. Ibid. 137–38. Piekło 10.

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“Don’t forget that I’m a Warsaw Jew,” Chaim tells Geschefter, “and only want to do clean business.”35 But when Geschefter is invited by Belzebub to bring “European reforms” to Hell, he takes Chaim along as his cover. Given a choice of animals to ride, Chaim insists on a kosher one, while Geschefter says he doesn’t care; they arrive in Hell flying astride a goose and a pig, respectively. Ach to mamy dziś siurpryze Żyd wziAł piekło w antrepryze.36

“We have today a great surprise / A Jew took Hell as an enterprise,” sings a chorus of devils. By the end of the play, Chaim has returned to his family in Warsaw, but Geschefter, who has made a fortune installing faulty railways that have crippled thousands of devils, is the master of Hell. Despite the moral ambiguities of the new world, however, what emerges overwhelmingly in these plays, in the sheer pleasure of spectacle and laughter, is an immensely attractive energy. This energy, in all its ambiguity, is probably best communicated in the following chorus from Podróż po Warszawie: Handel! handel! handel! handel! handel! Handel! handel! handel! Dziś Warszawa ciAgle wzrasta, Jest w niej ruch i szum, Przez ulice tego miasta Wielki płynie tłum. Tutaj złotem, szykiem, sławA, Głupstwo można kryć, Hej Warszawo, hej Warszawo! W tobie słodko żyć.37 (Business! business! business! business! / Business! business! business! / Today Warsaw grows unhindered, / Filled with noise and motion, / Through the streets of this city / Flows a giant crowd. / Here with gold and chic and fame / Stupidity can be concealed, / Hey Warsaw! hey Warsaw! / To live in you is sweet.)

35 36 37

Ibid. 16. Ibid. 66. Podróż 108.

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This is the energy of a new urban society, in which, as Marx’s poetic genius once put it, “All that is solid melts into air.”38 It is a world filled with cultural borderlands, and therefore with mixtures and impurities of many kinds, a world that is first becoming aware of its own potential. Master of this world at this particular moment, Józio Grojseszyk can still represent both old and new. He is the familiar dancing żydek of popular tradition, whose presence signifies that all is right with the world. Indeed, his association with Barnaba recreates in an urban context the traditional Polish symbiosis between landowner and Jew. But Józio emerges on the side of disorder as well. The world of appearances that he represents undermines all the established verities, particularly those of Old Poland. For several decades a figure riding all these tensions proved immensely appealing to urban audiences of Poles and Jews. But as the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, and alienation overcame familiarity in Polish-Jewish relations, there was less and less use for Józio. Yet as late as 1953 in Stalinist Poland, Leon Schiller, who had revived Podróż po Warszawie thirty years previously, still dreamed of another revival. In a letter to the ŁódΩ director Kazimierz Dejmek, Schiller proposed a version of “this unquestionably best piece of Polish vaudeville” that would be suited to the temper of the times. The play would direct its satire against the bourgeoisie and the declining landowners of its era and evince peasant and plebian sympathies. One major change would have to be made, however. It would be necessary, wrote Schiller, “to eliminate the figure of the Jewish counting-house clerk, the famous Józio Grojseszyk, and turn him into simply an amusing rogue—an ‘Aryan’.”39 Schiller died the following year and his plans for a journey through Warsaw without Józio were never realized.

38 The Communist Manifesto (New York: Bantam, 1992) 21; the phrase has been used by Marshall Berman in the title of his book of cultural criticism, All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982). 39 Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Łodzi, Klub Miłośników Teatru, Suplement trzeci do dziejów teatralnych m. Łodzi: Pamieci Leona Schillera (ŁódΩ, 1974). For this pamphlet I am very grateful to Anna Kuligowska-Korzeniewska.

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Bibliography Filler, Witold. Melpomena i piwo. Warsaw: Pańtstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1878. ——. Barnaba Fafuła i Józio Grojseszyk na wystawie paryskiej: Śmiesznostka w 5 aktach. Warsaw, 1878. ——. Ulica Marszałkowska. Warsaw, 1880. ——. Piekło: Operetka komiczno-fantastyczna w 5 aktach. Warsaw, 1880. Steinlauf, Michael C. “Polish-Jewish Theater: The Case of Mark Arnshteyn; A Study of the Interplay among Yiddish, Polish and Polish Language Jewish Culture in the Modern Period.” Diss., Brandeis University, 1988. ——. “Mr. Geldhab and Sambo in Peyes: Images of the Jew on the Polish Stage, 1863– 1905.” Polin 4 (1989): 98–128. ——. “Mark Arnshteyn and Polish-Jewish Theater.” The Jews of Poland Between Two World Wars, eds. Yisrael Gutman, Ezra Mendelsohn, Jehuda Reinharz and Chone Shmeruk. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1989: 399–411. ——. “Cul-de-Sac: The ‘Inner Life of Jews’ on the Fin-de-Siècle Polish Stage.” Culture Front: Representing Jews in Eastern Europe, eds. Benjamin Nathans and Gabriela Safran. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008: 119–42. Szweykowski, Zygmunt. “Teatrzyki ogródkowe w Warszawie.” Pamietnik Teatralny 7 (1958): 413–56.

THE POLISH SHULAMIS: JEWISH DRAMA ON THE POLISH STAGE IN THE LATE 19TH–EARLY 20TH CENTURIES Anna Kuligowska-Korzeniewska The modern professional Yiddish theatre came into being in 1876, in Jassy, Romania, the brainchild of the multi-talented writer Abraham Goldfaden. Within a short while, this new cultural phenomenon gained immense popularity amongst the Jewish masses in Eastern Europe. However, the growth and relative prosperity it enjoyed in the 1870s were severely impaired in 1883, when the czarist authorities banned theatrical performances in the Yiddish language throughout the Russian Empire.1 While the ban, which lasted until 1905 and which local authorities adhered to with various degrees of stringency, did not succeed in completely shutting down Yiddish theatrical enterprises, the hardship it caused stimulated the search for new ways of satisfying the discrepancy between Jewish craving for theatrical entertainment and the limited supply due to official prohibition. In an effort to outwit the authorities, Jewish companies disguised their linguistic identity under the appellation “Jewish-German”, and using this ruse, performed in various places including Warsaw and Lodz. Another significant outcome of the ban was the growing number of Polish-language productions of popular Yiddish plays, and their successful introduction into the repertory of many Polish theatres in Warsaw and the provinces. This constituted a new artistic and social phenomenon, as polonized Jewish plays attracted both Jewish and Gentile spectators. Consequently, it was in Polish-language theatres that the Jewish minority, which for centuries had been set apart by faith, language and customs, now traversed some of the rigid barriers dividing Jew and Pole. It was this development that led theatre historian Michael C. Steinlauf to speculate that “If the Yiddish theatre had not

1 For detailed discussion of the ban see Barbara Henry, “Jewish Plays on the Russian Stage: St. Petersburg 1905–1917” and John Klier, “ ‘Exit, Pursued by a Bear’: Russian Administrators and the Ban on the Yiddish Theatre in Imperial Russia” Yiddish Theatre, New Approaches, ed. Joel Berkowitz (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2003).

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Figure 4. Abraham Goldfaden (1840–1908).

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been relegalized after 1905, a Jewish theatre in the Polish language would undoubtedly have arisen.”2 This is a valid speculation, as at the beginning of the twentieth century 37 percent of Warsaw’s 500,000 inhabitants were Jews. Thus it would not have been altogether surprising if Warsaw were to offer performances of plays on Jewish themes written by Jewish authors, interpreted by Polish actors (some of them of Jewish origin) for predominantly Jewish audiences. Jewish theatre in Polish came into being a couple of decades earlier than commonly believed, in the immediate wake of performances of a so-called “jargon operetta” directed by Abraham Goldfaden in Warsaw and other Polish cities in the years 1885–1887. Goldfaden’s plays were the first dramatic works to be translated from Yiddish into Polish, acted by Polish actors and viewed by a Jewish and Polish audience. Abraham Goldfaden rejected the notion of Yiddish as a sub-standard German jargon, and as a nationalist Jew opposed the assimilationist view of some of the Jewish intelligentsia that the masses should adopt ambient languages and cultures and not seek entertainment in Yiddish, especially when it was not of the sort that catered to refined tastes. His work gained enormous popularity and had many imitators, among them Moyshe Horowitz, Shomer [Nachum Meir] Shaykewitz, and Joseph Lateiner. Not long after the foundation of Goldfaden’s company, his best actor, Israel Grodner, went his separate way and founded his own theatrical ensemble. Other Yiddish actors followed suit, and in the late 1870s began to tour the towns and townships of Galicia, Russia and the Kingdom of Poland. Yiddish theatre in Poland appears as early as 1876, when a Jewish theatre from Czerniowce under the direction of L. Konderli staged Der Goldonkel aus Amerika (The Rich Uncle from America) in Tarnów, a town where the “German-Jewish” ensemble of Horowitz would perform in 1881. In 1879, Warsaw hosted the company of Jacob Spiwakowski, with whom the young Jacob P. Adler appeared twice in Lodz, in 1880 and 1881, in a repertoire of mostly Goldfaden’s works; in 1881, the troupe of Joseph Weinstock began touring the towns of the Kingdom of Poland, visiting Lublin (1881, 1884) and Lodz (1883); in 1881, a group directed by Bernard Kohn came to Warsaw from Odessa; another ensemble from Odessa directed by two former Goldfaden associates,

2 Michael C. Steinlauf, “Teatr żydowski w Polsce. Stan badań”, Pamietnik Teatralny, z. 1–4 (1992): 16.

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Natan Schwartz and A. Rozenfeld, came to Lublin in 1883, where we also find a Jewish troupe from Vitebsk, whose repertoire included Goldfaden’s The Witch and Shulamis (1884). Finally, in 1885, the theatrical company of Abraham Goldfaden himself performed in the Kingdom of Poland, playing in Lodz and Kalisz in 1885, in Warsaw and Lodz in 1886, and for several months in Warsaw and Lodz in 1887. Apart from Goldfaden, with whom Adler also entered into partnership, other “Jewish-German” ensembles appeared in the second half of the 1880s: Grodner and Shomer Shaykewitz, Schwartz and A. Rozenfeld, Adler and Abraham Isaac Tantsman. The enormous popularity of Yiddish operettas motivated critics to assess the Jewish repertoire and its performances. Overall, the opinions voiced by Jewish orthodoxy, which opposed the secular theatre due to a traditional anti-theatrical stance, of Jewish assimilationists connected with the Polish-language Warsaw weekly Izraelita, and of the Polish press were unfavorable. The Lodz newspaper Dziennik Łódzki, which reviewed the performances of “Jewish operettas” directed by Goldfaden in the city in the mid-1880s, was shocked by their “markedly chansonette character, and lack of [good] taste”. At the same time it remarked on their diversity, noting that in the few years since its inception, the Yiddish theatre “had come to embrace historic drama, tragicomedy, drama, farce, and operetta, in a word all types of dramaturgy”. It also recommended that “[S]ome works of artistic merit such as Goldfaden’s ought to be translated into Polish, so that they reach a wider audience, and are presented to Jews in a more decent form and human language.”3 The condescending tone of the statement hardly requires elaboration. The commentary of Dziennik Łódzki was characteristic of its programme of assimilation for the non-Polish inhabitants of Poland: “For us this issue is no joking matter. The activity of ‘jargon’ operetta is simply pernicious. For this reason we wish it such [great] success that it will never need to return to Lodz.”4 The disparagingingly contemptuous comment regarding Yiddish, the vernacular of most of East European Jews, is rather startling from today’s perspective. It might have been triggered in part by the fact, that in the second half of the nineteenth

3 Dziennik Łódzki 1885, nr 145; 1886, nr 266; cf. Anna Kuligowska, “Pierwsze przedstawienie żydowskie w Łodzi”, Pamietnik Teatralny, z. 1–4 (1992): 391–414. 4 “Kronika łódzka”, Dziennik Łódzki 190 (1887).

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century, Jews constituted a significant sector of the Polish theatre-going public, and thus the rapid development of the professional Jewish theatre began to pose a threat to the already difficult position of Polish theatres in partitioned Poland, most particularly in the provinces. Of Goldfaden’s vast dramatic output, perhaps the most famous was Shulamis, Daughter of Jerusalem (1880). The play was performed and published in 1881 in Odessa, where the Goldfaden troupe went after leaving Romania, and was also the first Yiddish play to be translated into and performed in Polish. Shulamis is a love story based on a Talmudic legend, adapted into a Hebrew novel by Eliyohu Werbel, Goldfaden’s father-in-law. The play reworks the tale of “The Wild Cat and Well” (Khulda u’ve’er or Khulda u’vor) which invokes the all-powerful sacredness of an oath. Set in biblical Israel, the play tells of the beautiful Shulamis, who falls into a well while wandering in the desert. She is rescued by a handsome prince, Avisholom (Absalom). They vow to marry, with the well and a wild cat serving as witnesses. Avisholom then meets the princess Avigael (Abigail) and marries her, forgetting his oath to Shulamis (Shulamit). He is reminded of her only when the two children born of his marriage die (one drowning in a well, the other strangled by a wild cat). He finds Shulamis surrounded by rich suitors, whom she fends off by feigning madness. In the final scene Avisholom and Shulamis are united in marriage under the palm-trees. In addition to the romantic entanglement, the play depicts a sacred pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a solemn procession in the Temple, and numerous Jewish rituals.5 Yiddish theater scholar Nahma Sandrow detects in the biblical scenery a foretaste of nascent Zionism.6 She has also made the case that the compositional principle of Shulamis, like that of a typical melodrama, is the intensification of emotional effects through music and song, especially lyrical song, as in the scene where Shulamis is sitting by the well in the desert near Bethlehem and hears the voice of Avisholom proclaiming his love to her. Professor Chone Shmeruk ascertained that the most famous Yiddish song of all, “Rożinkes mit mandlen” (“Raisins and Almonds”), was sung in performances of Shulamis, and it appears in all available editions

5 In reviewing Shulamis, Izraelita 1887 nr 35 noted: “In one of the older rozcbik of Izraelita is the translation of a novel on this subject written by L. Mendelsburg”. Cf. Mirosława M. Bułat, Krakowski teatr żydowski. Krokower Iidisz Teater. Miedzy szundem a sztukA (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jaqiellońskiego, 2006) 70. 6 Nahma Sandrow, A World History of Yiddish Theater: Vagabond Stars (New York: Harper and Row, 1977) 62–65.

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of the drama (Warsaw 1891, 1902, 1905, and New York [no year]). Shmeruk quoted Goldfaden’s own comment: “Though this is not the place for this song, I have put it in, because the public knows it and likes it very much”.7 Goldfaden produced Shulamis during his tour of Poland in 1885–1887, and there are many testimonies that confirm that of all his works, Shulamis aroused the most interest. According to a story related by Zygmunt Turkow-Grundberg in his book Varshe, dos vigele fun yidishn teater (Warsaw, Cradle of Yiddish Theater), Shulamis was performed 150 times in Warsaw alone. Official Polish sources do not corroborate the number, yet do confirm that Shulamis enjoyed a great success. Theater historian Maria Prussak has established that in July and August 1886, Goldfaden shared the use of the Warsaw theatre space with the Russian Teatr Buff, and that Shulamis played in Warsaw eight times in all, drawing large audiences.8 The statement of Izraelita in 1887 that Goldfaden’s melodrama “attracted Jewish crowds over a long period of time” confirms its success.9 Though we cannot establish a detailed performance schedule for Golfaden’s ensemble, it is safe to assume that from 1885 to 1887 Shulamis was performed in Warsaw at least a few dozen times. Zalmen Zylbercweig, author of the Leksikon fun yidishn teater, wrote that after Goldfaden had left Poland his play Shulamis “remained in the memory of tens of thousands of spectators.”10 Zylbercweig was particularly interested in the Polish version of Shulamis, about which he had read in the Hebrew booklet Bamat Yiskhak (Play Stage), published in Warsaw in the 1880s. In 1934, in Warsaw on a visit from New York, he was determined to find the artists who had participated in the Polish premiere. He succeeded in his search, as noted in his Teater mozaik.11 He found “the veteran of Yiddish theatre in Poland”, Yeshaya Rotshayn, who had sung in the knabn-khor (boys’

7 Chone Shmeruk, “PrzeglAd literatury dramatycznej w jezyku jidysz do I wojny światowej”, in Anna Kuligowska-Korzeniewska and Małgorzata Leyko (eds.) Teatr żydowski w Polsce. Materiały z Miedzynarodowej Konferencji Naukowej. Warszawa 18–21 paΩdziernika 1993 roku (ŁódΩ, 1998) 43. 8 Maria Prussak, “Goldfaden i rosyjski Teatr Buff ”, Pamietnik Teatralny z. 1–4 (1992): 248. 9 Em-Es, “Z życia”, Izraelita 1887, nr 35. 10 Zalmen Zylbercweig, “Goldfaden na polskiej scenie” (translated from Yiddish into Polish by Tomasz Kuberczyk), Pamietnik Teatralny, z. 1–4 (1992): 211. 11 (New York: Biderman, 1941).

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choir) used by Goldfaden, and was among the initiators and performers of the first Polish Shulamis. He explains that when Goldfaden left, the out-of-work, half-starved choirboys (Yeshaya and Adolf Rotshayn, M. Ch. Taytelman and Herman Berman) were hired by the Alhambra, a Polish garden theatre in Warsaw directed by the provincial director and actor Jan Szymborski.12 Deep in debt himself, Szymborski gladly accepted the Jewish singers’ proposal to stage in Polish a play that was “very popular in Warsaw”.13 Shulamis was translated from the original Yiddish into Polish by Israel Bernas, a manufacturer of mirrors, who also published a calendar to which Goldfaden contributed a poem.14 Bernas may have used the Warsaw edition of 1886.15 The Polish premiere of Shulamis took place on September 3, 1887, some two months after Goldfaden left Warsaw.16 The Warsaw press which advertised and reviewed the production, was most interested in the fact that “a Talmudic play [. . .] with music and dances” had been staged in a Polish theatre. They expected “clownery, the sort of overacting, of which the prototype and model was (Offenbach’s) Belle Hélene.”17 The weekly PrzeglAd Tygodniowy noted: . . . The play itself is a serious drama [. . .] and tells of the betrayed love of a Sulamite girl, her despair, and the return of her beloved to her grieving bosom. The story is treated with simplicity and romantic feeling, with earnest naiveté, and is enlivened in an original manner by Oriental music, sets and dances. All you could wish for—yet with what solemn seriousness, rapt attention, and elation, it was received by an audience of many thousands, enthusiastically applauding the scenes that moved it most!18

Zylbercweig erroneously mentioned Smotrycki’s ensemble. Ibid. 212–213. 14 See Jacob Shatsky, “Goldfaden in Varshe”, in Yankev Shatski, ed., Hundert yor Goldfaden, New York 1940, 8–9 (reference courtesy of Michael Steinlauf ). 15 Censor’s permission dated 5/17 VII, no year. During Goldfaden’s stay in Warsaw in 1886–1887, the firm of Baumritter and Gonsior published six of his dramas: Shulamis, The Capricious Bride, Dr Almosado, Bar Kokhba, Two Kuni Lemels, and Babcis and Grandaughter. 16 Zylbercweig’s information has enabled us to reconstruct the cast: (Irena) Sznebelin appeared in the title-role, ( Jan) Recki played Avisholom, ( Józef ?) Rutkowski (or Kościński) acted the part of Manoyekh, Chojnicki that of Cingitang, and Kościński (or Rutkowski) was the Priest Natan. The sung parts were performed by the choir of Jewish boys: Mitelman (Titelman?)—Joew Gigoni, (Yeshaya) Rotshayn—Avindav, and Berman, already mentioned, sang the part of one of the priests. 17 “Z teatru i muzyki”, Kurier Warszawski 1887 nr 240. 18 “Echa warszawskie”, PrzeglAd Tygodniowy 1887 nr 37, quoted from Pamietnik Teatralny, z. 3–4 (1992): 487–488. 12 13

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The mention of “an audience of many thousands” was no exaggeration. PrzeglAd Tygodniowy reported that “on the day of the performance the small theatre and garden at the Alhambra were besieged by unprecedented crowds of Jewish spectators; their number apparently attained three thousand, and many came especially from faraway provinces just to see this renowned work”. It defined the public as “circles of our intelligentsia”, and in keeping with its positivist programme of assimilation declared: This typical characteristic performance has demonstrated to us beyond doubt the civilization of the Jewish masses, their sense of the aesthetic, [which is] naturally different and differently conceived from ours. But this should hardly come as a surprise, being that for five centuries the two nations have been consistently separated. At all events, the performance proved that it is not a ribald farce, a wild cancan, or decaying cynicism that is capable of interesting, attracting and influencing the mass of the Jewish intelligentsia, but rather it is a serious play, healthy in its motives. This is the road our provincial theatre should take, with caution and without haste—and, as best it can, it will draw the Jewish masses into the movement of civilization.19

Shulamis attracted crowds of Jewish and non-Jewish spectators, and the editor of Izraelita voiced his pleasure that the Midrashic heroine had been “shown on a proper (i.e. Polish) stage”. The paper went on as follows: The translation is smooth and fairly correct, which on account of the dialect from which the translator worked and the varied songs interwoven with the action earns Mr Bernas no small recognition. The play of the actors leaves nothing to be desired. Every performance of this play draws thousands of eager folk to the Alhambra, and the headquarters of the garden Melpomene long echoes with the applause bestowed upon the translator and the artists.20

The music journal Echo Muzyczne, Teatralne i Artystyczne was less sympathetic to what it called “this wretched production, which in a wretched performance was not even comprehensible”, and was amazed by the delight expressed by some two thousand “gabardined” (i.e. Jewish) spectators, the endless applause and curtain calls.21

Ibid. Em-Es, “Z życia”, Izraelita 1887 nr 35. 21 R. [Aleksander Rajchman] “Kronika Teatr,” Echo Muzyczne, Teatralne i Artystyczne nr 306 (1887). 19 20

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An important measure of theatrical success is the number of performances and length of each run. Zylbercweig supplies us with conflicting information, namely that Shulamis was played “nine times” and that it was performed “for two months to capacity audiences,” adding, “the Polish actors paid their debts.”22 This is at odds with the facts. Despite the play’s success, director Jan Szymborski could not prolong his stay in Warsaw. He was a private entrepreneur at the Alhambra summer theatre at Miodowa Street 10, and regulations guarding the Warsaw State Theatres ordained the annual closing of the garden season on September 30th. When Szymborski staged Goldfaden’s play in 1887, the summer season ended even earlier, on September 12th. According to press reports, the actors were driven out of Warsaw by the cold and the rain. Nine, perhaps ten, performances of Shulamis seems a more likely number, if we take into account press notices. Clearly the Polish Shulamis was the “workhorse” or, as was also said at the time, the “bombshell” of Szymborski’s repertoire as Goldfaden’s melodrama set out to tour the Polish provinces. For the winter season Szymborski went to Płock (near Warsaw), where he presented Shulamis on November 19 and 20 and on December 3, 1887. Of the original Warsaw cast, Recki was still playing Avisholom. With the possible exception of Bolesław Bolesławski, the other actors all had to learn new roles, yet their performance “by provincial stage standards” was deemed “exemplary”. The local newspaper Korespondent Płocki noted: Mrs [Teofila] Żołopińska and Mr [ Jan] Recki (Avisholom) sang flawlessly, skillfully lavishing their vocal reserves (much appreciated by the audience) and Mrs [Zofia] Bolesławska was an alluring and gracious Abigail, constituting thereby an attenuating circumstance for the sins of the faithless Absalom [Avisholom], and as always performed her vocal and dramatic task in a most pleasant manner. [. . .] Mr [Bolesław] Bolesławski played the role of Monoach with dignity and appropriate demeanor, while Mr [Tadeusz] Pol—an apparently good acquisition for our stage—was humorously entertaining as Cingitang.23

The newspaper also judged the spectacle favorably, noting: “The sets are carefully conceived, the costumes new, appropriate, relatively expensive, the grouping of people on the stage carried out with taste. They bring Zylbercweig, op. cit. 212, 213. “Teatr”, Korespondent Płocki, nr 92 (1887). Cf. B. Konarska-Pabiniak, Repertuar teatru w Płocku 1808–1939 (Warszawa, 1982). 22 23

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credit to the director.” But the Płock journalist had reservations about Goldfaden’s “lyrical work” and its translation: The drama itself is a very weak work and, with its countless flaws and lack of any more distinguished quality, offends by the inappropriate use of words and frequently by its triviality. On the other hand the music based on the songs and psalms of Israel is very beautiful in places and, in spite of its monotonous rhythm, one listens to it with great pleasure.24

The staging of Shulamis and its “box-office success,” created quite a stir in Płock, as Szymborski’s previous directorial works had hitherto been “unjustly stricken by the disfavor of the public,” so much so that when Józef Narzymski’s “beautiful comedy” Epidemia was announced, no one came to the theatre. After the success of Shulamis, however, during which “the public manifested signs of satisfaction”, letters of support were written to the editor of Korespondent Płocki.25 At the third performance on Saturday, December 3, 1887, Shulamis was still a box-office success. A total of three performances in a provincial town of some 50,000 inhabitants, as Płock then was, signified an unquestionable feat. However it did not save Szymborski from financial trouble. Still, in the following years he presented Shulamis many times (e.g. in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, March 23, 1891).26 Jozef Teksel, a provincial director well known for his enterprising initiatives, was next to jump on the Shulamis bandwagon, with a production that concluded the summer season in Radom (30 September 1887), presenting it in Lodz several days later. The local paper Dziennik Łódzki had prepared the way for him. At the news of a play “translated from the jargon” being staged in Warsaw, the Lodz daily wrote on September 11, 1887: “Goldfaden’s repertory includes several works that deserve to be translated—with the additional benefit that German-jargon operetta would then become superfluous.”27 These words were also a reaction to recent performances of Shulamis in Lodz, directed by Goldfaden in July and August 1887. Since the chief concern of Dziennik Łódzki was the polonization of local Germans and Jews, it was upset by the fact that the high rent paid by the Jewish ensemble for the Thalia theatre was, in effect, subsidizing the maintenance of the German theatre. The Ibid. “Z miasta”, Korespondent Płocki, nr 92 (1887). 26 Cf. Emilian Leszczyński, Teatr w Tomaszowie Mazowieckim w latach 1828–1912 (Tomaszów Mazowiecki, 2004) 44. 27 Sarmaticus [Łucjan Kościelecki], “Z tygodnia”, Dziennik Łódzki, nr 201 (1887). 24 25

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following example from an article entitled Polish Theater in Lodz, printed early in 1887, clarifies the tone and flavor of its policy: The local population, especially of late, has so often manifested a friendly desire to come closer to the Jews that it is time the Jews also gave as often as possible tokens of the heroism and solidarity of feelings that should animate all the inhabitants of this country. In Lodz the best way to make friends and tighten social ties is the theatre. So let us all go to the theatre; [. . .] let us wait in the theatre for fellow citizens, of good will, regardless of origin and faith.28

One might say that by presenting Sulamita (Shulamis) Daughter of Jerusalem, advertised as “Melodrama in 4 acts (8 tableaux), with songs and dance” on October 5, 7 and 8, 1887, Jozef Teksel, the director of the Lodz theatre, was complying with this appeal, though he undoubtedly had material gains in mind as well. Dziennik Łódzki devoted a separate report to the Polish Shulamis. Having described in detail “the contents of the melodrama, the backdrop of magnificent processions of knights, pilgrims and maidens dancing,” it decreed in that now-familiar tone of voice: “Somewhat boring as a whole, this play is enlivened by the flat comic antics of the black slave Chingintang in Avisholom’s service. The most interesting part for the spectators is the rituals, which are new to them, and the original music based on Eastern motifs, altogether very pleasing.” It described the acting as “quite decent,” though claimed the sets “offended by decorational anachronisms.” The premiere performance lasted some three and a half hours, ending at half past midnight, which did not prevent the large audience from calling to the stage Israel Bernas, who had come from Warsaw, and rewarding him with applause. The critic offered a lukewarm assessment of Bernas’s literary achievement: “The translation of the play is good, the language pure, but the verse leaves much to be desired from the point of view of measure and choice of rhymes.”29 The fact that Shulamis, which had been acted over a dozen times in the original by various societies of Jewish artists, was presented in Polish in Lodz three times, including on the Jewish Sabbath (October 8, 1887), points to its indubitable theatrical success. No wonder Teksel “Teatr polski w Łodzi”, Dziennik Łódzki, nr 44 (1887); cf. A. Kuligowska-Korzeniewska in Polacy-Niemcy-Żydzi w Łodzi. SAsiedzi dalecy i bliscy, ed. Paweł Samuś (ŁódΩ: Pawel, 1997) 240–259. 29 “Z teatru”, Dziennik Łódzki, nr 223 (1887). 28

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kept Shulamis in his repertory and presented it on March 24, 1889, in Kalisz, where he attracted the public with “music based on melancholy Hebrew melodies” which “make a pleasant impression on the listeners”. The Kaliszanin declared: “The entire play is sustained by the acting of Miss M. Teksel in the role of the unhappy Sulamite.”30 The third director to tour the provinces with Shulamis was Lucjan Dobrzański, who in conjunction with Jan Recki showed this play in Radom (September 22, 1888). They appeared in the summer season in Lublin, where Shulamis was played on June 15, 1889, with a cast including Sznebelin (Idziakowska), the first Polish Shulamis; Jan Recki, the first Polish Avisholom; and Tadeusz Pol, the Cingitang from Płock. Gazeta Lubelska gave advance notice of the performance, but unfortunately carried no review, so we have no idea how the Polish-Jewish community of Lublin received Goldfaden’s operetta.31 The other director who included Shulamis in his repertoire was Maurycy Kisielnicki. On October 20, 1888, his troupe had performed the play in Kielce. The local newspaper then wrote the symptomatic comments: It is highly characteristic of the way things are in Kielce, where the Jewish population evinced next to no familiarity with the Polish theatre, yet flocked in vast numbers to the performance of Shulamis, the story of which is based on the Biblical history of the people of Israel. The entire amphitheatre was literally taken over by the daughters and sons of Israel, amounting to some 400 in all. What a pity that Shulamis alone possesses the magnet to attract Jews to the theatre, as by attending it more frequently they would stand to gain much, in the first place learning correct pronunciation.32

A couple of months later (March 18, 1889) Kisielnicki brought the Polish Shulamis to the public of Radom (near Kielce). The play’s subsequent stage career is connected with the performance of the Jewish actor Adolf Szliferstein in the role of Cingitang. His name was the chief attraction of the performance on Saturday, 15 September, 1894 in Sellin’s garden in Lodz. The extant poster on which director Czesław Janowski announced “the last appearance of this actor”, leads 30 Ibid.; “Wiadomości miejscowe i okoliczne”, Kaliszanin, nr 26 (1889); cf. Stanisław Kaszyński, Teatralia kaliskie. Materiały do dziejów sceny kaliskiej (1800–1970), (ŁódΩ, 1972) 451. 31 Cf. Stefan Kruk, Repertuar teatru lubelskiego 1864–1890 (Warszawa, 1979) 199–200. 32 Gazeta Kielecka, nr 85 (1888). I wish to thank Dr Marta Kowalska for giving me information concerning Shulamis in Kielce.

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one to assume that the “operetta in 4 acts (8 tableaux)” had already been presented in this realization in Lodz.33 The “star” of the Lodz performance, Adolf Szliferstein played Cingitang in many other cities and with a number of Polish provincial ensembles. Theatre scholar Mirosława M. Bułat suggested that Szliferstein, as an actor who had so far appeared exclusively in the Yiddish theatre, could by playing in Shulamis the role of a “wild man” freely “murder the Polish language”, which was an unfailing source of comic effect.34 Szliferstein in the role of Cingitang appeared mainly with the ensemble of the Czystogorski Brothers, “about whom it was whispered”—to quote Zylbercweig again—“that they are Lodz Jews [. . .]. That troupe also toured the Polish provinces, doing a good trade everywhere.”35 The Czystogorski Brothers, or rather Feliks (Feliksiewicz) and Benedykt (Remy) Reinberg, formed their own troupe in September 1891, and managed it with a few brief interludes until October 1900. Over this decade they visited at the very least several dozen cities.36 I am unable to establish fully in which towns Shulamis was staged. It is, however, worth recalling that Ludwik Czystogorski was a member of Szymborski’s ensemble when the latter staged the Polish Shulamis at the Warsaw Alhambra in 1887, serving as a model for him to emulate. Czystogorski was also an actor in Kisielnicki’s troupe in Kielce in 1888, and may well have appeared in Shulamis there. Many of the actors in Czystogorski’s group in the 1890s (Tadeusz Gorzkowski, Stanisław Modzelewski, Henryk Morozowicz, Izabela Nowicka) had previously acted in this play. According to Zylbercweig, Czystogorski’s success became proverbial, duly encapsulated in the saying: “We owe it to the beautiful Shulamis that we are not bankrupt”. Zylbercweig further mentions that Shulamis was played again in later years, but soon disappeared from the repertory of operetta ensembles.37 At the beginning of the twentieth century, Shulamis was played in Sosnowiec (Teatr Miejski, directed by Feliks Feliński, December 27, 1902), and in Płock (Lublin troupe under Henryk Morozowicz, November 28,

Museum of History of the City of Lodz. Dr. Mirosława M. Bułat of the Jagiellonian University made this very interesting suggestion to me at a research meeting in Cracow in 2002. 35 Zylbercweig, op. cit. 213. 36 Słownik biograficzny teatru polskiego 1765–1965 (Warszawa, 1973) 113. 37 Zylbercweig, op. cit. 213. 33 34

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1903).38 It is not to be found in the repertory of Polish ensembles after 1905. Once the ban on Jewish theatres was lifted, there was no longer any need for Jewish theatrical fare to be performed in Polish. At least two other plays by Abraham Goldfaden were translated in the late nineteenth century: Di kishefmakherin (The Witch) and Bar Kokhba. The Witch was translated by Israel Bernas and was intended for the Eldorado, the garden stage in Warsaw at Długa Street 23, which Goldfaden’s ensemble had previously used, and for the summer of 1889 it was taken up by provincial directors Kazimierz and Stanisław Sarnowski. The Polish premiere of The Witch took place on July 6, 1889. Zylbercweig, quoting a “longer note” by A. R. Malachi, wrote: “The success of the play was enormous. Jews and Christians alike came to the performances. Every time the play was on, the auditorium was packed to the seams. From the commercial point of view it was also a success.” Zylbercweig points out that all the actors in The Witch were Poles, and that it broke with the tradition that the role of Bobe Yakhe be played by a male actor when actress Maria Osmolska appeared as the witch. The street merchant Hotzmakh was played by Bremer (Brenner).39 The Sarnecki brothers kept the production in repertory and presented it again in the summer of 1890 ( July 5 and August 2) in Kalisz. The local newspaper gave it a short, but caustic notice: “Written for the eye more than for the ear of a certain part of the public that looks for coarse effects, its existence could be justified by suitable sets.” The Sarneckis could clearly not afford rich, colorful decorations and costumes for this “operetta from the German in 8 tableaux”, that includes a scene in a bazaar in Istanbul, where sixteen-year-old Mirele has been sold to a coffee-shop proprietor by her cruel stepmother.40 We know from Moyshe Zayfert’s Geshikhte fun yidishn teater41 that Goldfaden’s Bar Kokhba was also performed in Polish in the 1890s, but even Zylbercweig was unable to confirm this fact. In spite of an unusual career, not a single version of the nineteenthcentury translations of Goldfaden’s plays into Polish has been preserved, 38 Cf. Dramat obcy w Polsce 1765–1965. Premiery, druki, egzemplarze. A–K. Praca zespołowa pod kierunkiem Jana Michalika. Redaktor tomu: Stanisław Hałabuda (Kraków, 2001) 280. 39 Zylbercweig, op. cit. 213. 40 “Wiadomości miejscowe i okoliczne”, Kaliszanin, nr 52, 54 (1890); cf. Kaszyński (1972): 455. 41 Di yidishe bine (New York: Hebrew Publishing Co., 1897).

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although numerous theatre copies of Shulamis must have been in use, especially in the provinces. Israel Bernas, the translator of Shulamis and The Witch, scored many a success both in Warsaw and the provinces, but his work had a purely utilitarian character. Manuscript copies travelled in the luggage of touring actors and directors. Fate treated their luggage with exceptional harshness—to the great regret of historians of Polish and Jewish theatres. The absence of a Polish copy of Shulamis does not however prevent one formulating remarks of a more general nature: • At the end of the 1880s, the ban on performances in Yiddish resulted in the birth of a new phenomenon: Jewish theatre in the Polish language. • The creators of this theatre were Polish entrepreneurs and actors, whom Shulamis more than once saved from bankruptcy. • Polish ensembles decided to include a Jewish play in their repertory, in particular the “jargon operetta” directed by Abraham Goldfaden, because of its triumphant success when performed by Jewish ensembles. • The Polish language Shulamis was seen mainly by Jewish audiences, both by members of the Jewish intelligentsia who favoured assimilation and by large numbers of the lower classes who longed for theatrical entertainment. • Shulamis and The Witch in Polish were viewed in Warsaw by the audiences of the garden theatres, which were run by provincial directors. At the end of the summer season, new performances that had been acclaimed in the capital, such as Goldfaden’s plays, went on tour to provincial towns, where they inaugurated the winter season. • Shulamis was in the permanent repertory of several provincial touring companies ( Jan Szymborski, Jozef Teksel, Lucjan Dobrzański, Jan Recki, Maurycy Kisielnicki, Feliks and Benedykt Czystogorski, Feliks Feliński, Henryk Morozowicz et al.). • The Polish Shulamis was seen by spectators in the following towns and cities of the Kingdom of Poland (Russian-dominated Poland): Warsaw, Płock, Radom, Lodz, Kielce, Lublin, Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Sosnowiec et al. • No precise figure for the number of Polish-language performances of Shulamis can be established. They were certainly fewer than the number of performances in Yiddish, but may have attained several dozen repeats with different casts, which in the circumstances was an indubitable success.

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• The scant references suggest that Polish actors performing in Shulamis imitated the Jewish actors, especially those from Goldfaden’s ensemble. As the action takes place in Biblical times, Shulamis did not necessitate the creation of “Polish-Jewish types”, which for several decades had been the emploi of character actors. • Shulamis was translated into verse by Israel Bernas, whose Polish rendering of this poetic melodrama appears to have passed muster. As the only character part was that of the black-skinned servant Cingitang, the actor performing this role did not have to replicate the stereotype of Jewish peddlers and innkeepers, familiar from the Polish landscape. • Produced in 8 or 10 tableaux, the main attractions of Shulamis were its picturesque quality, the exoticism of its images, the arrangement of group scenes, the songs (over a dozen solo and choral numbers), the dances, and the “Eastern” music. This music was performed by Jews who had lived in Polish territory for several hundred years. Jewish bands traditionally played the accompaniment to dancing in the manors of the nobility and in peasant inns. Engaging Jewish musicians to perform in Shulamis was thus in no way problematic. • Shulamis confirmed for Jewish spectators their biblical connection and national identity. • Through Shulamis Polish spectators discovered the culture of the Jews, about which they knew nothing, even though they often lived next door or in the same street. Goldfaden’s Shulamis satisfied the emotional and aesthetic needs of Poles and Jews alike. It may thus be seen as an ideal example of popular theatre at the end of the nineteenth century. Bibliography Bułat, Mirosława M. Krakowski teatr żydowski = Krokower Iidisz Teater: miedzy szundem a sztukA. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2006. Dramat obcy w Polsce 1765–1965. Premiery, druki, egzemplarze. A–K. Praca zespołowa pod kierunkiem Jana Michalika. Redaktor tomu: Stanisław Hałabuda, Kraków: Ksieg, 2001. Henry, Barbara. “Jewish Plays on the Russian Stage: St. Petersburg 1905–1917.” Yiddish Theatre, New Approaches. Ed. Joel Berkowitz. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2003. 61–75. Kaszyński, Stanisław. Teatralia kaliskie. Materiały do dziejów sceny kaliskiej (1800–1970). ŁódΩ: Wydawn. Łódzkie, 1972. Klier, John. “‘Exit, Pursued by a Bear’: Russian Administrators and the Ban on the Yiddish Theatre in Imperial Russia.” Yiddish Theatre, New Approaches. Ed. Joel Berkowitz. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2003. 159–174.

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Konarska-Pabiniak, Barbara. Repertuar teatru w Płocku 1808–1939. Warszawa [Warsaw], 1982. Kruk, Stefan. Repertuar teatru lubelskiego 1864–1890, Warszawa 1979. Kuligowska-Korzeniewska, Anna. “Pierwsze przedstawienie żydowskie w Łodzi.” Pamietnik Teatralny z. 1–4. 391–414. ——. “Łód< teatralna: polska, niemiecka i żydowska. Współpraca i rywalizacja.” Polacy-Niemcy-Żydzi w Łodzi. SAsiedzi dalecy i bliscy, ed. Paweł Samuś. Łód<: Paweł, 1997. 240–259. ——. “Die polnisch—deutsch—jüdische Teaterlandschaft in Lodz. Zusammenarbeit und Konkurenz.” Polen, Deutsche und Juden in Lodz 1820–1939, ed. Jürgen Hensel. Osnabrück: Fibre, 1999. 301–306. Leszczyński, Emilian. Teatr w Tomaszowie Mazowieckim w latach 1828–1912, Tomaszów Mazowiecki 2004. Prussak, Maria. “Goldfaden i rosyjski Teatr Buff ”, Pamietnik Teatralny 1992, z. 1–4, pp. 227–252. Sandrow, Nahma. A World History of Yiddish Theater: Vagabond Stars, New York: Haper and Row, 1977. Shatski, Yankev. “Goldfaden in Varshe.” Hundert yor Goldfaden, ed. Jacob Shatzky. New York: Yidishn visnshaftlekhn institut, 1940. [ Yiddish]. Shmeruk, Chone. “PrzeglAd literatury dramatycznej w jezyku jidysz do I wojny światowej.” Teatr żydowski w Polsce. Materiały z Miedzynarodowej Konferencji Naukowej, eds. Anna Kuligowska-Korzeniewska and Małgorzata Leyko. Warszawa 18–21 pa
SECTION THREE

NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES IN ENGLISH, ITALIAN AND GERMAN

JEWISH LANGUAGES AND JEWISH CHARACTERS IN GIOVAN BATTISTA ANDREINI’S LO SCHIAVETTO Paola Bertolone Giovan Battista Andreini’s comedy Lo schiavetto (The Little Slave, 1612) is an ambiguous and ambivalent text which leaves open a most fundamental question: what was Andreine’s objective in writing it? The author’s dedication to Count Ercole Pepoli, which appears in the introduction to the play’s first edition, suggests that the printed text came in the wake of a well-received staging, the practice of publishing the playscript of a successful production being fairly widespread within what is commonly called the Commedia dell’Arte.1 In his dedication, Andreini explains: My most illustrious Lord, this subject of the Little Slave, wherever I have played it, was always enjoyed by keen intellects, and its and my good fortune has seen to it that Your Most Illustrious Lordship (whom I so honour) also highly enjoyed it, deigning to name it your favourite comedy [. . .] Illustrissimo mio signore, questo soggetto dello Schiavetto, dovunque i’ me l’abbia recitato, fu gradito sempre da pellegrini ingegni, e ha voluto, la sua e la mia buona fortuna, che da vostra signoria illustrissima (che onoro tanto) sia pure stato sommamente gradito, degnandosi di nominarlo sua commedia favorita [. . .]2

The comedy is of interest from a Jewish perspective for several substantive reasons: first, it features four characters—Leon, Sensale, Caino and Scemoel—who are Jews, while two of the main characters, Orazio and Fulgenzio, disguise themselves as Jews; second, the text of the play includes Hebrew, Judaeo-Italian, and even Yiddish words and phrases, in addition to its native Italian and Italian dialects; third, Sensale’s

1 There were four editions of the comedy: September 26, 1612, Milan, Publisher Pandolfo Malatesta; October 6, 1612, Milan, Publisher Pandolfo Malatesta; 1620, Venice, Publisher Giovan Battista Ciotti; 1621, Venice, no indication of the publisher. In this paper I make use of the modern edition of the play in Laura Falavolti, ed., Commedie dei comici dell’arte. (Torino: UTET, 1982) 57–213. Falavolti republished the second edition [October 6, 1612, Milan, Pandolfo Malatesta]. 2 Falavolti 55.

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monologue in Act II, scene 7, offers an interesting description of Mantua’s Jewish society; and fourth, the historical background against which Lo Schiavetto was printed in 1612. Lo Schiavetto is a five-act play set in Pesaro.3 The swindling Prince Nottola arrives with his servants and meets with an older gentleman, Alberto. He showers Alberto with precious presents and secures his promise to arrange for the hand of Prudenza, his daughter. Prudenza is heartbroken, for she cannot disobey her father, even though she is in love with the poor but noble Orazio, and is also courted by Fulgenzio, another poor nobleman who tries in vain to win her heart. In Act II, Orazio and Fulgenzio, the two suitors, disguise themselves as Jews in order to gain entry into Prudenza’s house. The trick works, for Prince Nottola and Alberto, his host, had summoned to the house many Jewish merchants in order to organise the wedding celebration, and to prepare luxurious new clothes for all participants. Act II also presents a second parallel plot, whose main character is Schiavetto. Though disguised as a slave of Turkish origin, Schiavetto is in fact Florinda, a young noblewoman in search of Orazio, who had seduced and abandoned her. In the meanwhile, Prince Nottola has changed his plans and decided to help Fulgenzio, who had confessed his desperate love for Prudenza to Prince Nottola. After many vicissitudes—Orazio is almost murdered by the vindictive Schiavetto—all the misunderstandings are cleared up in Act V, and all the disguised characters—including Lelio, Florinda’s brother, who is disguised as the actor Facceto—reveal their true identities. Finally the right couples are brought together, servants included: Prudenza with Fulgenzio and Schiavetto-Florinda with Orazio. Giovan Battista Andreini was born in Florence in 1576 and died in Reggio Emilia in 1654. In addition to authoring Lo Schiavetto, he composed numerous poetic and theatrical works, among them: the comedy La Turca (The Turkish Woman, 1611), the discourse Prologo in dialogo fra Momo e la verità (Prologue for a Dialogue between Momo and the Truth, 1612), the miracle play L’Adamo (Adam, 1613), the tragicomedy Lelio bandito (Lelio Banished, 1620), the comedy-tragedy-pastorale La Centaura (The Female Centaur, 1622), the comedy Amor nello specchio (Love seen in the Mirror, 1622), the tragicomedy Don Giovanni (1651),4 and the

3 At that time and during the 16th century, Pesaro had a considerable Jewish community. 4 The text of the first edition of the play is included in: Silvia Carandini, and Luciano Mariti, eds. “Don Giovanni” by G. B. Andreini. (Roma: Bulzoni, 2003).

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azione drammatica, La Maddalena lasciva e penitente (Lewd and Repentant Magdalen, 1652). These days he is considered one of the pre-eminent Italian dramatists of the 17th century.5 Giovan Battista Andreini, son of the celebrated comici Francesco and Isabella Andreini (founders of the company I Gelosi), was a major figure in his time, yet except for a small circle of theatre specialists he has not yet been given the recognition he deserves. Although he is the subject of a substantial bibliography, his vast, high-quality literary work—comedies, tragedies, poetry, treatises in defence of the actor’s art and on the purpose of the theatre—such as Teatro celeste (1625), La Ferza (1625), Lo Specchio (1625)—has not received adequate attention from literary critics, and has not reached the threshold of literary canon. One major reason for this neglect may be the small value traditionally attached by most literary historians to plays written by actors, in which they delineate the performance text not by adhering to the primacy of the literary text but by a performance-oriented writing format, whereby they prioritize actions and performance over verbal language, a praxis for the comici dell’arte. The play Lo Schiavetto, as well as other works by Andreini, falls within this category of dramatic works. One fundamental compositional principle applied by Andreini, not only in the work dealt with here, is stated in the “Instructions” for Act I, Scene 5: In this scene, not that all that is named is seen [. . .] In questa scena non accaderà che tutto quello che si nomina si veda [. . .]6

This principle, which permeates the structure of the play Lo Schiavetto, reveals the pleonastic and decorative value attributed to verbal language with respect to the primary and essential physical element of gesture, movement, scene, objects. In other words, Andreini emphasizes the visual aspect of performance and considers the visual category as more functional than the auditory one. This compositional anomaly (which may be considered an anomaly only if compared to the erudite and humanistic literary corpus) may help in interpreting the overall meaning of Act II, Scene 11, which culminates with the beating of the “Jews” to the exultant shout of “Victory, victory.” This scene, in the light of such a consciously formulated standard, cannot be considered neutral. I will return later to this scene, but something needs to be added now. See Commedie dell’arte, ed. Siro Ferrone. 2nd Vol. (Milan: Mursia, 1986) 11. Falavolti 209. The “Instructions” were written by the same author and included at the play’s end. 5 6

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Figure 5. Giovan Battista Andreini (1576–1654).

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Lo schiavetto (published with the insertion of a song, Tu ch’hai le penne Amore, which is of uncertain attribution and set to music by Giulio Caccini) is one of the first works sent to press by the author. In 1611 he had published La turca, a representation of the ultimate triumph of the Christian army of Vincenzo I Gonzaga over the Turks in 1601, in which he included a grandiose sea battle spectacle, a so-called naumachia. However, the historical facts were quite different from what was displayed on stage: in the clashes that took place during the three military campaigns of 1595, 1597 and 1601, the Turks invariably had the upper hand over the army of Emperor Rudolf II, with whom Gonzaga had allied himself. In La turca, this revision of facts represented an attempt to satisfy frustrated desire and rewrite history. In this case as well we must consider the power attributed to the visual impact. This approach, though not uniquely Andreini’s, was deployed by him with special acumen. Thus, when the audience of Lo schiavetto was offered a chance “to see” a particular version of the defeat of the Jews in Act II, Scene 11, did it not bear substantial similarity to the aforementioned fictitious triumph over the Turks? In this scene, all the Jewish merchants who were summoned by Alberto and Prince Nottola in order to show their fabrics are beaten for no explicit reason by Alberto and Nottola’s servants, and their goods are stolen. The chronological proximity of the printing of La turca and Lo schiavetto suggests their affinity: both texts express the same function of compensation for frustrated desire. This convergence can be seen from the title: the character of Schiavetto, who will be later revealed to us to be the vindictive Florinda, is dressed as a noble slave (whilst the servant Rondone is dressed as a lowly slave), with a dagger at his neck and a turcasso or quiver, called tirkasch in Turkish. Florinda thus appears as a slave of Turkish origin, as Alberto explains to us in Act V, Scene 6: [. . .] In slave’s garb and under the very name of Schiavetto, fortune’s slave she wandered, to make Orazio a slave of death just as Orazio had made of her a slave of dishonour [. . .] [. . .] in abito di schiavo e sotto nome apposito di Schiavetto, schiava di fortuna andava errando, per far tanto schiavo di morte Orazio, quanto Orazio aveva di lei fatta schiava del disonore [. . .]7

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The theme of slavery, which is evoked in the text and dominates its title, reappears explicitly at least at one other point in the work. I would like to suggest that it is perhaps something more than a latent reference, even as regards the characters of the Jews. In the introductory instructions directed towards those wishing to stage Lo Schiavetto, Andreini writes: If, by chance, this Schiavetto be granted such freedom that he be unshackled in the theatre [. . .] Se, per aventura, a questo Schiavetto si concedesse tanta di libertà che dal ceppo si sciogliesse al teatro [. . .]8

Critics have already underscored the symbolic aspect of the comparison between the slavery of the written theatrical word and the liberation of its dynamics when acted out on stage. This concept confirms not an anti-literary attitude on the part of Giovan Battista Andreini, but his theatrical perspective as actor-author who considers the performance text as primary and, in some way, ontologically superior to written drama.9 Just as Schiavetto is freed from the shackles of dishonour and vindictive rancour (we witness his transformation into the love-struck Florinda), so the written play must free itself from the shackles of the written language. The theme of slavery, albeit in less vivid terms, appears also in some of the lines pronounced by Scemoel, Caino, Leon and Sensale. The latter’s presence on stage is justified rather tenuously in terms of plot, so that it is legitimate to assume these characters were a later addition to the original script. At the very least, these lines were an expansion of their dialogues, perhaps only prior to the first edition of 1612. Thus in the long speech by Sensale, almost a monologue, which is in many ways a violent and denigrating attack against his fellow-Jews, albeit tinged with irony and shticks (Act II, Scene 7), we read: [. . .] It is proper to Heaven to have mercy and to pardon, just as we see that every enormous sin of ours was punished, yes, but then pardoned, and we never lost our greater dignities, even while sinning. But now, what devilish sin is this, which is never pardoned and which strips away all grandeurs? And who possesses them then? [. . .]

Falavolti 65. “The shackles are obviously writing, text; freedom is action in the theatre,” in Falavolti 65 n. 1. 8 9

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[. . .] è proprio del Cielo aver misericordia e perdonare, come pur veggiamo che ogn’altro nostro enorme peccato ne fu punito sì, ma poi perdonato, e giamai non perdemmo le nostre dignità maggiori, ancor che peccando. Ma ora, che diavolo di peccato è questo, che ne priva di non aver giamai perdono e che di tutte le grandezze ne dispoglia? E poi chi le possede? [. . .]10

This type of plaint, which among other things partially shifts the tone from a comic level to a pathetic one—as when the love-smitten Florinda, disguised as a Turkish slave, unfolds her painful tale—does not affect the flow of the action. Unlike the speech of Schiavetto, whose lament of a seduced and abandoned woman clarifies the play’s main plot-line, the pathos of Sensale’s speech does not provide a dynamic purpose, nor does it serve as a more detailed motivational and psychological probe of the character’s function to the story. Why, then, does Giovan Battista Andreini insert this speech by Sensale? My argument is that the author wanted to echo the creation of Mantua’s ghetto, fully established on February 24, 1612. This was the very same year when the rule of Ferdinando I Gonzaga began (his ambassador to Milan was Count Alessandro Striggio, to whom the work was dedicated). The new ruler’s decision to follow closely counterreformation trends had immediate repercussions in the closing of the gates to the ghetto, located on one side of the Ducal Palace, Palazzo Tè, in the Grifone district. One of the changes made by Ferdinando I was his refusal to grant any exemption from wearing the distinctive yellow sign, a privilege his predecessors had granted to the Mantuan actor Simone Basilea, famous for his ability to present entire plays, reciting all the parts himself. In Lo Schiavetto, the bogus actor Facceto, eventually revealed as Lelio, Florinda’s brother, appears as a “lone actor” in the scene of the last act of a “play within a play,” and is masterfully capable of reciting all the parts. There is no solid basis for arguing that this represents Simone Basilea, but the reference to the techniques of charlatans, and the contemporary publication of Lo Schiavetto, hint at this possibility. We are not privy to the reasons that led Andreini to include in his play Jewish characters, whom on the one hand he portrays as conventionally unpleasant and self-defaming caricatures, and whom on the other he provides with a deeper layer of sympathy, as demonstrated by Sensale’s painful speech. Most probably, the creation of the Mantua

10

Falavolti 111.

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ghetto in 1612, in a city generally marked by tolerance, must have been a substantial motivation. If we add to this the fact that around the mid-16th century the entire Jewish community, in a unique and unprecedented case, became, in fact, a potential theatrical company available to the Gonzagas for court performances (both for carnival and on such occasions as weddings and triumphs), it seems possible that Andreini felt the need to raise his voice against the injustice of the Mantua ghetto. Claudia Burattelli’s careful delineation of the theatrical activity of the Mantua Jewish community11 provides lists of Jewish participants (for certain years and festive events) such as authors, actors, financiers and stagehands up until the “sack” of Mantua12 in 1630 by the imperial army of Emperor Ferdinando II; and then again from 1634 for several years upon the return of the Jewish community from forced dispersal.13 It is thus established that the entire Jewish community worked in conjunction with the Commedia dell’Arte companies, and from 1604 collaborated with the company “I Fedeli” (“The Loyal Subjects”) which was directed by Giovan Battista Andreini. I wish to note that questions relating to the cause of such forced employment in the performance world, unique in the history of the Jewish diaspora, remain open, and that, to the best of my knowledge,

11 See: Claudia Burattelli, Spettacoli di corte a Mantova fra Cinque e Seicento (Firenze: Le Lettere, 1999), in particular chapter IV, “Gli ebrei di Mantova e il teatro di Corte” 141–180. Note there is no reference to Hebrew documents in her essay. On p. 145 She writes: “There is no doubt the [participation in] theatre was one of the economicpolitical negotiating points between the Jewish community and the Duke, a sort of additional tax addressed at strengthening the reasons that determinate the Gonzagalike protection over the community. But to a certain extent it was also the result of the eccentric situation that existed in Mantua within the specific sector of cultural life represented by the performing arts, also the consequence of the daily mingling and contact between Jews and non-Jews that characterised about a century of this city’s history [. . .]”. 12 Sack means destruction. 13 Shlomo Simonsohn notes in his History of the Jews of the Duchy of Mantua ( Jerusalem: Kiryath Sepher, 1977) 26: “Political events put an end to the period of two hundred and fifty years during which the large Jewish settlement in the Duchy of Mantua had flourished and prospered. On the death of Duke Vincenzo II at the end of 1627, the question of the succession arose in earnest. He was the last of the Dukes of Gonzaga in the main line of succession, and on his death two princes of collateral lines contended for power [. . .] Thus began the struggle for the Mantuan succession, caught up in the old rivalry between Austria-Spain and France for supremacy in Italy. The Mantuan war was therefore part of the great rivalry between the powers in the Thirty Years War [. . .]”.

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there are no serious studies of Hebrew, Yiddish and Judaeo-Italian documents of this unique phenomenon. My hypothesis is that this significant deviation from traditional Jewish antagonism toward the stage may be linked to the equally macroscopic phenomenon of the presence of Kabbalistic studies in Mantua, considered from the Renaissance through the 18th century and beyond to be the most important European centre of Kabbalah, second only to Safed in Palestine. Additionally, since 16th century Mantua was a major printing centre for Yiddish, Hebrew and Judaeo-Italian, it is therefore probable that the tolerance that marked the city also characterised the Jewish community itself. Returning to Lo Schiavetto, I would like to offer additional considerations regarding the Jewish characters, and to examine the Jewish words and phrases that appear in the text. Leon, Sensale, Caino and Scemoel are the names of the Jewish characters. Whilst the first three names appear insignificant, aside perhaps from Caino, which resonates with negative connotations, the name Scemoel arouses greater interest. Four variant names are in fact applied to the same character: Scemoel, Scimison, Salomon, and Simon, though in all other aspects the character remains undifferentiated from the other Jews. The four Jewish characters are not marked by individual characteristics in terms of their psychology, social roles, physical traits or language, and are presented as variants of an “archetypical” and prejudicial type. This absence of individualisation bespeaks the scorn associated with stereotypes and the deliberate non-recognition of personal specifics. The quartet of Jewish characters is doubled and mirrored in the fourpart division of one of them, Scemoel. In the modern critical edition of the text by Laura Falavolti,14 the editor sought to recognize a decodable programmatic design in the use of the four names; for example, if the character expresses himself in the first person, he is Scimison; if in the third person, he is Scemoel.15 In my opinion, no clear design created by Andreini can be extrapolated from this use of name variations. The main purpose behind it was comical effect via the multiplication of the character of “the Jew.” This is an effect of redundancy and reiteration that is rhetorical in origin, and is grounded in the author’s erudition and classical training. Thus the outcome produced Falavolti. In Italian, present indicative of verb to be “io sono, tu sei, egli è” sounds very close to Scimi-son and Scemo-el. 14 15

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by the “chorus” of undifferentiated Jews rests precisely on the lack of individualisation. If this form of “two-dimensional crushing” of the personality is a topical method of dramaturgy—consider the fixity of Commedia dell’Arte prototypes—in this case the fixity of the characters is founded on prejudice. It is well established that the use of diverse and varied language is one of the main characteristics of plots and texts in the Commedia dell’Arte tradition. In Lo Schiavetto, alongside the better-known variants to be found especially in the final act, during Facceto’s “one-man show” (i.e., some Italian dialects like Bolognese, Veneto, Lombard, and Tuscanesque), Andreini also uses forms of argot. I refer in particular to Rampino’s gangster argot with which the play begins, and the entertaining scenes 9 and 10 of Act II, when both Fulgenzio and Orazio, dressed as Jews but unable to express themselves “Jewish-style,” pretend to be dumb and, through an amusing phonetic play, achieve what they call gattesina and sorzolina fanciful languages (a cat and a mouse language). With the same intent of variation, and as a means of drawing the audience’s attention, the author also uses words, phrases or argot constructions taken directly from Hebrew, Yiddish and Judaeo-Italian, as occurs, for instance, in Act II, Scene 8: Sensale: In truth, Mr Leone, you have been very astute. Scemoel: Welcome, Mr Leon. Leon: It’s a pleasure. We need not be so formal. Scemoel: I’m not here to bother anyone. I too am here to do good, but wherever Sensale is he brings bad luck and misfortune upon us [. . .] Sensale: Alla fé, messer Leone, che si’ stat molt charif. Scemoel: Baruchaba’ miser Leon. Leon: E voi siate il ben trovato: a non se darne zech fra noi. Scemoel: Io non son qua, per dar danno ad alcuno; sono anch’io qui per far bene, ma dov’è questo Sensale ci arriva la mala fortuna o arur aba’ [. . .]16 Here are some words and phrases of Jewish origin that appear in the play and which correspond to the discussion of Jewish argot in the philological work of Maria Luisa Mayer-Modena.17 Aside from terms Falavolti 113. See: Maria Luisa Mayer-Modena, “A proposito di una scena ‘all’ebraica’ nello Schiavetto dell’Andreini” ACME Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofi a dell’Università degli Studi di Milano XLIII (September–December 1990): 73–81. 16 17

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like: Torrà (with double r in use in non-Jewish circles), hiechodì (from biblical Hebrew yehudì, used in both singular and plural), gohim (from the biblical Hebrew goyim, used also in the plural), we also encounter baruchabà (Act II, Scene 8), “Baruchabà miser Leon” (from the biblical Hebrew barukh habà, but in a non-Jewish context used with the generic meaning of Jew) and charif (Act 2, Scene 8), “Alla fé messer Leone, che si stat molt charif ” (i.e. attentive, astute, from the post-biblical Hebrew harif, utilized in the Judaeo-Italian speech of Venice, Florence and Livorno); ganan firsur (Act II, Scene 7), “Oh, oh l’è qui sto ganan firsur” (ganan, thief, is similar to the Judaeo-Italian ganav and the Yiddish ganev, whilst firsur seems connected to the Yiddish firer, the final meaning being king of thieves or to the Yiddish firsur, as Mayer-Modena suggests, with the meaning of used to steal). Mayer-Modena’s article illuminates the use of Jewish speech in terms of argot, a usage marked by parodic and prejudicial intent, within Adreini’s crackling rhythm. As in the case of the description of the typological function of the Jewish characters, the quality of individualisation returns, precisely because of this lack of differentiation in social and personal terms. This achieves parody, and a theatrical effect. Prejudicial reiteration is fed by its own repetition and, at the same time, generates new prejudices. However, Giovan Battista Andreini’s ambiguity and ambivalence are obvious. The theme of the double, which is a constant figure in his dramaturgy, also emerges in Lo Schiavetto, in the obsessive use of multiple disguises, in the accentuated use of amphibology, and in the grand finale scene of the play within a play. But the double is a rhetorical category that has to be extended to the Jewish characters themselves: the “double” is something well known and pervasive in the Western imagination, and in linguistic structures that read into the figure of the Jew the undifferentiated and absolute otherness, in a nexus of unknowability and fearsome inaccessibility. Andreini even promotes the disguise as Jews of the two love-struck men, Orazio and Fulgenzio, who can exclaim “Love, you have made me become a Jew” (Act II, Scene 5): from the audience’ point of view their disguise as Jews was an act of radical metamorphosis into otherness par excellence. With no evident expressions of courage, provocation, or commitment, and working within a growing counter-reformation climate that affected even the tolerant city of Mantua on the one hand, and within the context of the closing doors of the ghetto on the other, Giovan Battista Andreini nonetheless produced a play that presents

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some aporiae, or windows, in the thick wall of scorn and invisibility of a part of society that he knew very well. We should not undervalue the use—which at first reading would seem to be justified only by theatrical expedients—of “impure” languages, since their admission into printed dramaturgy exalts them and saves them from oblivion. Bibliography Burattelli, Claudia. Spettacoli di corte a Mantova fra Cinque e Seicento. Firenze: Le Lettere, 1999. Busi Giulio. Mantua and the Kabbalah. Milano: Skira, 2001. Carandini, Silvia & Mariti, Luciano, eds. “Don Giovanni” by G. B. Andreini. Roma: Bulzoni, 2003. Falavolti, Laura, ed. Commedie dei comici dell’arte. Torino: UTET, 1982. Ferrone, Siro, ed. Commedie dell’arte. Vol. 2. Milan: Mursia, 1986. Fiaschini, Fabrizio, L.’ “incessabil agitazione”, Giovan Battista Andreini tra professione teatrale, cultura letteraria e religione. Pisa: Giardini, 2007. Mayer-Modena, Maria Luisa. “A proposito di una scena ‘all’ebraica’ nello Schiavetto dell’Andreini.” ACME Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofi a dell’Università degli Studi di Milano XLIII (September–December 1990): 73–81. Rebaudengo, Maurizio. Giovan Battista Andreini. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier, 1994. Simonsohn, Shlomo. History of the Jews of the Duchy of Mantua. Jerusalem: Kiryath Sepher, 1977.

“THE CHRISTIAN WILL TURN HEBREW”: CONVERTING SHYLOCK ON STAGE Shaul Bassi During his walking tour to Scotland in 1818, John Keats described in a letter to his brother Tom his encounter with an eccentric traveler who had seen Edmund Kean playing Shakespeare in Glasgow “in Othello in the Jew, I mean, er, er, er, er the Jew in Shylock! He got bother’d completely in vague ideas of the Jew in Othello, Shylock in the Jew, Shylock in Othello, Othello in Shylock, the Jew in Othello, &c &c &c, he left himself in a mess at last.”1 Bearing witness to the relevance of the two best known Shakespearean outsiders for a social outsider such as Kean, the confusion of this anonymous spectator also implies a closer kinship between the two Venetian plays than has traditionally been acknowledged. As Gil Anidjar has observed, the common theme of the stranger in Venice appears to have been considered less compelling than a series of powerful critical categories that have set The Merchant of Venice and The Moor of Venice apart (comedy vs. tragedy, religion vs. race, theology vs. politics, and, crucially, Jew vs. Muslim).2 In this essay I intend to outline some historical analogies between Shylock and Othello as a means to measure the distance that separates Shylock, the most famous Jewish role, from Jewish theatre, meaning by that a site where all the complexities of Jewish experience and representation are addressed. My title plays on the closing moment of Act I when the bond of the pound of flesh has just been sealed and, as Shylock leaves the stage, Antonio comments: “The Hebrew will turn Christian: he grows kind.” (1.3.175). The instant in which the relationship between Jew and Christian appears to be at its most cordial becomes the occasion of an anti-Semitic slur that foreshadows

Maurice Buxton Forman, ed., The Letters of John Keats (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935) 184. 2 Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab. A History of the Enemy (Standford: Stanford University Press, 2003) 101–112. 1

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Shylock’s final conversion.3 In reversing that line—“The Christian will turn Hebrew”—I pose the question of whether the product of an all-Christian culture, such as Shylock’s unmistakably is, can ever be “converted” to Jewishness when transferred from the page to the stage. Since the question of audience response is crucial for my argument, I should clarify that I bring to this subject a specific European perspective, for which Jewish presence is, unlike in New York or Tel Aviv, at best a minority one. Let me preliminarily rehearse the more established opinions on the matter. As Harold Bloom puts it quite bluntly: “One would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to recognize that Shakespeare’s grand equivocal comedy The Merchant of Venice is nevertheless a profoundly anti-Semitic work.”4 Much as I am tempted to subscribe to this view, Bloom’s purely textual reading needs to be measured against a long and varied theatrical tradition that highly complicates it and cannot be restricted to the play’s use as propaganda in Nazi Germany.5 As for more optimistic interpretations, a standard critical gesture, whose implied objective is to absolve Shakespeare from any charge of anti-Semitism, is to pit the more humane Shylock against the wicked Barabas of Christopher Marlowe. It is again Harold Bloom who offers a convincing counter-argument: “I fear that Shakespeare’s revisionary triumph over Marlowe is to give us a psychologically persuasive Jewish devil, rather than the caricature, Barabas. ‘I’ll show you a Jew!’ Shakespeare triumphantly implies, while creating a personage far more frightening than Marlowe’s cardboard fiend.”6 If the Jew of Malta can potentially stimulate only the most paranoid judeophobic fantasies, it is precisely the ambivalence of Shylock’s morality and psychology that can perversely trigger more sophisticated forms of anti-Semitism, providing

3 As Michael Ragussis has observed, the oldest and most persistent manner of representing the Jew in Western culture is as a figure of conversion. Michael Ragussis, Figures of Conversion: “The Jewish Question” and English National Identity (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995) 58. 4 Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (London: Fourth Estate, 1999) 171. 5 For Shylock’s stage and critical history, the most accurate study is: John Gross, Shylock: Four Hundred Years in the Life of a Legend (London: Chatto and Windus, 1992). Earlier accounts are: Toby Lelyveld, Shylock on the Stage (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961); Bernard Grebanier, The Truth About Shylock (New York: Random House, 1962); Hermann Sinsheimer, Shylock: the History of a Character (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1963). 6 Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) xliii–xliv.

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the prototype of the Jew as victim turned victimizer that attends on many current discourses on Israel. According to a more refined reading, Shakespeare deliberately portrays Shylock as a bad Jew: hypocritical, self-contradictory, and merciless.7 This is the Shylock who will keep kosher and not dine with Bassanio in Act I but is eager to feed upon the prodigal Christian in Act III. In spite—or because—of its subtlety, the weakness of this interpretation lies less in the tenuous evidence that corroborates it, than in the inherent difficulty to carry its point across to a non-Jewish audience. It is no surprise, then, that as a way out of the dilemma, many writers (mostly but not only Jewish) have often shared the desire expressed by the Canadian poet Abraham Moses Klein, who, applying for a Guggenheim scholarship in as fateful year as 1943, planned “to [. . .] focus [his] imagination and skill to [. . .] an emendation of the IV act of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, with additional dialogue, supplied by an additional character: a contemporary lineal descendant of Shylock viewing and interrupting the trial scene from amidst the audience.”8 Klein’s fantasy of a Deus ex machina who intervenes in the play and redeems both Shylock and Shakespeare never materialized, but it has not lacked emulators. In Ludwig Lewisohn’s The Last Days of Shylock (1931), the Jewish merchant escapes from Venice and is finally rejoined by Jessica and his children, who revert to Judaism;9 in Maurice Schwartz’s Yiddish play Shylock un zayn tokhter (Shylock and his daughter), his thirst for blood leads to his excommunication by the Jewish community.10 More recently, Arnold Wesker (Shylock, 1990) shows the moneylender as an erudite bibliophile friend to Antonio;11 in Daniel Goldenberg’s Le grand rôle (1999), Shylock becomes the great part that promises regeneration to a batch of destitute Yiddish actors;12 in Gareth Armstrong’s solo play Shylock, his story is apologetically and

Martin D. Yaffe, Shylock and the Jewish Question (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). On early ideas on Shylock as bad Jew see: Richard Halpern, Shakespeare among the Moderns (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997) 173. 8 “The Lost A. M. Klein Guggenheim application”, ed. Harold Heft, Canadian Poetry 32 (1993): 79. 9 Ludwig Lewisohn, The Last Days of Shylock (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1931). 10 The play was in turn an adaptation of Ari Ibn Zahav’s Hebrew novel Shylock ha’ yehudi mi’Venetsia. Joel Berkowitz, “‘A True Jewish Jew:’ Three Yiddish Shylocks,” Theatre Survey 37:1 (May 1996): 90. 11 Arnold Wesker, Shylock (London: Penguin Books, 1990). 12 Daniel Goldenberg, Le grand rôle (Paris: Calmann Lévy, 1999). 7

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humorously told by his Jewish friend Tubal;13 in Mark Leiren-Young’s Shylock (1996), he is defended as a legitimate role against the boycott of a contemporary North American Jewish community.14 The common goal of these rewrites, which significantly promote Shylock from subtitle villain to title hero, it to rationalize and exculpate the character, and to ultimately praise the emancipating power of art against the straitjacket of politics. But the most curious revision of The Merchant of Venice (which oddly brings back the Shylock-Othello connection) is probably an early 19th-century “Shakespeare’s” play called Hassan, the 16th-century Arab. The title seems to promise an adaptation of Othello, until one finds that Hassan is an Arab moneylender, whose compassionate nature is turned bitter after the Christian Antonio has abused his father, driving him to a cruel threat: “If at the sixth hour your debt is not paid your blood will be flowing and the knife of the Arab will tear a pound of flesh from your palpitating breast”.15 Evidently, in an age of increasing Jewish assimilation, the cruelty of Shylock was projected onto Islamic culture, with a manifestation of displaced anti-Semitism of alarming relevance today. Less drastic (but more influential) manipulations of the play are the dramaturgical additions and/or excisions of particular productions. Henry Irving, who offered the first openly sympathetic portrait of the character, interpolated the silent scene of “Shylock’s Return” (act II, scene 6) to poignantly illustrate the moment when the merchant comes back home to find it deserted by his daughter Jessica. The vision of the abandoned father was probably meant to strike the chord of familial ethics for a Victorian audience whose theological preoccupations were certainly different from the early modern ones, thus adding a psychological dimension to Shylock’s subsequent vengeful behaviour. Conversely, Laurence Olivier’s genteel Victorian Jew, was not allowed to say “I hate Antonio because he is a Christian,” a gratuitous expression of medieval malevolence that jarred with the bourgeois milieu of Jonathan Miller’s production (1970). But these light cosmetic alterations

13 Gareth Armstrong, Shylock (1998), 14 Mark Leiren-Young, Shylock: a Play (Vancouver: Anvil Press, 1996). 15 Guglielmo [sic] Shakespeare, Hassan o l’arabo del secolo XVI, tradotto da Vettor Ducange e accomodato alle scene italiane da Luigi Marchionni, Il magazzino teatrale, 2:2, Napoli, 1836.

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are nothing compared to a procedure that has remained unique for a Shakespearean play: the cutting of a whole act. The deletion of act V, which characterized for instance the famous Yiddish production of Jacob P. Adler, disabled the comic resolution of the plot, made Shylock the undisputed protagonist and turned his conversion into the real tragic ending of the play.16 Each of these adaptations would deserve extensive analysis, but it can be safely concluded that none has had the same impact on their original as some modern rewrites of The Tempest, which have imposed a new postcolonial perspective on the figures of Prospero and Caliban.17 Even a sympathetic Shylock or a sanitized text does not seem to offer a satisfactory solution to the contradictions of the play. We may find an explanation of this in Debra Shostak’s commentary on Philip Roth’s novelistic encyclopedia of modern Jewish dilemmas, appropriately titled Operation Shylock: “If Shylock is the figure of the Jew in Western discourse, then Operation Shylock must in some sense be translatable as ‘Operation Represent-the-Jew’.”18 A film whose logical subtitle could be: mission impossible. The crucial problem is that the representation of the Jew is, in Zygmunt Bauman’s definition, marked by allosemitism and proteophobia. Allosemitism, a term coined by Artur Sandauer, is “the practice of setting the Jews apart as people radically different from all the others, needing separate concepts to describe and comprehend them.”19 The related phenomenon of proteophobia is “the apprehension and vexation related [. . .] to something or someone that does not fit the structure of the orderly world, does not fall easily into any of the established categories [. . .] and in the result blurs the boundaries which ought to be kept watertight”.20 This diagnosis finds support in the historical and literary investigation of Brian Cheyette, for whom the figure of the Jew has historically functioned in Western culture as the signifier of uncertainty and confusion, the archetypal transgressor of boundaries

For the specific case of Jacob Adler, see Berkowitz, “A True Jewish Jew”, 78ff. For a comprehensive assessment see Chantal Zabus, Tempests After Shakespeare (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). 18 Debra Shostak, “The Diaspora Jew and the ‘Instinct for Impersonation’: Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock”, Contemporary Literature, 37:4 (1997): 748. 19 Zygmunt Bauman, “Allosemitism: Premodern, Modern, Postmodern,” Modernity, Culture and ‘The Jew’, ed. Bryan Cheyette (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1998) 143. 20 Bauman, “Allosemitism” 144. 16

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Figure 6. The Commedia dell’Arte Shylock by the Venetian company Pantakin (2005) directed by Michele M. Casarin (photograph by Nicolò Gemin).

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Figure 7. The Commedia dell’Arte Shylock by the Venetian company Pantakin (2005) directed by Michele M. Casarin (photograph by Nicolò Gemin).

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that allows the calling of other things by their right names.21 Hence the endless forms given, Proteus-like, to Jews in Western discourse: “Jews are represented as both the embodiment of liberal progress and as the vestiges of an outdated medievalism; as a bastion of empire and one of the main threats to empire; as prefiguring a socialist world state and the degenerate plutocrat par excellence; as the modern alienated artist and the incarnation of a corrupt worldliness.”22 One of the salient figurations of proteophobia is that of the Jew as a natural-born actor, a permanently camouflaged individual whose real nature is impossible to pin down: Nietzsche saw in the Jews as “the people possessing the art of adaptability par excellence, one might, according to this train of thought, immediately see in them a world-historical organization for the cultivation of actors, a veritable breeding ground for actors.”23 “Even Shylock’s famous ‘Hath not a Jew eyes?’ ”—Richard Halpern notes—“is composed almost entirely of questions, as if his identity could be expressed only in this form, and thus as non-identity.”24 This is the logic implied in those secular humanist interpretations of The Merchant of Venice that see the play as castigating the hypocrisy of Christians: Shylock has no life of himself, he serves the purpose of unmasking the sins of Christians, he is used as a mirror, according to a trope masterfully analyzed by Halpern. This might well be the mechanism that Shakespeare wanted to exploit: Stephen Orgel has recently argued that the most likely historical context of The Merchant of Venice was an anti-Puritan polemic. Shylock, a name on whose alleged biblical origins much ink has been spilled to little avail, was a purely English name, semantically equivalent to Whitlock and Whitehead. So Shakespeare’s target was not Roderigo Lopez, the only notorious Jew in Elizabethan England, but the Puritan community that identified itself with ancient Hebrews. Shakespeare probably had in mind the Puritan moneylenders of his day, “for whom the Old Testament rhetoric would be entirely in character, and the Jewishness a moral comment on the profession.”25

21 Brian Cheyette, Constructions of ‘The Jew’ in English Literature and Society: Racial Representations, 1875–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) 12. 22 Cheyette, Constructions, 7. 23 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (Cambridge University Press, 2001): Book 5:361. I thank Freddie Rokem, who discussed the trope of the Jew as actor at the London conference, and Jeanette R. Malkin for Nietzsche and other precious references. 24 Halpern, Shakespeare, 161. 25 Stephen Orgel, “Imagining Shylock”, Imagining Shakespeare: A History of Texts and Visions (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) 144–162.

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From the point of view of theatrical practice, there can be little doubt that the vicissitudes of Jewish history, the secularization of society and four centuries of stage history have made this system of reference, as well as the theological foundations of the play,26 unintelligible to a contemporary audience. In other words we cannot, as Avraham Oz has argued, solve our embarrassment over Shylock by blaming Shakespeare or by hiding behind his presumed authorial intentions, as if they were easily retrievable.27 Perhaps, as someone has suggested, we should simply stop putting The Merchant of Venice on stage. To endorse a more hopeful position I propose to rescue Shylock from the isolation provoked by the representational mechanisms of allosemitism, by introducing four historical analogies between him and Othello, which single them out in the constellation of Shakespearean characters. It is by addressing the issues these analogues raise, I would argue, that a non-allosemitic representation of Shylock can at least potentially be achieved. The first analogy can be defined as an ethnographic approach to the characters. We have no serious reports of actors, to the best of my knowledge, going to Copenhagen or Verona to develop a more truly Italian Romeo or a more Danish Hamlet. Conversely, the records of theatre history tell us that, well before the antiquarian age of Shakespeare, Meininger’s realism and certainly antedating Stanislavski, actors invested a great deal of energy to substantiate ethnographically their Othellos and Shylocks. Charles Macklin decided to have his Shylock wearing a red hat and explained to a curious Alexander Pope that he had read about it. “Do players in general take such pains?” asked Pope—“I do not know, sir, that they do,” was Macklin’s reply, “but as I had staked my reputation on the character, I was determined to spare no trouble in getting at the best information.”28 His notes indicate that Macklin read extensively in Jewish history, particularly Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities, and a contemporary magazine reported that he “made daily visits to the centre of business, the Change and the adjacent Coffee-houses, that by a frequent 26 Julia Reinhard Lupton, Citizen-Saints: Shakespeare and Political Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) 73–101. 27 Avraham Oz, “Transformations of authenticity: The Merchant of Venice in Israel,” Foreign Shakespeare: Contemporary Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) 58–9. 28 The Merchant of Venice: A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare, ed. Horace Howard Furness (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1888) 372–73.

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intercourse and conversation with the ‘unforeskinned race’ he might habituate himself to their air and deportment.”29 In the next century, Henry Irving changed his view of Shylock when he came across a group of North African Jews on a cruise in the summer of 1861. As his biographer writes, “he had been struck by a Jewish merchant whom he had seen going about his business in Tunis, at one moment calm and self-possessed, then in a helpless rage over a dispute about money, then fawning, then ‘expressing real gratitude for a trifling money courtesy’.”30 On a different cruise, some ten years later, Irving’s rival Tommaso Salvini stopped at Gibraltar, where he met “a splendid moor” who came to represent to him “the true type of the Shakespearean hero” Othello.31 The Italian actor, who also widely researched the history of Moors, became famous for performing Othello’s suicide through a gruesome cutting of his own throat, a choice he made in the name of a supposed ethnographic fidelity.32 Theatre historians warn us that actors’ (auto)biographies should be taken with a grain of salt,33 but even if we assumed that some of these anecdotes are spurious, they would still testify to the desire for authenticity felt by actors as regards these specific roles. In other words, to be Romeo or Hamlet actors have primarily looked inward; to be Othello or Shylock they have also gone out there, in a sort of theatrical fieldwork. This search for authenticity has produced in the case for Othello an interminable controversy over the exact shade of his skin. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was literally obsessed by the character’s “real” identity, which he stubbornly envisioned as a Spanish Moor as opposed to a Black African.34 In the case of The Merchant of Venice, there has been a continuous oscillation between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Shylocks. Since the last century it has become an established Anglo-American

29 The Connoisseur 31 January 1754; quoted in Shakespearean Criticism, vol. 12, ed. Sandra L. Williamson and James E. Person Jr. (Detroit: Gale Research, 1991) 7. 30 Laurence Irving, Henry Irving: The Actor and His World (London: Columbus, 1989) 127–8. 31 Tommaso Salvini, Aneddoti, ricordi, impressioni (Milano: Fratelli Dumolard, 1895) 260. Translation mine. 32 Shaul Bassi, “Heroes of Two Worlds: Tommaso Salvini, Henry James and Othello’s ethnicity,” in William Shakespeare and Italy. Shakespeare Yearbook X, 1999, ed. Holger Klein and Michele Marrapodi. 33 Textual and Theatrical Shakespeare: Questions of Evidence, ed. Edward Pechter (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996). 34 For Coleridge on Othello see my Le metamorfosi di Otello. Storia di un’etnicità immaginaria (Bari: Graphis, 2000).

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tradition to model Shylock after the early Ostjuden immigrant communities, making him speak, even in productions with Italian Renaissance settings, with London East End or New York Lower East Side Jewish intonations.35 Another typical authenticity effect has consisted in inserting some ethnic markers in the performance. Examples are the dialogue in Yiddish between Shylock and Jessica that Trevor Nunn invented for his recent production, or the bits of Jewish liturgy, typically the Kaddish (mourning prayer) or Shefoch (“Pour thy rage over the gentiles”, the part of the Passover ritual which expressed the anger of Jews at their medieval persecutors), put in the mouth of Shylock. All of these examples, chosen among many, express the ambivalence of impersonation. On the one hand, the imitation of blacks, Muslims, and Jews indicates a gradual overcoming of the fear of identification with the Christian West’s historical “others”. On the other hand, they epitomize the omnipotence complex of the white impersonator, the conviction that the “white” person can turn himself into anybody, and, as psychoanalysis teaches us, usurp him. A blackfaced Laurence Olivier is celebrated as a masterpiece of theatrical make-up at the London Theatre Museum, whereas a whitefaced black man would be invariably considered as a figure of ridicule. The second element that Othello and Shylock have in common is definable as a foregrounding of the body. Hayden White has argued that no history of the body is possible unless via the postulation of a monstrous, deviant body which “marks the limit or horizon of the normative body”.36 While he picks Richard III as an example, I would argue that once again Othello and Shylock stand out as the two real Shakespearean antibodies.37 The skin, colour and sexuality of the Moor are obsessive themes in the play and vexed issues in its staging. As for Shylock, his body is connoted as unnatural, recalcitrant matter. As Gil Anidjar has noticed, not only is Shylock reminded by Salarino that there is more difference between his flesh and his daughter’s than between jet and ivory (3.1.36–37), but he himself needs to insist, in his most famous speech, “Hath not a Jew eyes?” that he does have a body, eyes, hands, organs.38 The monstrous Jewish body has a long history, from

Orgel, “Shylock’s Tribe”. Hayden White, “Bodies and Their Plots,” Choreographing History, ed. Susan Leigh Foster (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995) 232. 37 Perhaps Caliban could be added. 38 Anidjar, “Political Theology”. 35 36

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the Middle Ages when Jewish males were believed to have menstruating genitalia to the Victorian times in which they scored over 100 per cent in the “Index of Nigrescence” calculated by John Beddoe in 1885 in Races of Britain.39 And when the external appearance of assimilating Jews became gradually indistinguishable, the yellow badge of early modern Jews was replaced by differences inscribed in the body: the triumphant visible sign of Jewishness became the nose.40 If Sander Gilman is right in situating the origin of cosmetic rhinoplasty in turn-of-the-century Berlin when the cultural pressure to reduce Jewish noses to “gentile contours” was very strong, the mirror image of the “nose job” is that of actors (including Jewish actors!)41 who have got rid of Shylock’s traditional red wig and provided him with some sort of elephantine prosthesis. Laurence Olivier’s first performance as Shylock included a prominent hooknose which, in a modern dress production where the businessman’s frock coat had replaced the Jewish gabardine, made it still quite easy to tell which was the merchant and which the Jew.42 This accumulation of authenticity on stage may account for that anomalous relationship with the audience that seems to have characterized the stage histories of Othello and The Merchant of Venice from the outset, constituting a third analogy between the plays. In his poetic prologue to Shakespeare (1743), Thomas Cooke recorded the strange phenomenon of a tragic figure who elicited comic effects: Who grieves to see the Jew depriv’d of Rest, When Av’rice and Revenge dilate his Breast? What is to Shylock woeful is the Birth, To you, of lively laughter-loving Mirth.43

It is probably no coincidence that the first apologetic view of the character took the shape of the prophetic vision of a late 18th-century critic

Shearer West, “The Construction of Racial Type: Caricature, Ethnography, and Jewish Physiognomy in Fin-de-Siècle Melodrama”, Nineteenth-Century Theatre, 21:1 (1993): 8. 40 Sander Gilman, The Jew’s Body (London: Routledge, 1991) 169–93. 41 Harley Erdman tells the anecdote of the Jewish actor David Warfield who chose to artificially elongate his nose to better play the role of a Jewish character. Harley Erdman, Staging the Jew: the Performance of an American Ethnicity, 1860–1920 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1997) 1–2. 42 Olivier’s interpretation was caricatured in a 1972’s Israeli production where Avner Hyskiahu had a grotesquely prolonged nose. Oz, “Transformations”, 67. 43 William Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, Vol. 3: 1733–1752, ed. Brian Vickers (London: Routledge, 1975) 112. 39

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who imagined a distant future in which a Jewish audience, in a Jewish nation, watches a production of The Merchant of Venice marveling at the ancient prejudices of British culture.44 The most striking product of this anomalous response is the recurrent impression that Shylock and Othello generate confusion between person and personage. For both Othello and The Merchant of Venice we have numerous records of spectators complaining that the actor (especially the Jewish and the black actor) was being the part instead of playing it. It is reported of Macklin that “[s]o malignant was his Shylock that the spectators, unaccustomed to such a display of passion on the stage, could not distinguish between the actor and his role and believed that in private life, Macklin was some sort of devil.”45 When Jacob Adler gained success with his Yiddish Shylock, his triumph was characterized as an expression of reality and not of art: “Adler’s heart speaks where Irving’s art paints [. . .] his Shylock is a true Jewish Jew.”46 Looking at Othello, when Ira Aldridge became the first black actor to interpret the role to remarkable European success, the blurring of boundaries between life and drama became a leitmotiv of the reviews: “We soon forgot that we were at the theatre, and we began to follow the action of the drama as if it were real history”; “I had not the actor before my eyes, but Othello himself.”47 No surprise, then, to read of spectators jumping to the rescue of Desdemona, fainting when Shylock whets his knife, or bursting in roars of delighted applause when Portia stops his armed hand. And on the background of these reactions we should recall the feelings of fear, shame and pain experienced by many Jewish and black viewers. The last feature shared by Othello and Shylock may be understood as an antidote to this excess of reality on stage: it is the rhetoric of dissociation adopted by numerous critics and actors in their commentary on the plays. The standard statement for Othello is that “the play [is not] about colour but [. . .] about jealousy [. . .] When a black actor does the part, it offsets the play, puts it out of balance. It makes it a play about blackness, which is not”.48 Interestingly enough, the first

Gross 106. Williamson and Person, Shakespeare Criticism, vol. 12, 7. 46 Berkowitz, “ ‘A true Jewish Jew’,” 80. 47 Quoted in Herbert Marshall and Mildred Stock, Ira Aldridge. The Negro Tragedian (Washington: Howard University Press, 1993) 226–8. 48 Jonathan Miller, Subsequent Performances (New York: Viking, 1986) 157. 44 45

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critic who applied the same argumentative pattern to The Merchant of Venice was probably Heinrich Heine, who affirmed that the “play does not actually represent either Jews or Christians but oppressors and oppressed”.49 The Jewish component of the play (like Othello’s ethnicity) is then abstracted, allegorized, wished away, considered accidental versus other essential themes, dissociated from other elements that are conceptualized as universal versus the narrow, particularity of Jewishness and blackness: The Merchant of Venice is not a play on a race theme [. . . it] is about love.50 It is not of much importance that Shylock is a Jew, and all the ‘background work’ on Jews and Judaism strikes me as quite irrelevant. The important thing is that he is a Jew in a Gentile society. [. . .] His being a Jew is not important as what being a Jew has done to his personality.51 He is hateful not because he is a Jew but because he is Shylock . . . Shylock’s Jewishness is thus, in Aristotelian terms, an ‘accident’; his substance is his spiritual deadness or leadenness. Hence the endless discussions of Shylock as a Jew are singularly fruitless.52 Jewishness could become a smoke-screen which might conceal both the particular and the universal in the role. See him as a Jew first and foremost and he is in danger of becoming only a symbol [. . .] But however important Jewishness and anti-semitism are in the play they are secondary to the consideration of Shylock, the man: unhappy, unloved, lonely, frightened and angry.53 Antonio is a Christian—not that he goes to church and makes long prayers and daily rehearses the creed [. . .] but a general spirit of brotherhood and generosity animates all his actions [. . .] Shylock exhibits Judaism. 54

Like Shylock’s fake nose, Jewishness becomes a prosthesis of the play. Othello the black is different from Othello the man; Shylock the Jew is different from Shylock the man. This sometimes well-meaning rhetoric implicitly endorses the notion of an unmarked, universal subject whose supposedly basic humanity implicitly excludes blackness and Jewishness. 49 Quoted in Shakespeare Criticism, Vol. 4, edited by Mark W. Scott (Detroit: Gale Research, 1987) 200. 50 Peter Phialas, quoted in Shakespeare Criticism, 4, 313. 51 Graham Midgley, quoted in Shakespeare Criticism, 4, 279. 52 Thomas Fujimura, quoted in Shakespeare Criticism, 4, 310. 53 Patrick Stewart, “Shylock,” in Players of Shakespeare 1, ed. Philip Brockbank (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) 18–9. 54 Denton Snider, quoted in Shakespeare Criticism, 4, 216.

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The four analogies I have described pose as many challenges to the modern director and actor who sets out to create a new Othello or a new Shylock, with consequences that can be discussed considering, with a sweeping generalization, three different ways of interpreting Shylock.55 The realistic, authenticated Shylock, which is the predominant in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, can create a complex play of identifications and misidentifications in Jewish and non-Jewish spectators alike. To clarify this point I take an example from the opportunity I had to teach The Merchant of Venice to an international class that included Italian, Spanish, German, Israeli and American students. We watched Trevor Nunn’s version where Henry Goodman’s Shylock, an authenticated Ostjude, infuriated an Israeli student, who was offended by what she perceived as a stereotypical Hasidic Jew. A non-Jewish American student responded that she could recognize in this Shylock the language and gestures of many fathers and uncles of her Jewish friends. The most obvious implication is that, in recognizing a realistic Jew, a non-Jewish audience may logically be tempted to conclude that he can really be interested in seeking a pound of flesh. His conspicuous ethnicity marks him as less civilized than the secular Jews who are probably sitting, undistinguished, in the audience. Accordingly, the ethnic markers described above lend themselves to multiple misreadings: a reviewer declared that he was not able to decipher the signification of Jewish rituals enacted by Shylock, but “it was the sort of scenic colour that in other epochs would have the mob baying for Jewish blood”.56 In other words, Jewish rites of today keep alive the kind of primitive prejudice that killed Jews in the Middle Ages! Admittedly the play of recognition does not concern non-Jewish spectators alone: authenticity has become a key category in contemporary debates on Jewish identity and is a prominent theme in Jewish theatre, where various models of “authentic” Jews serve to test the different kinds and degrees of Jewishness.57 For very assimilated Jews, a Hasidic Shylock might become the negative part of their heritage 55 I do not touch on the issue of identification with the actor rather than with the character, which would be particularly relevant when Shylock is played by cultural icons such as Dustin Hoffman or Patrick Stewart. 56 The Merchant of Venice, ed. James C. Bulman (Manchester University Press, 1991) 119. 57 Stuart Z. Charmé, “Varieties of Authenticity in Contemporary Jewish Identity”, Jewish Social Studies 6:2 (Winter 2000): 133.

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they want to disavow, leading them to accept the “realism” of the play. Paradoxically, then, an “authentic” Shylock is emphatically at odds with Jewish theatre, because it pins down Jewishness to a single model that can easily become a target of various anti-Semitic projections.58 The opposite approach is to consider a redemption of Shylock as a hopeless task, and to push his grotesque side to its extreme. This is the road taken by some Jewish directors and actors, who are less susceptible—but certainly not immune—to allosemitism. The first time the play was directed in Israel by an Israeli-born director, Yossi Yzraeli (1972), “‘[t]he native view’ permitted a portrayal of Shylock in the least favorable and most grotesque manner”.59 This controversial production was an invitation to historicize the character and see him as the product of medieval stereotyping, but, besides being painful for Jewish audiences, may have dangerous side effects in different settings. As modern theorists show, stereotypes thrive by way of their repetition and it is a conceptual mistake, or at best wishful thinking, that they can be efficaciously debunked if simply exposed.60 On the contrary, a monstrous Shylock may fulfill the unconscious sadistic fantasies of the non-Jewish audience and authorize latent anti-Semitism. A third option is to resort to some kind of Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt, an estranging device that should complicate the audience’s perception and lead them to question their notions of Jewishness. An account by James Hannahan of some American productions of the early 1990s, appropriately titled “Wrestling with Shylock”, shows how this approach finds its most immediate expression in unconventional castings.61 Shakespeare Santa Criuz’s Dannie Scheie resorted to double- and triplecasting as a constant reminder that the audience was watching actors playing roles and encouraging associations between Lorenzo and Shylock, done by the same actor.62 At Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, Peter Sellars pitted an African-American Shylock against a Latino Bassanio and an Asian-American Portia, in the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots of 1992. One could think of even more radical experiments: just 58 The contradictions of any “authentic” Shylock are manifest in the latest cinematic version of the play, Michael Radford’s The Merchant of Venice (2004), with Al Pacino cast as a sort of “Scarface” Shylock. 59 Oz 66. 60 Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994) 66–84. 61 James Hannahan, “Wrestling with Shylock. A Quartet of ‘Merchants’ for the 90’s,” American Theatre, 12:6 ( July/August 1995) 25–29. 62 Hannahan 26.

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as in a South African production in which the role of Othello was played by the other characters, to emphasize that the black hero was just a projective fantasy of the white culture, a version of The Merchant of Venice can be imagined where Shylock is played by a mannequin who is given voice by the other characters alternating as ventriloquists, highlighting his unavoidable stereotypical nature. It is this last approach, I believe, that offers, at least in theory, the possibility of a Jewish Shylock, and it is for the creativity of actors and directors to offer specific solutions, which need to be carefully tuned to their specific historical and political contexts. I will conclude my reflections by addressing a final option, the position of all those who would simply like Shylock’s Jewish question to be irrelevant, in a theatrical equivalent of the rhetoric of dissociation that operates in criticism. A case in point is a famous production of The Merchant of Venice by Max Reinhardt, which has gone on record for the wealth and flamboyance of its scenography. A key moment in its long stage history, begun in 1905, happened in 1934 when the play was represented outdoors in the Venetian square of San Trovaso. The reviews of the time and today’s critics agree that the real point of interest of the staging was Venice itself. According to Erika Fischer-Lichte, “Reinhardt’s method of casting Venice as the protagonist and centre of the performance worked as a most effective means of reducing and subduing its referentiality and, instead, foregrounding and strengthening its performativity”.63 It is tempting to compare this production to the contemporaneous exploitation of the play in Nazi Germany, a triumph of theatre against political propaganda. But, ironically, this sumptuous theatrical celebration of the Venetian state replicated the terrible delusion of those Italian Jews who tried to defeat anti-Semitic doubts over their patriotic loyalty by effacing their collective identity, sometimes even endorsing the staunch nationalism of the Fascist regime. Four years after Reinhardt’s production, the same regime issued racial laws that socially segregated Jewish citizens and paved the way for their deportation in 1943. A member of my family, now in her eighties, was a young spectator in that square. She still vividly remembers the magnificence of the show, the dazzling scenery, the arresting effect of

63 Erika Fischer-Lichte, “Theatre as Festive Play: Max Reinhardt’s Production of The Merchant of Venice”, in Venetian Views, Venetian Blinds. English Fantasies of Venice, eds. Manfred Pfister and Barbara Schaff (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999) 169–180, 172.

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a real ship sailing on the canal. When I asked her if she could recall anything about Shylock, her first answer was negative, as if to confirm that the power of theatricality had truly subdued the referentiality of the character, which should have been strong for a Jewish member of the audience. Then she added: “Actually, I remember his harrowing cry after his final exit on the way to conversion.” I have no way to tell whether the impression made by that cry was just another theatrical effect, if it stuck in the memory of this little Jewish girl alone or if it affected everybody in the same way. All this would be but speculation. What interests me is that this single episode is enough to demonstrate that a complete triumph of performance and theatricality can be successful only in a world without Jews or without anti-Semites. Until then, Shylock will have the same importance that, in my final analogy, the Nigerian writer Ben Okri attributes to Othello: What matters is that because of Shakespeare’s genius Othello haunts the English stage. He won’t go away. He is unable to hide on stage but he is always there, a reminder of his unexplained presence in the white consciousness, and a symbol of the fact that Black people and white are bound on the terrible bed of history.64

Shylock will continue to haunt the stage too, a disturbing, uncanny presence, binding Christians and Jews to the terrible bed of history, whispering in their ears the words that he uses against Bassanio in the trial scene: “I am not bound to please thee with my answers”. Acknowledgements I am grateful to Paolo Puppa for suggesting the topic of Shylock’s conversion: it is my sole responsibility to have converted that suggestion into something slightly different. I also want to thank the participants in the London conference for their useful comments and criticisms.

64 Ben Okri, “Leaping out of Shakespeare’s Terror: Five Meditations on Othello,” A Way of Being Free (London, Phoenix, 1997) 87.

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Okri, Ben. “Leaping out of Shakespeare’s Terror: Five Meditations on Othello.” A Way of Being Free. London, Phoenix, 1997. 77–87. Orgel, Stephen. “Imagining Shylock.” Imagining Shakespeare: A History of Texts and Visions. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 144–162. Oz, Avraham. “Transformations of Authenticity: The Merchant of Venice in Israel.” Foreign Shakespeare: Contemporary Performance, ed. Dennis Kennedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, 56–75. Pechter, Edward, ed. Textual and Theatrical Shakespeare: Questions of Evidence. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996. Ragussis, Michael. Figures of Conversion: “The Jewish Question” and English National Identity. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. Salvini, Tommaso. Aneddoti, ricordi, impressioni. Milano: Fratelli Dumolard, 1895. Scott, Mark W. Detroit, ed. Shakespeare Criticism. Vol. 4. Gale Research, 1987. Shakespeare, Guglielmo [sic]. Hassan o l’arabo del secolo XVI, tradotto da Vettor Ducange e accomodato alle scene italiane da Luigi Marchionni, Il magazzino teatrale, 2:2, Napoli, 1836. Shostak, Debra. “The Diaspora Jew and the ‘Instinct for Impersonation’: Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock”, Contemporary Literature 37:4 (1997) 726–754. Sinsheimer, Hermann. Shylock: the History of a Character. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1963. Stock, Marshall and Mildred. Ira Aldridge: The Negro Tragedian. Washington: Howard University Press, 1993. Vickers, Brian, ed. William Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage. Vol. 3: 1733–1752. London: Routledge, 1975. Wesker, Arnold. Shylock. London: Penguin Books, 1990. West, Shearer. “The Construction of Racial Type: Caricature, Ethnography, and Jewish Physiognomy in Fin-de-Siècle Melodrama.” Nineteenth-Century Theatre, 21:1, (1993): 5–40. White, Hayden. “Bodies and Their Plots.” Choreographing History. Ed. Susan Leigh Foster. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. 230–234. Williamson, Sandra L. and James E. Person Jr., eds. Shakespearean Criticism. Vol. 12. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991. Yaffe, Martin D. Shylock and the Jewish Question, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Zabus, Chantal. Tempests After Shakespeare. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

PHILOSEMITISM ON THE LONDON STAGE: SYDNEY GRUNDY’S AN OLD JEW Edna Nahshon The 1899 production of Children of the Ghetto, by Israel Zangwill (1864– 1926), then Anglo-Jewry’s preeminent writer, was a watershed event.1 It was the first time credible Jewish characters, operating within an entirely Jewish milieu and engaged in authentic Jewish dilemmas, were presented on the mainstream stage. The innovation of this enterprise is striking when foregrounded against previous and contemporaneous stage portrayals of Jewish characters. These were routinely filtered through the hackneyed schemata of the “stage Jew,” a figure whose hyperbolized otherness triggered laughter, fear or contempt. An Old Jew, a comedy in five acts by Sydney Grundy, opened in London in 1894, and was the last new English play with a Jewish protagonist to be produced prior to Children of the Ghetto. Though it is a work of minor literary value, it is the focus of this essay for two reasons. First, because it represents the “before Zangwill” period, offering a better understanding of his and his followers’ project to present Jews “as they are” on the mainstream stage; second, because An Old Jew is a so-called philosemitic play that supposedly presents the Jew in a favorable light. And yet, when compared with plays created a few years later by dramatists with intimate personal knowledge of Jewish life, Grundy’s text reveals the enormous chasm between the work composed by a sympathetic outsider and one written from within an ethnic group. An Old Jew illustrates the ambivalent nature of philosemitic works which, as noted by Alan Levenson, confute and perpetuate Jewish stereotypes.2 The 1890s saw many changes in London’s theatrical culture. The decade began with the predominance of actors and ended with playwrights setting the agenda for the stage. Though the 1890s are

1 For a more comprehensive discussion, see my book From the Ghetto to the Melting Pot: Israel Zangwill’s Jewish Plays (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005). 2 Alan Levenson, “The Problematics of Philosemitic Fiction,” The German Quarterly, 75. 4 (Autumn, 2002): 379.

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remembered in theatre history for the sensational introduction of Henrik Ibsen to Britain, the rise of Bernard Shaw, the eminence of Arthur Wing Pinero and Henry Arthur Jones, and the brilliant, albeit short, career of Oscar Wilde, these playwrights were not the only names on London’s theatrical menu. West End theatres, then as now, were commercial enterprises that depended heavily on the mores of their patrons, who were mostly members of the middle-class with a preference for middle of the road repertoire, often provided by playwrights whose names would later fade from public memory. In his statistical analysis of the West End in the 1890s, J. P. Wearing confirms that while Jones and Pinero were the most popular playwrights of the decade in terms of number of productions, Sydney Grundy, followed by F. C. Burnard and G. R. Sims, did not lag much behind.3 French scholar Augustin Filon, in his survey of the English stage, written in the late 1890s, confirms Grundy’s position, noting: If you were to ask a London theatre-goer to name the most popular dramatists of the present day, to designate the ripest talents which tell most clearly of the present and of the future of the English drama, I think I may affirm that the names that would come immediately to his lips, with scarcely a moment’s pause for reflection, are those of Arthur Wing Pinero, Henry Arthur Jones, and Sydney Grundy.4

Despite his popularity, and although he had written or adapted more than fifty plays, Grundy has attracted practically no critical attention, and was forgotten after the Great War. In 1977, J. P. Wearing summed up his career as follows: Sidney Grundy was a prolific, popular mediocrity who found favor with audiences comparable to that enjoyed by Jones, Pinero and Sims. . . . although he aspired to social comment, he never dared as much as Jones or Pinero.5

Max Beerbohm, for twelve years drama critic of the Saturday Review, was particularly disappointed that Grundy invested so much of his dramatic skill in adaptations rather than in original plays. He wrote:

3 J. P. Wearing, “The London West End Theatre in the 1890s,” Educational Theatre Journal 29.3 (Oct., 1977): 328. 4 Augustin Filon, The English Stage, Being An Account of the Victorian Drama, translated from the French by Frederic Whyte with an introduction by Henry Arthur Jones (London: John Milne, 1897) 212. 5 Wearing 329.

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Now and again [Grundy] has written an original play. But, despite success, he has always forthwith relapsed into adaptation of work done by bygone Frenchmen, evidently deeming such adaptation the softest and wisest course that poor little humble English dramatists can pursue.6

Sydney Grundy (1848–1914) was born in Manchester, the son of the city’s former mayor. He was educated in Owens College, was called to the bar in 1869 and for six years practiced law in his native city. His first play, a comedietta titled A Little Change, was produced in 1872 at the Haymarket Theatre in London, and in 1876 he moved to the capital, where he developed a career as a professional dramatist. Of his original plays, the most successful were Sowing the Wind (1893) and The Greatest of These (1895), staged by Mr. and Mrs. Kendal. His best known adaptations of French plays were A Pair of Spectacles (1890), based on Les Petits Oiseax by Labiche and Delacour; A Bunch of Violets (1894), based on Feuillet’s Monjoye; and Business is Business (1905), based on Mirbeau’s Les Affaires sont les Affaires. Grundy’s original comedy The New Woman (1894), in which he parodied upper-class “independent” women and glorified the traditionally feminine ingénue type, was resurrected from obscurity by modern feminist scholarship when included in a 1993 Oxford University Press anthology of emancipated woman plays.7 Grundy began his career at a time when actors ruled the stage and the dramatist’s primary task was to provide them with vehicles that would display their histrionic virtuosity. The number of original new plays was small and a high percentage of what was presented on the London stage were adaptations of French originals. However, in the 1890s, he found himself in a changed theatrical terrain, greatly transformed by Ibsen and his young intellectual devotees: literary drama preaching new social mores, notably a uniform standard of morality for men and women, took center stage, plays began to be published and be read like novels, and the “Theatrical Theater” of the former generation, now judged by literary standards, was deemed silly and obsolete. Grundy, though maintaining his popularity, was viewed as passé by younger critics like William Archer and G. B. Shaw. Making an effort to fit in, he tried negotiate his way between the old guard—whose chief spokesman was Clement Scott, the immensely influential theatre critic of the Quoted in N. John Hall, Max Beerbohm Caricatures (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997) 89. 7 The New Woman and Other Emancipated Woman Plays, ed. Jean Chothia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). 6

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Figure 8. Sydney Grundy, 1894. Courtesy of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania.

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Daily Telegraph who had dubbed the “New Drama” “drama of the dustbin” and Ibsen’s Ghosts “an open drain; a loathsome sore unbanded”— and the Moderns, who despised superficial theatricality and wished for a theatre of social significance and literary merit. In 1901, when asked by an American reporter for his opinion of “the present tendency of dramatic writing in England,” Grundy answered: Well, I don’t know what the public wants; we are in a transition state, and I for one do not know what course to pursue. It is difficult to say whether theatergoers are ready for more problem plays or not.8

In his later years, disappointed by the intellectualization of the drama, and frustrated by seeing his work censured and even mocked by the young critics, he published a furious essay titled The Play of the Future (1914), in which he vented his frustrations with the New Drama and its promoters. The literati, he charged, wished to “reduce the stage to a platform, the drama to a charade, and the living dialogue of the theatre to the dead language of a lexicon”.9 Grundy loathed G. B. Shaw, whom he regarded as the “ringleader” of henchmen who set out “to kill the theatre, and . . . confiscate its revenues”, and expressed his hope that “the theatre will come back to its senses” and would again become theatrical and entertaining. The rawness of Grundy’s personal hurt is striking when he writes at the conclusion of his treatise: My generation has been attacked, my period ridiculed, my cult held up to obloquy; and when I am attacked I defend myself. A cuttle-fish may do that. I am not ashamed of my generation; I justify the past; I indict the present. It would not have been possible without us; it has entered into our labours; where we sowed, it reaps; and it is undoing our life’s work.10

An Old Jew was written for actor John Hare, one of England’s eminent actors-managers of the time. The play opened at the Garrick Theatre in London on January 6, 1894 and closed on February 3. On November 22, 1905, the play, re-titled Julius Sterne and again starring John Hare, opened at the Coronet in London. Anglo-Jewish intellectuals recognized the symbolic aspect of the opening date, 1894, which marked the centennial of Richard Cumberland’s The Jew (1794), the first and until then 8 9 10

Mary Penfield, “Sidney Grundy”, The Commercial Advertiser, 8 June, 1901. n.p. Sydney Grundy, The Play of the Future (London: Samuel French, 1914) 4. Op. cit., 39–40.

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Figure 9. John Hare. Vanity Fair, March 1890.

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only philosemitic play of the English stage. It seems that for Grundy the timing was a matter of pure coincidence. Unlike Cumberland, who wrote his play with the declared mission to promote tolerance and clear the Jew’s distorted image, Grundy’s motivation was more muddled, as his primary aim was a sharp satire of modern journalism. Regardless of the difference between the two plays, both share the presumption of the Jewish alterity and victimhood and provide their Jewish protagonists with sentimental monologues intended to stir compassion and goodwill. Cumberland’s Sheva explains in Act I, scene 1: We have no hiding place on earth—no country, no home. Everybody rails at us, everybody points us out for their may-game and their mockery. If your playwrights want a butt, or a buffoon, or a knave to make sport of, out comes the Jew to be baited and buffeted through five long acts, for the amusement of all good Christians.11

Grundy’s Julius Sterne pronounces at the end of Act IV: . . . I am an old Jew! I am an outcast and a wanderer. In my time, every man’s hand has been against me; but I am not ashamed of my wanderings, and I am not ashamed of my race. I am proud to be one of that great family which has established itself throughout the length and breadth of the earth—citizens not of one country, but of all; and wheresoever it has gone, furnished its foster-mother with her greatest sons, and furnished Christendom with that grandest Jew, whose name you bear, whose faith you prostitute!12

The story of the play, which alternates between a family apartment in Soho and the Moonlight Club in Maiden Lane, goes as follows: Twenty years earlier, Mr. Venables, a Jewish businessman, discovered that his (Gentile) wife, a sweet-voiced singer, was cheating on him with John Slater, then an idealistic Cambridge man, and presently the drunkard editor of “The Vulture”, a corrupt society magazine devoted to slander, gossip and the performing arts. In order to spare their two young children from social ruin as the offspring of an adulteress, the Jewish husband chose to leave his family, though not before setting a generous fund that would guarantee their livelihood, and demanded that his wife, whose reputation would remain intact, quit the stage and devote herself

Richard Cumberland, The Jew, 2nd ed. (London: Printed for C. Dilly, 1794) Act I, scene 1. 12 Sydney Grundy, An Old Jew (New York: American & Foreign Dramatists, 1894) 118. All subsequent references will be made to this edition. 11

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to raising their children without telling them the truth behind the father’s departure. He then made his way to South America, where he became immeasurably wealthy. Now, an old man, he is back in England, rich beyond belief, consumed with love for his children and a detestation of fraud and pretense. The children, Paul and Ruth, believe their father had selfishly deserted the family and detest his memory. Hiding his true identity behind an assumed name—he is now called Jules Sterne—the old Jew surreptitiously establishes contact with them. Living with their mother, they exist solely on Ruth’s earnings as a young actress, a rather strained existence, as the fund set up by the father had been abused by a fraudulent trustee, a despicable financial journalist, also a member of the Moonlight Club. Paul is an aspiring playwright whose scripts are regularly rejected without having been read because he is not part of the powerful and manipulative coterie of Moonlight Club, now the headquarters of hack journalists, a drunken clergyman and similarly unsavory characters. Ruth, a virtuous young woman, is pressured by Bertie Burnside, a club member, musical critic of the “Vulture” and a married man, to become his mistress and thus enhance her career. Julius Sterne steps into all this chicanery like a magician with a wallet for a wand. His endless riches secure his son’s career and his daughter’s virtue. He buys a theatre, liquidates the Moonlight Club, and takes possession of corrupt newspapers. The tale ends on a happy note with Mrs. Venables confessing to her children the truth behind their father’s desertion. The old Jew rejoins the family, fraudulent journalists are done with and righteousness prevails. John Hare, who played the title role, won accolades for his dignified portrayal of Julius Sterne. In his 1895 biography of Hare, Thomas Edgar Pemberton described Hare’s portrayal of the old Jew: As Julius Sterne, with the piercing eyes, keen grey face, long white hair, and velvet skull-cap, he was fascinatingly picturesque, and he invested the portrait with an air of mingled shrewdness and benevolence that was eminently pleasing. There was a pathetic dignity, too, in the patient composure with which he bore the fierce reproaches of his son until the inevitable moment when other lips than his revealed the cruel secrets of his life that was appreciated by all those who can understand true art.13

13 Thomas Edgar Pemberton, John Hare, Comedian, 1865–1895: A Biography (London: John Routledge, 1895) 139–40.

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Hare was known for his portrayal of old men, a role in which he excelled since his youth and which gained him the reputation of one of the theatre’s best “genre painters.”14 G. B. Shaw, writing in 1896, explained that the actor was “the sort of man whose voice, figure and manner vary comparatively little from twenty-five to seventy,” and noted that while it used to be amusing to see him in such parts due to the “the cleverness of the imitation”, now, as he was past his fiftieth year “his acting of elderly parts is no longer a pretence; consequently we no longer chuckle at it: we are touched, which is much better”.15 According to the Sketch, Hare “gave no Jewish flavour to his manner; yet it were possible to do so”, a comment that within the context of the time meant that he avoided grotesque ethnic markers, such as an exaggerated Semitic nose and nasal lisp, which characterized the Victorian stage Jew.16 Still, his costume was deliberately alien—he wore a traditional caftan and skullcap. Described by the London Times as “rabbi’s garb,” the review commented that it belonged to another age and asked tongue in cheek how Sterne had amassed his enormous fortune dressed in this fashion.17 While the cast was praised as very able, the play was judged clever yet old-fashioned and burdened by extraneous and illogical elements. Even Filon, a Grundy enthusiast, admitted its faults could be easily enumerated while its charm was difficult to explain, though he insisted that “If the play be theoretically bad, how is it that we listen to it, mused or amused, without a moment of fatigue”.18 Similarly, The Sketch, which considered the play “a clumsy, lifeless work”, admitted it had “some very smart writing” and “some pretty moments and interesting minutes”.19 The primary aim of the play—which according to the Graphic had been inspired by Eugène Scribe’s 1837 play La Camaraderie ou la courte Echelle (The Clique, or the Helping Hand) and according to the London Times by Kotzebue’s The Stranger—was an impassioned “exposé” of modern dramatic journalists as a fickle, unscrupulous and corrupt clique whose members engage in self-admiration and abuse of those

“The Stage”, The Academy 13 Jan. 1894: 41. George Bernard Shaw, Dramatic Opinions and Essays, Vol. 1 (London: Archibald Constable, 1907) 280. 16 Monocle, “At the Theatres,” The Sketch 17 Jan. 1894: 628. 17 “Garrick Theatre”, The London Times, 8 Jan. 1894: 12. 18 Filon 229. 19 Monocle. 14

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who do not belong to it.20 This depiction was rejected by theatre reviewers as false, over-blown, and motivated by the personal irritation of an angry writer who felt maltreated by what he imagined as “a dramatic ring sworn to keep poor Sydney Grundy out of the hallowed circle of dramatists.”21 Additionally, they felt that Grundy’s thesis, while possibly interesting to those in literary and journalistic circles, was of little relevance to the general public. As can be expected, there was some guessing regarding the real people behind some of the fictive characters. Some identified critic Augustus Sala with one of the more salacious characters in the play; others wondered if the Moonlight Club stood for the Athenaeum; M. J. Landa speculated that it might have been Baron Maurice de Hirsch, the millionaire-philanthropist, who inspired the creation of Jules Sterne.22 The tone of some of the reviews was condescending and derisive, with the Speaker publishing a jocular “Entirely Imaginary Correspondence” composed by A. D. W. (critic Arthur Dingham Walkley), that consisted of four satiric letters by and to notable critics and theatre personalities: William Archer to Clement Scott, Scott to Arthur Wing Pinero, Joseph Knight to Justin Huntly M’Carthy, and Augustus Harris to Malcolm Salaman. Harris, manager of the Drury Lane Theatre, and Salaman, dramatist and critic, were both Jews.23 The humorous correspondence reflects a Jewish critique of An Old Jew. Harris’s complaints are as follows: I cannot understand why Sydney Grundy’s “Old Jew” should call himself a “type of his race”—can you? Would a type of his race marry a Christian? Would he leave an erring mother for twenty years to bring up his children, without caring to know whether they were brought up as Jews or Christians? Would he entrust money for them in his absence to a Christian solicitor without once inquiring whether the trust had been executed or not? Would he compare his action in expelling the members from his club to the expulsion of the Jew moneylenders from the Temple by the Founder of Christianity?24

Though English dramatists of the time were not averse to occasionally protesting negative reviews by sending letters to the editors, Grundy W. Moy Thomas, “An Old Jew,” The Graphic 1 Jan. 1894. “ ‘An Old Jew’ and an Old Jar,” The Truth 11 Jan. 1894: 76. 22 M[yer]. J[ack]. Landa, The Jew in Drama (New York: Ktav Publishing House. 1969. Reprint of 1926 edition) 201. 23 A. D. W. [Arthur Dingham Walkley], “The Drama,” The Speaker, 13 Jan. 1894: 43–44. 24 Ibid. 20 21

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responded in a far more aggressive manner. Although he normally did not publish his scripts, he himself published An Old Jew—in New York, where his play had not been seen—with a seventeen-page preface in which he poured his unmitigated wrath on his detractors. Furthermore, he added footnotes to the body of the play script itself, defending and justifying details, including minor ones that had been deemed inaccurate or illogical by his critics. For example, a couple of reviews raised the minor point that it was not clear whether the initial meeting between father and son was accidental or had been pre-planned by Sterne. Grundy would not let it pass. In Act I, in the scene where the two meet for the first time on-stage, he inserted an asterisk that directs the reader to the following note on the bottom of the page: An ambition shared by some “experts.” Will it be believed, that there are leaders of thought upon the London press, who infer from this scene that Julius Sterne met Paul accidentally, and did not know who he was? One, more intelligent, objects that it is not explained how Julius discovered his family. And Ruth [his sister, E.N.] is a popular actress! (p. 42)

One may posit the question: If the play’s primary goal was an attack on journalistic practices, why did Grundy select the title he did and decide on a Jewish protagonist? The Sketch hinted at opportunism, its reviewer writing: I should like to ask Mr. Sydney Grundy why the title, and why the race and creed of the chief character? Do you pretend that the play requires him to be Hebrew—that it is to in the least degree affected by the race or creed, that his conduct and feelings have any flavour peculiar to the Israelite? If not, is the title not a mere catchpenny device?25

Grundy tried to defend his work against a critique of his title and claims regarding the credibility of the play’s Jewish aspects. Feeling himself on less firm ground than when discussing the evils of journalism and the New Drama, he was willing to concede a bit. In a footnote on the playscript’s first page he acknowledged that exception had been taken to the title, and explained: Julius Sterne speaks of himself as in some respects as a type of his race. It is objected that, in other respects, he is not a type of his race. That is quite possible. The man would indeed be a prodigy, who was in every respect a type. But the objection is taken by Gentiles. (p. 23)

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Sketch, op. cit.

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He also tried to extricate himself out of the Jewish muddle by arguing that the entire Venables family was Jewish. In a note on Mrs. Venables’ rebuke to her son “remember . . . your father was a Jew” (p. 28), he wrote: It is inferred by some experts, that Mrs. Venables is a Christian, and upon this inference has been reared a stately super-structure of condemnation. But the inference is illogical. Mrs. Venables’ meaning is obvious. “Your father is a Jew—must now be an old Jew—when you disparage old Jews, you disparage your father.” Mrs. Venables, and of course Ruth, are Jewesses; and the super-structure falls to the ground. That the ladies that played these parts did not happen to be of the Jewish race, is scarcely the fault of the author; and that it is not always within the resources of man to transform the appearance of woman, is a fact with which students of human nature ought to be familiar. (p. 28)

The argument, for anyone who reads the play, is entirely unconvincing and cannot be seen as anything but an a posteriori effort by Grundy to vindicate himself. Israel Zangwill reviewed the production for the Jewish Chronicle.26 He treated the play with good-natured humor. He joked that Grundy’s treatment of the “Vulture” and the Moonlight Club was akin not merely to the use of “a steam-hammer to crack a nut,” but to the exaggeration of “a nut to the size and potency of a cannon-ball.” He also poked fun at the contrived delineation of the old Jew, deadpanning that Sterne must have been wearing a black skull-cap indoors more due to the fear of cold than to the prescriptions of Rabbinic law, as he appeared to have had no misgiving over having married a Christian. He smiled at the inauthenticity of Stern’s Christological allusions to Jesus’ crown of thorns, and the equation of the dissolution of the Moonlight Club with the expulsion of the money-changers from the Temple. Yet while criticizing the play for lacking the “subtle touches of specific knowledge,” he paid tribute to Grundy’s positive portrayal of the Jew, which, he noted, ran counter to stage conventions, and found the depiction of Julius Sterne more subtle than Cumberland’s Sheva. While insisting that he was not ready to “gush over a good Jew in fiction or drama” and labeling the Jewish community’s gratitude for “a kind word” as “quite pathetic”, he nevertheless recommended Grundy’s play as one that every Jew ought to go see. Still, he did not think An Old Jew could seriously 26 Israel Zangwill, “ ‘An Old Jew’ at the Garrick Theatre,” The Jewish Chronicle 12 Jan. 1894: 7–8.

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alter the representation of Jews on the English stage and mused that it was “a melancholy reflection” that a hundred years after Cumberland, the stage Jew was still alive and well on the English stage. Regarding the question of the protagonist’s identity, Zangwill suggests the “fad” theory, noting that England was in the midst of what he calls a Jewish “boom” that had begun the previous year with the novel and has now spread to the theatre.27 With typical humor, he tells his Jewish readers: We were the lost tribes of fiction. The British novelist rediscovered us quite a year ago. He has found out that we are picturesque—which of course we are the last persons to perceive, ourselves, believing as we do that the supreme mission of the Jew is to ape the respectable Englishman, from the crown of his chimney-pot hat to the sole of his patent leather shoe. Scarcely a novel is now issued from the press without a Jewish subject or a Jewish personage or Jewish reference and the attitude is far more complimentary than of old, even if the zeal is not always according to knowledge.

Zangwill mentions directly only George Du Maurier’s Trilby, which had just begun serialization in Harper’s magazine. He does not mention the immense impact of his own writings, especially his 1892 bestselling novel Children of the Ghetto, on this trend. Was Grundy simply riding a popular trend? Did he hope to provide Hare with a role that might parallel Henry Irving’s 1879 historic interpretation of Shylock as a man more sinned against than sinning? I would argue that Grundy was not merely following a fad, and, though he created a benevolent Jew, free of the standard unappetizing externals, his protagonist’s identity was less motivated by philosemitic sentiments than by the usefulness of the clichéd stereotype of the rich and alien Jew, whom Grundy employs as a capitalist Deus ex machina to avenge native knavery and restore old-world standards. In constructing his old Jew’s character, Grundy replicates many of the shopworn aspects of the mythologized Jew: sinister association with money, medievalism, feminized masculinity, lack of physical attractiveness, old age, rootlessness, cosmopolitanism, solitude, and real or metaphorical lack of progeny. Sterne’s monologue in Act V, in which he reveals to Ruth the story of his life, illustrates some of these points: 27 Zangwill likely had in mind Hall Caine’s The Scapegoat (1890), Walter Besant’s The Rebel Queen (1893), George Chesney’s The Lesters (1893), and George Meredith’s Lord Ormont and his Armita (1894).

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Figure 10. Israel Zangwill, 1904. Postcard.

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. . . I was a man of business. Type of my race. I was not unsuccessful; but perhaps I was too much a man of business. Type of my race. A man of pleasure came upon the scene. He was a handsome man—a brilliant man—a man God had endowed with every gift, save one—the greatest gift of all—strength. . . . My wife betrayed me. What was I to do? I could not live with her; my love was dead. I could not publish her disgrace. It would have been her ruin; it would have been my children’s. I went away. I went out in the wilderness. Type of my race! I had no ties—no interest—no occupation—save to make money. I made it. Type of my race! I became rich, richer and richer, till one day I said to myself, what do riches mean? Not happiness, not even peace of mind. I loathed the riches; but the riches grew, as though to mock me with their vanity. . . . and I came back to England—only to see them, only to speak to them [the children], only to touch them. And now, in England, here I am—alone—rich beyond avarice—courted, yet scorned—flattered, yet feared—but striving still to do some little good with great wealth. Type of my race.28

Sterne as a force that bulldozes obstacles with a magical wallet hankers back to Barabas rather than to Zangwill’s penurious children of the ghetto. Although Sterne mentions that he was poor once, he appears to us as a financial alchemist rather than a rags-to-riches success story. Other than a vague reference to South America where he is said to have “stumbled over a dung-heap and made his fortune”,29 the playwright provides no glimpse on how the old Jew has amassed his fortune. The text suggests that Sterne did not make his money out of ambition, as a result of a particular invention or clever enterprise. He is a human cash-machine because of his Jewish genes. Early in the play he laments: “Everything in my fingers turns to gold . . . I stretch my arms for a woman’s love, and I embrace a statue, carved in gold!”30 Though this Midas-like quality is put to good use in the play, financing Grundy’s campaign against modern drama and shoddy journalism, its very existence suggests the option of serving malevolent purposes. After all, Sterne invests in his son’s theatrical ambitions without ever reading his script, on the basis of blood, not quality, thus evoking the platitude that Jews “take care of their own.” Moreover, Grundy adds to the cliché of the Jew’s innate pecuniary skill a harmful modern twist: the use of “Jewish” money to manipulate the media. Sterne, in order to clean house and

28 29 30

An Old Jew 123. Ibid. 37. 44.

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secure his son’s prospects, buys out all the “bad” newspapers: the “Vulture,” the financial “Tapeworm,” and a “syndicate of 22 provincial and American journals”. The fact that Sterne’s takeover of the press benefits society does not allay the very nature of the commonly evoked anti-Semitic libel that Jews control the media. Grundy’s Jew is constantly referred to as “old.” Given the age of his children—Paul is twenty-four and Ruth, twenty-two—he could be younger and the story would still stand. Why then the emphasis on his age, and by implication on his forthcoming passing? He tells his daughter: “My life is lived—its interest is gone”,31 an observation he repeats more than once. The age element must have been used for obvious melodramatic effect, but it also reflects the Christian imagery of Synagogua as old and doomed to extinction. The prospectlessness of Judaism is evident: though Sterne’s children are half-Jewish, it is quite obvious that they are construed as fully English and that their father never expects them to be otherwise. They have inherited their mother’s artistic talents, not their father’s financial wizardry. His task as a Jew is to finance the fulfillment of their artistic dreams. They may be his physical descendants, but in terms of his Jewish heritage they are as good as dead. Sterne’s old age also represents the Jew’s compromised masculinity. Sander Gilman, writing on representation of Jewish gender at the turn of the twentieth century, notes that “The male Jew’s compromised masculinity, his ‘femininity,’ is one of his defining qualities.”32 Sterne’s lack of sexual appeal is suggested not merely by his age, but by his wife’s unfaithfulness, which is the initial trigger for the story. She sinned against morality, but Sterne himself admits that his wife’s lover was “a handsome man—a brilliant man—a man God had endowed with every gift.”33 There is never any hint that before the affair the Venables were in love, and it is clear there is no promise of romance in their relationship once they are reunited. What the old Jew can offer his wife is an unromantic and sexless union of two beaten souls. In his last speech, before the final curtain, he tells her: We have been parted many years. We have both suffered; and if by suffering sin is not atoned, then there is no redemption. Not much is left to

31 32 33

88. 123. 130.

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me. Only the remnant of a wasted life—only the fragments of a broken heart. Such as they are, I offer them to you. I can no longer climb the hill alone. The way is weary and my feet are sore.34

The speech evokes the traditionally anti-Semitic trope of the Wandering Jew, a mythical character who, according to Christian legend, is penalized for mocking Jesus and is destined to roam the land until the end of time without finding peace and without leaving his mark on the earth. This figure is alluded to by Sterne himself on more than one occasion. It is evoked early on in the play when he responds to a simple question regarding his residence: “I have houses, but I don’t live in them. I wander.” (Smiles) “Type of my race!”35 As a wanderer, Julius Sterne carries not only the curse of the Jew, but also the aroma of exotic, heathen places, having made his fortune in the wilderness of South America, the very antithesis of urban London. Exoticism was often assigned to Jews, especially to Jewish women in fin-de-siècle Europe, and Jews were commonly associated with the Orient, the East, namely non-European, non-white, non-Anglo-Saxon or Aryan natives. Exoticism was especially attractive to theatre people, inviting elaborate costuming and make-up. Henry Irving’s Shylock (1879) was conceived as a dignified oriental, shaped by the actor’s visit to North Africa. Issachar, the financial master of the Roman Prefect of Alexandria in Hypatia (1893), G. Stuart Ogilvie’s adaptation of Charles Kingsley’s novel, was played by Herbert Beerbohm-Tree as “an old Jew with flowing white hair and crinkly beard, with a face dyed mahogany brown and bare arms almost as dark, twined with gold bangles from shoulder to elbow, clad throughout with Oriental magnificence.”36 In his discussion of the “Jewish boom”, Zangwill referred briefly to the exoticization of Jews within the dominant culture, noting it was now considered “chic” to claim a slight Jewish lineage. Mocking the notion of Jews as an alluring spice that, when sprinkled sparingly could enliven stolid Englishness, he quotes Du Maurier’s account of the beneficial effect of having a touch of Jewish ancestry. Jewish blood, Du Maurier tells his readers, has “the strong, sturdy, irrepressible, indomitable, indelible” quality which has “such priceless value in diluted homeopathic

Sander L. Gilman, “Salome, Syphilis, Sarah Berhardt and the ‘Modern Jewess’,” The German Quarterly 66.2 (Spring 1993): 196. 35 An Old Jew 40. 36 “ ‘Hypatia’ on the Stage,” New York Times 22 January: 13. 34

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Figure 11. Herbert Beerbohm-Tree in the role of Issachar in Hypatia (1893).

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doses, like the dry white Spanish wine called montijo, which is not meant to be taken pure”.37 It was amusingly paradoxical when a London paper, writing on the stage production of Children of the Ghetto, deemed its realistically-depicted Jewish East End characters more exotic than those the young hero had encountered in his wandering “between the Table Mountain and the Zambesi.”38 The Era, the city’s major theatrical paper, exclaimed, “It is all very odd and curious”, suggesting in mock seriousness that the audience be furnished with an explanatory dictionary, and the Queen, a ladies’ newspaper, turned up its nose and pronounced “To be quite plain, the fact of the matter is that the ordinary English playgoer does not find illustrations of Jewish life and customs in the least entertaining”.39 The Atheneum objected to the use of Yiddish expressions, and the Outlook, which liked the production, concluded that the play demonstrated that “the Jew remains always a Jew”.40 In the topsy-turvy world of the stage, the locally authentic was seen as the exotic, while the stock character of the stage Jew seemed, as is often the case with stereotypes, familiar, predictable and as such, credible. It was thus easier for the general theatre-going public, most of whom hardly had any direct dealings with Jews, to accept the idealized stage Jew rather than realistically drawn characters. The philosemitic stage Jew was the inversion of the villainous stage Jew they knew so well, a photographic negative defined by the familiar contours of the character as alien and fantastically wealthy. Instead of demanding the Christian’s pound of flesh, he was generous to a fault, the very embodiment of Christian virtue, though his extravagant philanthropy did not ground him in the society in which he lived, his status remaining that of a lone outsider in an entirely non-Jewish context. In 1896, two years after he published An Old Jew, prefaced and footnoted with angry swipes directed at his critics, Sydney Grundy published A Son of Israel, and though it was subtitled “An Original Play in Four Acts,” it was, in fact, a much improved version of An Old Jew.41 His original fury notwithstanding, Grundy took note of his detractors’ claims 37 38

648.

Quoted in Zangwill. “The Week at the Play—‘Children of the Ghetto’,” Outlook 16 December 1899:

“Children of the Ghetto,” Era 16 December 1899: p. 15; “The Drama,” Queen, 16 December 1899: 1020. 40 “Drama,” Athenaeum 16 December 1899: 844; Outlook, op. cit. 41 Sydney Grundy, A Son of Israel, London: J. Miles & Co., 1896. 39

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and incorporated into the play details and insights that responded to their misgivings. He created a tighter and leaner script with characters that are psychologically complex and considerably more interesting. The entire Venables family was now fully Jewish, and Sterne is manlier, less alien and familiar with the world around him in the credible manner of one who has been away for years. He is still a millionaire though not by virtue of his blood. Instead, he is a repentant financier who admits, “I believed in gold. For gold I worked, I schemed, I lived, I prayed”.42 There is no evidence that the play was ever produced. Bibliography Chothia, Jean, ed. The New Woman and Other Emancipated Woman Plays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Cumberland, Richard. The Jew. 2nd ed. London: Printed for C. Dilly, 1794. Filon, Augustin. The English Stage, Being An Account of the Victorian Drama. Trans. from the French by Frederic Whyte with an introduction by Henry Arthur Jones. London: John Milne, 1897. Gilman, Sander L. “Salome, Syphilis, Sarah Berhardt and the ‘Modern Jewess’,” The German Quarterly 66:2 (Spring 1993): 196–211. Grundy, Sydney. An Old Jew. New York: American & Foreign Dramatists, 1894. ——. A Son of Israel. London: J. Miles & Co., 1896. ——. The Play of the Future. London: Samuel French, 1914. Hall, N. John. Max Beerbohm Caricatures. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997. Landa, M[yer], J[ack], The Jew in Drama. New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1969; reprint of 1926 edition. Levenson, Alan. “The Problematics of Philosemitic Fiction,” The German Quarterly 75:4 (Autumn, 2002): 379–393. Nahshon, Edna. From the Ghetto to the Melting Pot: Israel Zangwill’s Jewish Plays. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005. Pemberton, Thomas Edgar. John Hare, Comedian, 1865–1895: A Biography. London: John Routledge, 1895. Penfield, Mary. “Sidney Grundy”, The Commercial Advertiser: 8 June 1901. Shaw, George Bernard. Dramatic Opinions and Essays, Vol. 1. London: Archibald Constable, 1907. Thomas, W. Moy. “An Old Jew,” The Graphic, January 1, 1894. Walkley, Arthur Dingham [“A. D. W.”]. “The Drama,” The Speaker 13 January, 1894: 43–44. Wearing, J. P. “The London West End Theatre in the 1890s,” Educational Theatre Journal 29:3 (Oct. 1977) 320–332. Zangwill, Israel. “ ‘An Old Jew’ at the Garrick Theatre,” The Jewish Chronicle 12 Jan. 1894: 7–8.

42

Ibid., 15.

JEWISH SELF-PRESENTATION AND THE “JEWISH QUESTION” ON THE GERMAN STAGE FROM 1900 TO 1930* Hans-Peter Bayerdörfer I. Jewish Acculturation and German Anti-Semitism in the Context of Theatre History While the subject of the self-presentation of German Jews on the stage did not receive public notice before the end of the nineteenth century,1 it would progressively draw attention with the growing awareness of the presence of Jewish artists and intellectuals in German culture and, in particular, the increasingly conspicuous participation of Jews in all aspects of theatre production, from playwriting to acting and directing.2 The participation of Jews in European and German theatrical life occurred gradually as result of the acculturation ideal of the Jewish Enlightenment, which regarded theatre as an important cultural domain, even though it had not been a generally accepted element in Jewish cultural traditions.3 By the turn of the century, the desire of the Jewish minority to take a significant and even a leading role in German the-

* This essay was translated from the original German by Josephine Riley. 1 From 1837 on, the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums had regularly reported on (new) literature, including drama, but not on stage productions, although stage artists like Ludwig Chronegk (after 1865), Otto Brahm (after 1883), or Max Reinhardt (after 1902) had gained worldwide fame and high visibility on the Berlin scene. Regarding the change in the late 1890s, see H.-P. Bayerdörfer, “ ‘Drama der Weisheit’—Zur Bühnengeschichte von Lessings ‘Nathan’ zwischen 1879/80 und 1914,” Mit Lessing zur Moderne: Soziokulturelle Wirkungen des Aufklärers um 1900, Beiträge zur Tagung des LessingMuseums und der Lessing Society im Lessing-Jahr 2004, eds. Wolfgang Albrecht and Richard E. Schade (Kamenz: Allemagne Lessing-Museum 2004), 123–143. 2 H.-P. Bayerdörfer, “Schrittmacher der Moderne? Der Beitrag des Judentums zum deutschen Theater zwischen 1848 und 1933,” Deutsche Juden und die Moderne: Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien 25, ed. Shulamit Volkov (München, Oldenbourg Verlag 1994) 39–56. 3 Purim Plays may be perceived as precursor in this context, but they did not result in a professional art theatre. Remarkable attempts such as the Yiddish Leichtsin un Fremmelei: Ein Familiengemehlde in drei Oifzign by Aron Halle-Wolfssohn (1796) were made under the influence of the Mendelssohn circle.

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atre could no longer be ignored. Thus within German Jewry itself the question of the relationship between Jewish tradition and theatre was discussed.4 This period is framed by highly significant statements which, more or less explicitly, take issue with Friedrich Nietzsche’s remarks on the Jewish genius for adaptation, simulation and acting,5 and his claim that Jews have a special, almost natural, talent for creating theatre. It is worth noting that roughly at the same time, the Zionist thinker Ahad Haxam (Asher Ginsberg, 1856–1927) had proclaimed that Jewish culture was defined by three elements: religion, language and literature, without mentioning the visual or performing arts.6 In May 1901, the journal Ost und West, which had been established to promote communication between European Jews across cultural and language barriers, published an article by Fabius Schach (1868–1930) titled “The Jewish Theatre, Its Essentials and Its History”.7 In its opening section, a general remark about the relationship between “Jewish nature” and theatre offers a theoretical guideline for the historical study that follows: There is no genre of art to which the Jewish people are as richly predetermined as to theatrical literature and presentation. By his very nature the Jew enjoys conflict, so he speaks and thinks in a dramatic way. Let us simply observe how the Eastern Jew speaks. He only requires one gesture to communicate everything. With one body movement he can express pain and joy, admiration and contempt at the same time. [. . .] No other people can speak in such an explicit way by means of eyes and fingers. [. . .] Only a few decades have passed since Jews had entered the theatrical arena, and there is barely any theatre in Europe at present which does not stage plays by Jewish playwrights and which does not employ Jewish artists as actors.8

E.g. in the opening issues of East and West, see below. Die fröhliche Wissenschaft V, Aph. 361. 6 Achad Haxam, “Ein Sprachenstreit”, in Am Scheideweg, Berlin, Jüdischer Verlag 1916, Vol. II, 156 and 158. 7 Fabius Schach was one of the founding members of German Zionist Federation, writing (in German and Hebrew) on Judaism, the language problem, etc. He cooperated in formulating the Basel programme but later left the Herzl group. 8 “Für keine Kunst aber ist beim jüdischen Volke die Prädestination so reich vorhanden wie für die theatralische Dichtung und Darstellung. Der Jude ist eine Kampfnatur, er redet und denkt dramatisch. Man beobachte nur, wie der Jude des Ostens spricht. Mit einer Geste sagte er alles. In eine Bewegung kann er Schmerz und Freude, Bewunderung und Verachtung legen. [. . .] Kein Volk kann so charakteristisch mit den Augen und Fingern sprechen. [. . .] Es sind jetzt kaum einige Dezennien verflossen, seitdem die Juden ihren Einzug in die Hallen des Theaters gehalten haben, und schon heute gibt es kaum ein Theater in Europa, an dem nicht Werke jüdischer Dichter aufgeführt würden, an dem nicht jüdische Künstler als Darsteller wirken.” (Fabius Schach, “Das 4 5

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Schach was inspired by the rapidly growing success and importance of the East European Yiddish theatre companies, to which he pays a tribute highlighted by special kudos for Abraham Goldfaden. Though he stresses the dynamism and achievements of Yiddish theatre, Schach notes that the literary quality of its dramatic texts does not reach Western standards, a remark which can be interpreted as a call to Western Jewish playwrights to marshal their literary skills in the creation of an equally inspiring Jewish drama and theatre within the framework of their respective linguistic and cultural position. Many provocative events stimulated further discussion about a Jewish national theatre, notably the guest appearances of so-called “authentically Jewish” theatre groups, especially the Warsaw-based Yiddish-language Vilna Troupe, whose performances during its 1913 tour were highly praised by writer and poet Kurt Pinthus9 for their innovative dynamics. In 1928, Juden auf der deutschen Bühne, a thorough study with scholarly aspirations by the Zionist writer Arnold Zweig, was published. Its key concept is summarized in the statement: “The Jew is a born actor”.10 Zweig substantiates this general assertion, which is reminiscent of Schach’s observation regarding the expressiveness of Eastern Jewry, with historical and cultural arguments. A writer and playwright of the expressionist generation, Zweig bases his evaluations and analyses on his long personal acquaintance with modern Jewish playwrights like Arthur Schnitzler and Ernst Toller, stage directors like Max Reinhardt and Leopold Jessner, and the artistic achievements of a great number of actors. Zweig praises the East European Jewish theatre, represented by companies such as the Moscow State Yiddish Theatre (GOSET), the Vilna Troupe, and the Hebrew-language Habima. On the whole, his account is clearly influenced by cultural and political Zionism, and leads to a discussion of the potentiality and future of a national Jewish theatre, which he intends to be distinctively different not only from German, but also from European, theatre in general.

jüdische Theater, sein Wesen und seine Geschichte”, in Ost und West, Heft 5, Mai 1901, Spalte 347/48). 9 Bericht: “Jüdisches Theater” in Leipziger Tageblatt und Handelszeitung 28 (17 Jan. 1913); again in Peter Sprengel, Scheunenviertel-Theater: Jüdische Schauspieltruppen und jiddische Dramatik in Berlin (1900–1918). (Berlin: Fannei & Walz, 1995) 303–307. Several years later, Pinthus (1886–1975) edited the first comprehensive and influential anthology of modern (Expressionist) poetry: Menschheitsdämmerung: Symphonie jüngster Dichtung (1920), in which German-Jewish writers, among others Albert Ehrenstein, Walter Hasenclever, Else Lasker-Schüler, and Ivan Goll were abundantly represented. 10 Arnold Zweig, Juden auf der deutschen Bühne, (Berlin: Welt-Verlag 1928), 23.

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What were the reasons for this fundamental change in the debate about Jewish self-presentation on the stage, which now became so different from the positions taken at the turn of century? Zweig’s treatise mirrors the thirty-year-old cultural and political Zionist discourse and its permanent ideological confrontation with “the Jewish question” (“die Judenfrage”), on which the anti-Semitic political discourse had focused since the 1880s. The nature of the term “Jewish question” embraced, in a highly politicized, generalized, and aggressive manner, the most common stereotype of “the Jew” in European and particularly in German anti-Semitic traditions. Thus the period in which Jewish self-presentation on the German stage became brilliantly evident in many ways and on different levels—in part through those dramas which will be discussed later in this paper—coincides with the years in which Jewish participation in German theatre was aggressively challenged from a chauvinist and anti-Semitic viewpoint. In the 1920s, it became a common rightwing allegation that German—and, in general, European—culture had been severely harmed and degraded as a result of the participation of Jews in it. It is quite obvious that the right-wing ideology used the Jews as scapegoat for the results of a cultural and aesthetic modernization to which the chauvinists were themselves generally opposed. Thus, the “Jewish question” became a keyword in the general propaganda of the Nazi movement in the debates and struggles regarding cultural and political issues. In this sense, the anti-Jewish polemics were also directed against the German theatre, particularly against productions with Jewish participation. It was the aim of Nazi theatre politics during the Weimar Republic to support those playwrights and theatre producers who either openly advocated Nazi ideology or who, at least, were opposed to modern stage aesthetics.11

11 An example of a corresponding dramaturgy can be found in Eberhard Wolfgang Möller’s drama Rothschild siegt bei Waterloo (published in 1934 and produced in the same year: Theaterverlag Langen-Müller, München; UA 5.10.1934, Aachen and Weimar). In it Rothschild uses the battle for a profitable stock exchange maneuvers. In the preface to the play, the author mentions those who perished in the battle, the French, Dutch, Prussians and others, “. . . the best men the heart of Europe can offer. But these men did not gain the victory, or the powers for which they thought they were dying. Instead, a third power was victorious; a secret power had won. It was an uncanny third power which turned men into numbers, into commodities on the stock exchange, which changed life into profit, blood into capital. This is the significance of the anecdote about the banker Rothschild at Waterloo. It is an anecdote about capitalism.” (“. . . die besten Männer, die das Herz Europas gegeben hatte. Aber nicht sie waren die Sieger, nicht die Mächte, für die sie zu sterben glaubten; es gab eine dritte Macht, die der

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Before 1925, the major German theatres barely had to deal with open manifestations of racial anti-Semitism, such as rioting in the audience or demonstrations in front of the theatre. Until then, ideological attacks from the Nazi and other right-wing organisations had taken more deceptive paths and sought effectiveness in disguise.12 This was mainly achieved by shaping Jewish roles in the manner of Shylock, such as Spiegelberg in Friedrich Schiller’s Die Räuber; the bargaining Jew in Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck, or Schmock in Gustav Freytag’s Die Journalisten; these were enhanced by anti-semitic iconography and acting style, justified by reference to the authority of Shakespeare.13 In general, however, openly racist plays or characters had rarely appeared on the German public stage.14 The Nazi authorities were well aware of this, and offered a very simple explanation. In their eyes, the German theatre had been entirely “infiltrated by Jews” (“verjudet”) since the turn of the century, and especially during the Weimar years. In 1937, Hans-Severus Ziegler, a member of the Rosenberg group within the Nazi party, declared that Germany had “a German theatre of the Jewish nation”.15 This demagogic device invites clarification for several reasons. First, we need to remember that by the 1920s, German-Jewish playwrights, theatre artists and actors were not simply numerous,16 but

Sieger war, eine heimliche Macht, die den Gewinn hatte, eine unheimliche dritte Macht, die aus Menschen Zahlen machte, aus Männern Börsenobjekte, aus Leben Profit, aus Blut Kapital. Das ist der Sinn der Anekdote vom Bankier Rothschild bei Waterloo. Es ist die Anekdote des Kapitalismus.”), p. 6. In a review of the first-night performance, an additional hint is given: “Shylock’s curse storms through the scenes like thunder” (“Shylocks Fluch weht donnernd durch die Szenen”—printed on the cover of the published edition, quoted from Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Berlin, no date). 12 The greatest effect on the public at large was achieved by launching lawsuits against theatre producers and actors, frequently with false accusations which concealed the underlying political motives. 13 Later on a more aggressive approach was taken, when riots were organized in the midst of the audience to protest against productions in which playwrights, stage directors and actors of Jewish ancestry were involved, as was the case with the author Carl Zuckmayer, the director Leopold Jessner and the actor Fritz Kortner, to name just a few. 14 Eberhard Wolfgang Möller’s play Panama-Skandal (1930) can be regarded as a precursor of Rothschild bei Waterloo. 15 “Ein deutsches Theater jüdischer Nation”: Wende und Weg (Weimar 1937) 75. Quoted from Joseph Wulf, ed. Theater und Film im Dritten Reich (Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1966) 256. In the sphere of cultural politics, therefore, the Nazis’ major concern was the complete elimination of Jews from public theatres. They succeeded one year after taking power, mainly due to blacklists which had been drawn up long before 1933. 16 In the summer of 1933, Julius Bab, one of the founders of the Jüdischer Kulturbund in Berlin, estimated that about 4,000 artists, writers, and actors were affected by

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that they also enjoyed increasing artistic prominence and public appreciation. Second, their contributions to the modernization of literature and theatre were manifold and outstanding. Additionally, the accusation that the theatre had become “infiltrated by Jews” is misleading, since the vast majority of German-Jewish theatre artists devoted their lives’ work to the German theatre and still believed whole-heartedly in a national German culture.17 Nevertheless—to mark a third point—growing anti-Semitism in Germany after 1880, and again in the Weimar years, had evoked doubts among many Jewish intellectuals as to whether the promise that acculturation would lead towards complete civil, legal, and political equality was as likely to be fulfilled as it had seemed in earlier years.18 This double-bind increasingly marked Jewish participation in the German theatre from the turn of the century to the end of the Weimar Republic. On the one hand, the impact of the Jewish renaissance and the subject of Jewish national identity were conspicuous in the theatre debate, and, if we think of political Zionism, even more so in Austria than in Germany, where the political movement did not attain widespread public attention until the late 1920s. On the other hand, Jewish self-articulation had to take into account the content and the rhetoric of anti-Jewish allegations of the “Jewish question”, and at time strikes one as primarily apologetic in nature. In this essay I discuss the doublebind problem from the point of view of the leading German-Jewish playwrights and theatre artists of the time. Despite the fact that their plays and theatre productions can by no means be reduced to mere reactions to anti-Jewish attacks, I maintain that most German-Jewish

the Nazi legislation, about half of them living in Prussia. When the Berlin KulturbundTheater organization solicited applications, about 2,000 people (actors, dramaturges, writers, technical and administrative staff ) applied. In the fall of 1933, the number of paying members amounted to almost 20,000. 17 This essay focuses on German mainstream public theatres and ignores commercial Jewish popular theatres. In Berlin, at least—where about one third of German Jewish population lived—two commercial types existed: the German-language theatre of the Herrnfeld brothers, which lasted over twenty years, and a varying number of rather short-lived Yiddish-language amusement theatres, based on migrating troupes, actors and singers from the Yiddish-speaking East, who catered to the minority of Eastern Jews who resided in the Berlin Scheunenviertel quarter for over 40 years. 18 The greatest sensation was caused by Moritz Goldstein’s article in the Kunstwart (1912), a conservative periodical edited by Ferdinand Avenarius. It was Goldstein’s opinion that German Jews felt highly motivated to promote German culture, although the majority of the German people explicitly challenged their competence to do so. Therefore he claimed a new Jewish literary culture in the Hebrew language.

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theatre artists regarded themselves as members of the majority culture. The question then is: how did they respond to anti-Semitic and later to Nazi strategies, and in what way did they articulate their own concerns as members of a minority within society as a whole? This question pertains both to internal conflicts within German Jewry and to the problems of shaping identity as German Jews.19 II. Pre-War Prelude The most important play in which the anti-Semitism of the pre-warperiod was brought to the fore was Professor Bernhardi (1911) by Arthur Schnitzler (1862–1931). The plot is set in turn-of-the-century Vienna and presents a panorama of different Jewish attitudes towards growing public anti-Jewish hostility and the strong influence of anti-Semitic groups in the political institutions of the Austrian capital. Professor Bernhardi, physician and hospital director, has prevented a Catholic priest from offering extreme unction to a dying young woman who—anticipating a visit by her lover—is in premortal euphoria. This incident presents Bernhardi’s gentile rival, the deputy director, with the opportunity to start an intrigue against him, one that would challenge the solidarity of Jewish colleagues in a large team of physicians at a prominent Vienna hospital. Bernhardi’s opponents succeed, not only in forcing him to resign from his director’s position, but also in launching a political campaign against him by mobilizing the anti-Semitic wings of the German National Party, as well as the Social Christian Party in the Austrian Parliament. The final result is a lawsuit. Bernhardi stands trial, charged with violating the right to practice religious freedom, and is sentenced to two months in prison. Bernhardi’s Jewish colleagues represent a broad spectrum of the attitudes commonly held by intellectuals. Their personal convictions

19 On the whole, the challenge of political Zionism, and its struggle towards a Jewish national identity as an alternative to German or other European national ways of belonging, was less appealing to German Jewry than cultural Zionism in its various programs and aspects. In this respect, political Zionism never achieved the same impact in Germany as it did among East European Jewry. Nevertheless, towards the end of the 1920s it was still debated in the context of theatre, mainly under the influence of writers such as Martin Buber and Arnold Zweig, and inspired by the European success of the Habima presentations.

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oscillate between various liberal Jewish traditions,20 politically as well as philosophically. Most of them are assimilated (whether by means of religious conversion or mixed marriage) or are secularized, with only minimal formal ties to the synagogue. While none of them adheres to political Zionism, some of them sympathize with the German nationalist party in Austria.21 This general diversity undermines actions of solidarity on Bernhardi’s behalf, even when legal prosecution is initiated, because most of his Jewish colleagues refuse to take an open stand in a public political controversy. In terms of Jewish self-presentation, the playwright is critical in every respect: despite their precarious position in public, Jewish intellectuals seem to show morally dubious attitudes, pretence, disloyalty and unreliability, just like their non-Jewish counterparts. Still, Schnitzler’s play, which concentrates on the public influence of antiSemitism in parliament and government, and its consequences in social life, provides vehement criticism of the political situation in Austria. Consequently, the attempts to stage Schnitzler’s play also shed some light on the public debate of the “Jewish question” in the pre-war years. In Austria, the public demonstration of anti-Semitism was possible and generally accepted, as proven year in and year out by the behaviour of the Viennese city administration, especially the mayor, Karl Lueger, a prominent voice of anti-Jewish ideology. Thus, it is not surprising that initially the play was censored in Austria and public performance forbidden (October 1912). In Berlin, however, it found quick success on the stage, without any obtrusive censorship (premièring in 1912 at the Kleines Theater, directed by Victor Barnowsky). At that time, there was no well-organized racist political power structure in Berlin which would have intervened. Beyond that, it was probably the opinion of the Berlin authorities that vehement anti-Semitism had been overcome and was now a matter of the past. The first-night reviews, which were generally favourable, emphasized that the drama exposed a specifically Austrian state of affairs and did not reflect the situation in Prussia or Germany.22

20 Philosophically, there is a variety of positions, influenced by European Enlightenment and German idealism. From a political point of view, most liberal Jewish attitudes of the pre-war period can be traced back to the 1848–49 revolution. 21 In this respect, Schnitzler’s novel, Der Weg ins Freie (1908), offers a more complete spectrum. 22 H.-P. Bayerdörfer, “‘Österreichische Verhältnisse’? Arthur Schnitzlers Professor Bernhardi auf Berliner Bühnen 1912–1931,” Von Franzos zu Canetti: Jüdische Autoren aus Österreich, Neue Studien, eds. Mark H. Gelber, Hans Otto Horch and Sigurd Paul Scheichl [Conditio Judaica, 14] (Tübingen: Niemeyer 1996) 211–227.

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Likewise, German-Jewish critics in Berlin rejected Schnitzler’s critique of assimilated Jews. III. The War Generation As in Western Europe, German Jews were inclined to regard the outbreak of the First World War as an opportunity to demonstrate their national loyalty to the fullest, sometimes even to the point of taking the role of chauvinist spokesmen, as in the case of Ernst Lissauer (1882–1937), a poet and writer who acquired wide acclaim in 1915 for his Hymn of Hate against England (Haßgesang gegen England). These Jews regarded the war of 1914 as an opportunity to overcome the “Jewish question” by fully adopting the majority position at the very moment when national survival was at stake. Even a politically left-wing writer such as Ernst Toller confessed that at the beginning of the war it had been his “passionate desire” to stake his life for his country in order to prove that he was German, “and nothing but German”. The emotional ties which justify this desire—as Toller himself confessed in his autobiography—include the German landscape, language, and poetry.23 Acts of discrimination against Jews that occurred during the First World War—Jewish soldiers were accused of disloyalty and cowardice—may have challenged the military enthusiasm of German Jews, especially of the younger generation.24 Even without that, the nationalist frenzy of 1914 was bound to give way to different feelings and thoughts after the reality of the “modern” war’s meaninglessness and ultimate destructiveness had become a daily experience in the lives of the soldiers. Toller testifies that after 1917–18, many of the younger generation shared the new impulses,25 and agreed “that the war could

“Ich denke [. . .] an meinen leidenschaftlichen Wunsch, durch den Einsatz meines Lebens zu beweisen, daß ich Deutscher sei, nichts als Deutscher”, Ernst Toller, Eine Jugend in Deutschland: Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 4, eds. Wolfgang Frühwald & John M. Spalek, München 1978, 227 (first published Amsterdam: Querido, 1933). 24 One of those incidents was the census of Jews ordered by the Prussian military authorities after rumors had spread in the army that Jews did not serve at the front but only behind the lines. 25 In the 1933 introduction to his autobiography, Toller had explicitly remarked: “It is not my adolescence alone which forms the basis of my account, but the adolescence of a generation, and in addition of a period of contemporary history (“Nicht nur meine Jugend ist hier aufgezeichnet, sondern die Jugend einer Generation und ein Stück Zeitgeschichte dazu”), Toller, Jugend in Deutschland, 7. 23

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only have one significance: the rebellion of the young”26 against the old system that had led to war and destruction. It was the new postwar order of the revolution of 1918 that was supposed to solve the minority problems and quash discrimination once and for all.27 Indeed, the rebellion was directed against European nationalism in general, and the traditional social structures of Europe as a whole, abetted by a strong inclination towards pacifism. These tenets formed the core of the idealistic message of the Expressionist playwrights, as is shown for example in Walter Hasenclever’s (1890–1940) early dramas.28 It was not by chance that the rebellious young idealists turned to drama and the stage. The German theatre had always been regarded as a major forum of national education, and the young rebels shared the belief in its power. They hoped that German theatre would be instrumental in shaping republican and intellectual life in the new democratic state, and indeed, the early post-1918 years were marked by this idealism.29 The first steps taken to reorganize the German theatre after the end of the war took a similar direction. The most important impulse for a “theatre for the Republic” was the nomination of Leopold Jessner (1878–1945), a social democrat from an East Prussian Jewish family, as director of the Prussian State Theatre, the former court theatre in Berlin, which would become the leading stage of the Weimar Republic, both politically and artistically. It was the first time that a Jewish theatre director was placed so prominently in the hierarchy of public theatres. At the time, Max Reinhardt (1873–1943) or Victor Barnowsky (1875–1952), whose artistic achievements had been greatly acknowledged in public, were still directors of private commercial theatres.30 26 Toller, ibid.: “. . . daß der Krieg nur einen Sinn haben kann, den Aufbruch der Jugend,” 82. 27 The Weimar constitution guaranteed minority rights in every respect, but was could not enforce them in the social reality. 28 The first success was The Son (1916, première 1917). Two years before the end of the war, he proclaimed universal human renewal through peace and an end to the Nationalist state—a programme that he incorporated in his adaptation of Sophocles’s Antigone (1916). The voice of the heroine, coming from beyond the grave, preaches the gospel of the new man while the dictator of the old regime, Creon, abdicates. 29 This idealism was challenged by the experience of anti-democratic segments of the population in the early 1920s, and further by the evidence that many public and state authorities still remained loyal to the old monarchy and the values of Nationalist ideology. 30 Henning Rischbieter, “Theater als Kunst und als Geschäft: Über jüdische Theaterregisseure und Theaterdirektoren in Berlin 1894–1933,” Theatralia Judaica—Emanzipation

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A parallel signpost in the area play-writing becomes evident when comparing Ernst Toller’s play Die Wandlung (The Transfiguration) of 1918 with Hasenclever’s adaptation of Antigone, or Der Sohn (The Son), a play which, after 1918, could be regarded as an initiation rite for the sons’ rebellion against their fathers. In Toller’s play, the rebel hero reflects the author’s war experiences, which led to a more complex notion of identity than the desire to be “nothing but German”: Am I not Jewish as well? Shouldn’t I also belong to that nation that has been persecuted, chased, tortured, murdered, for thousands of years, whose prophets have sung their claim for justice all over the world, a claim that was heard and taken on by those who suffer and who have been oppressed since time began?31

For this reason, the rebellion of the young requires that the leadership of future humankind be taken up by a figure whose very origins represent persecution and oppression.32 Toller’s German-Jewish young man, the hero of The Transfiguration, is an artist like the author, and he will need to carry the prophetic message of his ancestors and adapt it to the present period of upheaval both in Germany and across Europe. The protagonist is the model for a whole generation. Initially, his identification with German patriotism had motivated him as a soldier to volunteer for suicidal missions, and as an artist and sculptor to carve a statue with the title “Victory of the Fatherland”. But later the experience of war convinced him that misery, exclusion and destruction are the universals of human history. After destroying the statue/idol of misdirected nationalism, he gains a new identity as charismatic leader, well aware of his ancestry and dedicated to the universal liberation of humankind. Other young playwrights of the war decade also presented the fate of German Jews as crucially located between the old world and the new, between traditional national loyalty and the utopian ideals

und Antisemitismus als Momente der Theatergeschichte: Von der Lessing-Zeit bis zur Shoah, ed. Hans-Peter Bayerdörfer [= Theatron Bd.7] (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1992), 205–217. 31 “Aber bin ich nicht auch Jude? Gehöre ich nicht zu jenem Volk, das seit Jahrtausenden verfolgt, gejagt, gemartert, gemordet wird, dessen Propheten den Ruf nach Gerechtigkeit in die Welt schrieen, den die Elenden und Bedrückten aufnahmen und weitertrugen für alle Zeiten . . .?” Toller, Jugend in Deutschland, 227. 32 Like many of his contemporaries, Toller was much impressed by Strindberg and the dramatic model of the Stationendrama (To Damascus—A Dream Play). The Transfiguration follows the pattern in a creative manner, which includes the crucial point of a life-changing experience.

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of the political avant-garde, which they sought to legitimize with intense emotional and literary engagement. Though it may seem overly idealistic, this utopian programme nevertheless offered new formulas of identity for the German-Jewish mainstream, even beyond the younger generation. An elaborate and attractive answer to the question of belonging is provided by Toller in his autobiography: “A Jewish mother gave birth to me, Germany nourished me, Europe has educated me, my homeland is the earth, my fatherland the world.”33 Jewish heritage and German culture can be cherished side by side, guided by the idea of common responsibility for a new era of human development. Moreover—on a more realistic and political level, and with regard to the constitutional situation of the new German Republic after 1919—all liberties and equality of rights which had been formally guaranteed for minority groups (among them Jews) now serve the majority as well, and stabilize the community as a whole. IV. The Years of the Republic This political aspect which was inherent in the strong commitment to the Weimar Republic by Jewish intellectuals, including jurists, writers and journalists, became increasingly significant. Although the Weimar constitution provided the real ground for human rights, democratic rule and public control, the new order was still confronted with the longlasting impact of the authoritarianism of Wilhelmine Germany. It was particularly the judiciary standards and the constitutional ideals of the young democracy which were constantly undermined by courts of law that still favoured reactionary rule and supported the traditional ruling hierarchies.34 It became obvious that state authorities—on many levels

33 “Eine jüdische Mutter hat mich geboren, Deutschland hat mich genährt, Europa mich gebildet, meine Heimat ist die Erde, die Welt mein Vaterland” (Toller, Jugend in Deutschland, 228). 34 Cf. Klaus Petersen, Literatur und Justiz in der Weimarer Republik (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1988); H.-P. Bayerdörfer, “Playwrights and theater critics in the Weimar Republic assume the role of advocates for justice”, in Yale Companion to Jewish Writing and Thought in German Culture 1096–1996, eds Sander L. Gilman and Jack Zipes (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997) 455–463 [German version: “Dramatiker und Theaterkritiker der Weimarer Republik: Die Advokaten sind alle Juden”, in Handbuch

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of administration, jurisdiction and education—inclined to right-wing political attitudes. In the many cases of political assassinations, intimidation and blackmail that occurred during these years, the sentences pronounced by the courts proved to be strongly prejudiced—noticeably lenient towards offenders who came from the right.35 Moreover, pre-war prejudice and disparaging treatment of minorities, which had culminated in anti-Semitism, resurfaced in public, and there was ample evidence that society could easily be stimulated to violent action, especially at times when economic and political conditions were desperate, as was the case in 1919, during the financial crisis in 1923–1924, and in the aftermath of the Great Depression of 1929, which marked the beginning of the end of the Republic. German-Jewish playwrights of the 1920s challenged all areas of the Weimar reality where discrepancies existed between legal guarantees and social life. The political and social themes connected with these fundamental problems had been taken up by Ernst Toller in Masse Mensch (Man and the Masses, 1920) and Hoppla! wir leben (Hey! We’re Alive, 1927). Even more up-to-date topics would follow on stage. Thus, for example, the issue of abortion and its legal prosecution was widely discussed on stage by Friedrich Wolf (1888–1953), Hans José Rehfisch (1891–1960) and Carl Credé (1878–1954).36 The issue of capital punishment was dealt with by Erich Mühsam (1878–1934) and Alfred Wolfenstein (1888–1945).37 In his kaleidoscopic play, Die Verbrecher (The Criminals, 1928), Ferdinand Bruckner (born Theodor Tagger, 1891–1958) combined all these topics, to which he added several other contentious issues such as homosexuality and sexual and financial blackmail. This rich panorama of crimes and alleged crimes, the result of economic and social plight, automatically implied a confrontation with the legal and judicial system of the time. Because of its authoritarian sub-structures, the reality was that the courts were neither willing nor able to cope with the problems caused by social conditions. Nor were they in

zur deutsch-jüdischen Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. Daniel Hoffmann (Paderborn: Schöningh-Verlag, 2001), 219–234. 35 As early as 1921–22, Emil Julius Gumbel gave a detailed account of this in his book Vier Jahre politischer Mord (Four Years of Political Murder). 36 Cyankali (Cyanide, 1929), Der Frauenarzt (The Gynaecologist, 1928), Paragraph 218 (1928). 37 Sacco and Vanzetti (1928), Die Nacht vor dem Beil (The Night before the Guillotine, 1929).

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a position to guarantee rights or fair judgement, as was convincingly demonstrated in Bruckner’s brilliant piece. In these plays and productions, Jewish self-presentation was evoked in social and political terms. It was as if Jewish writers, intellectuals, and professionals assumed for themselves the role of guards of the fundamental rights of the Weimar constitution, while locating their own destiny as a minority within the democratic perspective of post1918 German history. This notion proved to be crucial, as the history of the new Republic proved to be a series of ups and downs that could not be stabilised, with the exception of the short period between 1924 and 1928. V. Towards the End of the Weimar Republic The severe deterioration of economic and social conditions and the intensifying aggression in the public and political arena that mark the years of the Great Depression caused a fatal crisis in the Weimar system. This was manifested in the rapidly increasing hostility against minorities in general, and by the revitalization of anti-Semitism in particular. Prominent playwrights reacted by sending out emergency signals from the stage. The plays of this era are grounded in historical precedents: Paul Kornfeld (1889–1942) created a new dramatization of the 18th-century murder case of Jud Süss (The Jew Suess);38 Walter Mehring produced an elaborate new version of Shakespeare’s Shylock with the title Der Kaufmann von Berlin (The Merchant of Berlin, 1929), and Hans José Rehfisch and Wilhelm Herzog (1884–1960) created a brilliant dramatization of the Dreyfus Affair (Berlin, 1929). In all three cases the dramatists attempted—at least in some measure—to follow the modern device whereby the plot is based on documentary evidence, while the main characters, certain dramatic encounters, and the most important ideological concepts of the plays are allegorized and thus refer to the current political situation. The central point of view is the politics of scapegoating the individual (Süss, Dreyfus), and his identification with his minority group, i.e. Jews. The corruption of the courts, and public

38 Jud Süß, Tragödie mit Epilog, Berlin 1930 (première directed by Leopold Jessner, Preussisches Staatstheater 1930).

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smear campaigns that infringed upon the law, are prominent topics in the Weimar theatre of the years which preceded the Nazis’ rise to power. Rehfisch and Herzog’s Dreyfus Affair displayed an especially brilliant handling of trial drama based on the historical libel trial of Emile Zola (1899), a pivotal event in the Dreyfus saga and one that would eventually contribute to the repeal of the charges and conviction of Dreyfus. With this challenging subject, the authors attempted to create a dramatic parallel to the present. The main point of comparison is the power of the military. In the French Third Republic, it was a nondemocratic, highly influential force that upheld a monarchist ideology, and was strongly supported by a nationalist court system. This situation, which provoked Zola’s famous J’Accuse!, provided the historical and political link between 1898 and 1929–30. It was Emil Zola, hero of republicanism and avant-garde spokesman for literature, who unmasked the authoritarian ideology of the military and legal system and became the public and moral advocate of the French Republic.39 The German-Jewish playwrights of 1929 were anxious to become the Zolas of their time, hoping that through their advocatory brilliance and the impact of stage art, the moment of truth would also come for the German Republic, and the reactionary forces could eventually be vanquished. The message of the Dreyfus Affair was readily spread by the German theatre. After the première at the Berlin Volksbühne in 1929, the play was produced on a great number of other stages in the following theatrical season (1930–31). Jewish theatre critics were enthusiastic about the play. After the Berlin opening, Monty Jacobs, for instance, who wrote his review for the Vossische Zeitung, praised “the unmediated breakthrough of historical truth”. Similarly, Alfred Kerr stated in the Berliner Tageblatt that a struggle had been fought between the flag fetish of the “Reichsflagge” (black/white/red) symbolizing German militarism, and—analogously—the flag of the Weimar Republic (black/red/gold).

Historically, his letter “J’accuse”, published in the journal L’Aurore, accomplished this goal through the author’s offer to sacrifice himself as a kind of pawn of democracy. Therefore, in the structure of the play, the writer, as advocate for the Republic, occupies the central position in this dramatic concept and provides an optimistic outlook. The play generates hope beyond the fifth act: the moment of truth is nigh. From their knowledge of history, the spectators were expected to draw a parallel between Dreyfus’s subsequent rehabilitation and the victory of the French Republic over the monarchist military, and the situation in Germany of 1929 and in the future. 39

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He recognized the significance of the play in its metaphorical importance for the struggle against the current “sea-sickness in Germany”, namely the growing tide of nationalism and anti-Semitism.40 There were additional “Zolaesque” German-Jewish playwrights. Walter Mehring emphasised a different line of historical memory: his Merchant was staged only once—by Erwin Piscator in Berlin—and proved a minor failure. The play, whose historical background is the financial crisis of 1923, drew attention towards three key issues. The first was the existence of illegal militias that took advantage of the economic depression for their own ends, and by establishing lynching courts, launched a cabal against the democratic representatives of the Weimar Republic—as had been the case with Walther Rathenau (1867–1922), Minister of Foreign Affairs and inspiration for the Rapallo Treaty, who was shot by two right-wing radicals in 1922. The basic aim of these dark forces was to overthrow democratic rule by mobilizing a secret army. The second issue was the propelling of anti-Semitic emotions and the encouragement of the semi-criminal underground gangs in Berlin to riot in the Scheunenviertel, the East European Jewish neighbourhood. This echoed the first small-scale, yet violent, anti-Semitic pogrom in post-war Berlin, which took place in 1923. The third problem was the right-wing conspiracy against Weimar Republic liberalism, in the intellectual as well as the economical sense, by the scapegoating of Jewish financial and industrial managers, of East European as well as German origin, who were blamed for unscrupulously taking advantage of the monetary inflation crisis of 1923, at the expense of the German economy. In the course of the play, however, it becomes evident that the Jewish group is being used as an instrument by right-wing militarists who are trying to overthrow the republican order. Alongside these main points, an additional thread of dramatic accent runs. From time to time the conspiracy group, which consists of military and business leaders, contacts Jewish bankers who cooperate with an East European parvenu, named Kaftau, in carrying out financial transactions. The members of this financial aristocracy do not hesitate to have business relations but refuse to shake hands with the “merchant” who bears Shylock-like traits; they even become implicated in the activities that finally lead to his expulsion. Furthermore, they do not seem

40 Alfred Kerr, Mit Schleuder und Harfe: Theaterkritiken aus drei Jahrzehnten, ed. Hugo Fetting (München: DTV 1985) 495.

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to take notice of the rioting in the Berlin quarter of their fellow East European Jews in their ghettoized situation. To an extent, similar discord or lack of solidarity can also be observed in the first-night reviews of the Merchant that appeared in the Jewish newspapers in Berlin.41 The Zionist paper, the Jüdische Rundschau,42 argued almost apologetically that an excessive number of Jewish characters were presented to represent an account of the historical participation of the Jews in the 1923–24 inflation crisis.43 Fundamental disagreement also characterises the review in the liberal CV-Zeitung, the monthly Journal of the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Belief.44 Its drama critic complained that the play did not extend a clear invitation to East European Jews to join Western culture and become truly European. Despite the internal differences between the liberal and the Zionist views, both shared the same shortcoming: neither one remarked on the novelty of the fact that, for the first time in a production mounted by a highly regarded theatre in Berlin, the title hero did not speak German but Yiddish, a language looked down on by German speakers. Indeed, Piscator, the play’s director, had gone to great lengths to comply with the playwright’s demands by engaging for the lead a native speaker of Yiddish, the American actor Paul Baratoff. Additionally, neither of the two papers commented on the fact that the play clearly highlighted a historical moment—the first time in twentieth-century Germany that members of a minority group had been victimised in the course of Nationalist agitation, as had happened during the 1923 crisis. In this case, Jewish self-presentation on the stage and the response by the Jewish public were split. Although Mehring had dramatized

41 Political objections were raised on all sides—a reaction not entirely unexpected in the case of a Piscator production, and particularly considering the controversial subject matter. The right-wing diatribe need not be outlined in the context of this paper. However, the harsh criticism uttered in the Jewish newspapers reveals the illusionary attitude of the German Jewish majority. 42 4 Oct. 1929. 43 This reproach was beside the point, since the main dramatic characters who pull the strings of criminal activity in order to take advantage of increasing inflation and social misery are German Nationalist military leaders and industrial managers. Mehring had painstakingly ridiculed the anti-Semitic catchword of Jewish capitalists across the world who hoped to gain universal power, as was proposed by the Protokolle der Weisen von Zion, which was satirized in a cabaret-style play within a play (2nd Part, “Meeting of the secret society ‘Club of the Eight’ ”. 44 13 Sept. 1929.

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and actualized history, thereby stressing the effects of an overthrow of constitutional rights by terrorizing minority groups, the Jewish community of Berlin refused a show of solidarity with the fringe artists of the capital. Despite internal differences, the Jewish press reacted negatively to this clarion call and failed to realize that the play was indeed the writing on the wall. VI. An Alternative? The liberal position of the CV (Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens) need not be discussed further at this point, since it was certainly in line with what has been said about Jewish participation in the German theatre in general. In terms of the Zionist movement in Germany, a remarkable coincidence deserves further consideration. In the fall of 1929, when The Merchant of Berlin appeared on stage, Berlin also hosted the second tour of the Habima Theatre group, back from a prolonged tour in Palestine. As before, the encounter with Habima stimulated the debate on the significance of a Jewish theatre in the Hebrew language. A literary circle, “Friends of Habima”, had been founded after the first Berlin tour of the troupe in 1926. Two years later in 1928 Arnold Zweig published his notable study Jews on the German Stage, with its already quoted motto-like formula: “The Jew is a born actor”. Originally, Zweig’s enthusiasm for Jewish theatre had been the result of his encounter with the Yiddish theatre, especially in Vilna and in Warsaw during the war-time occupation by the German army, but after the mid-1920s he became increasingly influenced by the Hebrew renaissance. When in 1928 he concluded his study with the proposal that a higher level of Jewish theatrical culture could be attained in Hebrew, he anticipated the impact of the second tour of the Hebrew-language company on many Jewish theatre enthusiasts. As reported by the Jüdische Rundschau, the debate on Habima’s return visit in 1929, as mirrored in the Friends’ circle, again addressed the future of Jewish theatre. One meeting of the group culminated in a keynote speech by the Zionist poet laureate Chaim Nachman Bialik, in which he argued that theatrical events had been part of Jewish culture since the time of the prophets, noting that “a strong passion for theatre has existed in ancient Jewry since the very beginning.”45 One month 45

Report in the Jüdische Rundschau 12 Nov. 1929.

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later, the Jüdische Rundschau published a series of opinions regarding the Habima guest performances.46 The first was by Hannah Rovina, the company’s leading actress. It was a pragmatic survey of the three different sectors served by Habima: the yishuv—the Jewish community in Palestine, Jewish communities in European countries, and the nonJewish European public. The German-Jewish voices were of a more enthusiastic sort. Martin Buber (1878–1965), drawing on Bialik’s idea, reiterated the notion that Jews are gifted with an “original talent” for theatre, and that Habima had simply revived this ancient tradition of “authentic Hebrew drama, the drama of Israel”.47 Karl Wolfskehl (1869–1948) agreed with Buber, noting that the roots of theatre are hidden in the mysteries of the past. Habima, he said, had discovered this principle and realised it in its productions, where “we find the Hebrew world”. Habima’s return visit shifted the emphasis from Jewish to Hebrew renaissance. Despite the vivid and passionate advocacy of writers and critics like Joseph Roth (1894–1939) and Kurt Pinthus, whose writings were appreciated in the 1920s, in the Friends’ circle Yiddish culture and theatre were regarded as of secondary importance; the ranking of Jewish languages by the Czernowitz Language Conference (August 30–September 3, 1908), which had fully acknowledged the cultural equality of the Yiddish language, was inverted. The alternative to German-Jewish theatre was Hebrew-Jewish theatre. The Zionists and the liberals agreed on this, as they had done in the case of The Merchant of Berlin—for different reasons, certainly, but with similar implications in terms of East European Jewry. We can see how the Zionist idea of a national theatre mirrors the concept of a German “National theatre”, thus excluding the popular Jewish theatre of Eastern Europe,48 which by then had already proved its viability and had assumed an international acclaim, reaching East and West on a large scale. It should be kept in mind, however, that in 1929 the Zionist stance was espoused by a tiny minority of German Jews. Thus, up to 1933 the German-Jewish concept of theatre art was the prevailing one. Jewish self-presentation on the German stage remained important for

Jüdische Rundschau 10 Dec. 1929. “Echtes Hebräer-Drama, Israels Drama”. 48 The emergence of Habima as national theatre is discussed by Gad Kaynar, “National Theatre as Colonized Theatre: The Paradox of Habima”, Theatre Journal 50 (1998): 1–20; See also Freddie Rokem, “Hebrew Theatre from 1898–1948,” Linda Ben-Zvi, ed. Theatre in Israel (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996) 1–20. 46 47

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the political situation of the Weimar Republic, as it contributed to the general development of modern arts and the theatre within the European context. In both respects Jewish avant-garde theatre directors presented much more than a simple reaction to the handling of the “Jewish question” by German right-wing political sources, whose propaganda took advantage of economic and social misery by blaming German and European Jews. German-Jewish theatre remained what it had been throughout the 1920s: a theatre of the German nation, and devoted to a German republic which—following the pattern of the Western European democracies—had once promised to become a democracy for all German citizens, regardless of their origin. Bibliography Achad Ha’am (Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg). Am Scheideweg. Vol. II. Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag, 1916. Bayerdörfer, H.-P., “Schrittmacher der Moderne? Der Beitrag des Judentums zum deutschen Theater zwischen 1848 und 1933,” Deutsche Juden und die Moderne: Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien 25, ed. Shulamit Volkov. München: Oldenbourg Verlag 1994. 39–56. ——. “Playwrights and theater critics in the Weimar Republic assume the role of advocates for justice,” Yale Companion to Jewish Writing and Thought in German Culture 1096–1996, eds. Sander L. Gilman and Jack Zipes. New Haven: Yale University Press 1997. 455–463. [German version: “Dramatiker und Theaterkritiker der Weimarer Republik: Die Advokaten sind alle Juden”, in Handbuch zur deutsch-jüdischen Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. Daniel Hoffmann, Schöningh-Verlag, Paderborn 2001. 219–234]. ——. “ ‘Drama der Weisheit’—Zur Bühnengeschichte von Lessings ‘Nathan’ zwischen 1879/80 und 1914,” in Mit Lessing zur Moderne: Soziokulturelle Wirkungen des Aufklärers um 1900, Beiträge zur Tagung des Lessing-Museums und der Lessing Society im Lessing-Jahr 2004, eds. Wolfgang Albrecht and Richard E. Schade. Kamenz 2004. 123–143. Gelber, Mark H., Hans Otto Horch and Sigurd Paul Scheichl, eds, Von Franzos zu Canetti: Jüdische Autoren aus Österreich, Neue Studien (Conditio Judaica, Band 14). Tübingen: Niemeyer 1996. Kaynar, Gad. “National Theatre as Colonized Theatre: The Paradox of Habima” Theatre Journal 50 (1998): 1–20. Kerr, Alfred. Mit Schleuder und Harfe: Theaterkritiken aus drei Jahrzehnten, ed. Hugo Fetting, München: DTV, 1985. Möller, Eberhard Wolfgang. Rothschild siegt bei Waterloo München: Theaterverlag LangenMüller, 1934. Petersen, Klaus. Literatur und Justiz in der Weimarer Republik. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1988. Rischbieter, Henning. “Theater als Kunst und als Geschäft: Über jüdische Theaterregisseure und Theaterdirektoren in Berlin 1894–1933,” Theatralia Judaica—Emanzipation und Antisemitismus als Momente der Theatergeschichte: Von der Lessing-Zeit bis zur Shoah, ed. Hans-Peter Bayerdörfer (Theatron 7). Tübingen: Niemeyer 1992. 205–217. Rokem, Freddie. “Hebrew Theatre from 1898–1948.” Theatre in Israel. Ed. Linda BenZvi. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. 1–20.

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Schach, Fabius. “Das jüdische Theater, sein Wesen und seine Geschichte.” Ost und West 5 (Mai 1901): 347/48. Sprengel, Peter. Scheunenviertel-Theater: Jüdische Schauspieltruppen und jiddische Dramatik in Berlin (1900–1918). Berlin, Fannei & Walz. 1995. Toller, Ernst. Eine Jugend in Deutschland: Ges. Werke, Vol. 4, Eds. Wolfgang Frühwald & John M. Spalek. München: Hanser-Verlag, 1978 (first published Amsterdam, Querido, 1933). Wulf, Joseph ed. Theater und Film im Dritten Reich. Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rowohlt 1966. Zweig, Arnold. Juden auf der deutschen Bühne. Berlin: Welt-Verlag. 1928.

POPULAR JEWISH DRAMA IN VIENNA IN THE 1920S Brigitte Dalinger In the immediate aftermath of World War I and the downfall of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, the city of Vienna was often compared to a head that was excessively weighty in proportion to the country’s slender body. Austria was left now with a population of 6.5 millions. Its capital, with about 1.6 million inhabitants, was beleaguered by harsh economic problems. Nevertheless, Vienna persevered in retaining its status as a major cultural center, a city of music and the performing arts, and its theatres, clubs and restaurants were heavily frequented by the general public. Until the mid-1920s, the city experienced a veritable boom in the amusement and entertainment sector: numerous theatres and clubs were newly opened, though some could not make a go of it and others were turned into cinemas.1 Vienna’s Jewish population increased significantly during and after World War I. Between 1890 and 1910 an estimated 175,313 Jews lived in the city, about 8.6 per cent of population; during the First World War, an estimated 50,000 to 125,000 refugees—Jews and non-Jews— arrived, and about 25,000 of them settled there permanently.2 By 1923 there were 201,513 Jews in Vienna, about 10.8 per cent of the city’s inhabitants.3 The percentage of the Jewish population decreased in the 1930s, when about 176,000 Jews (9.4 per cent) lived in Vienna. The artistic course of the city’s major theatre houses—the Burgtheater, the Deutsches Volkstheater and its smaller stage, the Kammerspiele, as well as the Theatre in der Josefstadt—was influenced by playwrights, 1 See: Heidemarie Brückl-Zehetner, “Theater in der Krise: sozialgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zum Wiener Theater der Ersten Republik” (Diss. University of Vienna, 1988); Birgit Peter, “Schaulust und Vergnügen: Zirkus, Varieté und Revue im Wien der Ersten Republik” (Diss. University of Vienna, 2001; Alfred Pfoser, “Konjunktur und Krise: Zur Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte eines Theaters,” 100 Jahre Volkstheater, ed. Evelyn Schreiner (Vienna: Jugend und Volk, 1989) 34–39. 2 See: Ruth Beckermann, “Die Mazzesinsel,” Die Mazzesinsel, ed Ruth Beckermann (Vienna: Löcker, 1984) 16; John Lichtblau and Albert Lichtblau. Schmelztiegel Wien—Einst und Jetzt: Zur Geschichte und Gegenwart von Zuwanderung und Minderheiten (Vienna: Böhlau, 1993) 114. 3 Lichtblau 157.

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directors, actresses and actors of Jewish descent. The premiere of Jaákobs Traum by Richard Beer-Hofmann (1866–1945)4 took place in 19195 at the Burgtheater, and his Der Graf von Charolais,6 which had originally been produced in Berlin in 1904, opened in Vienna in 1922. The Deutsches Volkstheater staged Professor Bernhardi 7 by Arthur Schnitzler8 (1862–1931) in 1918, and the smaller Kammerspiele presented in 1921 his Reigen.9 One of the most prominent leaders of the Deutsches Volkstheater was Rudolf Beer (1889–1938),10 an actor and director who was also temporarily the manager of the Raimundtheatre in addition to the Volkstheater. Max Reinhardt (1873–1943)11 decisively influenced theatre life in Vienna in the 1920s, especially when, in 1923, he assumed the directorship of the Theater in der Josefstadt. In 1926, he presented at the Deutsches Volkstheater his production of G. B. Shaw’s Saint Joan with the Jewish actress Elisabeth Bergner (1897–1966)12 in the title role. As this brief survey demonstrates, Jewish directors and theatre managers (Rudolf Beer, Max Reinhardt), actors (Elisabeth Bergner) and dramatists (Arthur Schnitzler, Richard Beer-Hofmann) played an important role in Vienna’s theatrical life. Some of them also dealt with Jewish themes in their works, notably Arthur Schnitzler in his Professor Bernhardi. 4 Richard Beer-Hofmann (b. 1866 Rodaun near Vienna—d. 1945 New York) was an author and playwright. In 1897 he became famous with the poem Schlaflied für Mirjam [“Lullaby for Mirjam”]. In 1939 he immigrated to the USA. 5 Jaákobs Traum [“Jaákob’s Dream”] was published in 1918. The production, directed by Max Reinhardt, was planned for Berlin in the fall 1918, but because of the chaotic political situation, Beer-Hofmann insisted on postponing it. The play premiered on 5 April 1918 at the Vienna Burgtheatre. The Berlin premiere took place on 7 November 1919 at the Deutsches Theater. 6 Richard Beer-Hofmann’s melodrama Der Graf von Charolais [“The Count of Charolais”] premiered in 1904 at the Neues Theatre in Berlin, directed by Max Reinhardt. 7 The comedy Professor Bernhardi was published in 1912, when it was also staged staged in Berlin. In Austria, the performance of the play was banned by the censor until 1918. 8 Arthur Schnitzler (b. 1862, Vienna—d. 1931 Vienna), physician, author and playwright, was one of the most prominent authors of the “Wiener Moderne”. 9 Reigen was published in 1900. 10 Rudolf Beer (b. 1889, Graz—d. 1938, Vienna) headed the Deutsches Volkstheater from 1924 to 1932, and from 1933 to 1938 the Scala Theater. In May 1938, after being tortured by the Nazis, he committed suicide. 11 Max Reinhardt (né Goldmann, b. 1873, Baden near Vienna—d. 1943, New York) was an eminent actor and director in Berlin, Vienna and Salzburg. In 1937, he emigrated to the USA. 12 Elisabeth Bergner (b. 1897, Drohobycz, Galicia—d. 1986 London) was a star of stage and screen in Europe and the USA.

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At the same time, with the arrival of “Ostjuden” (East European Jews whose native language was Yiddish) anti-Semitism grew, and would not be limited to attacks on the new arrivals,13 but also against acculturated “Western” Jews like Arthur Schnitzler. This was demonstrated by the violent response to the production of his play Reigen. Theatre historian Ursula Simek describes the events surrounding the production quite dramatically, and argues that “Schnitzler’s ‘Reigen’, also staged at the Kammerspiele in Rotenturmstrasse by Director Alfred Bernau, brought the new republic to the verge of civil war.”14 Due to its subject matter—the transience of love relations, depicted in eight dialogues before and after sexual intercourse—Reigen had caused a sensation from the moment of its first publication and its theme and stage performance were vehemently protested by conservative and clerical circles. The Vienna premiere led to debates in parliament, fist fights and inflammatory anti-Semitic tirades against Arthur Schnitzler. Historian Alfred Pfoser recounts: The “anger of the people” . . . finally erupted on 16 February 1921 in an organized attack against the Kammerspiele, from which the audience was driven out with brute force and jeering, with brass knuckles and tea eggs. The action was celebrated in the newspapers as “Christian self-help”. [. . .] Anti-Semites from all sides realized that they had been able to put themselves in the spotlight as “guardians of morality” by storming “Reigen”.15

Further performances of Reigen were temporarily prohibited, though the ban was later rescinded and in 1921 performances were given twice daily without further disturbances. The scandal surrounding Reigen revealed how deeply seated Jew-hatred was within Austrian society. Aside from the major mainstream theatre houses, Vienna also had smaller theatres and companies where a broad spectrum of Jewish plays was performed in both Yiddish and German. In Vienna, one could enjoy the rich international repertoire of Yiddish plays, ranging from operettas, musical comedies and melodramas by Abraham Goldfaden and his contemporaries, to more literary dramas by Jacob Gordin. Some ensembles, such as the The

13 Beate Hoffmann-Holter, “ ‘Ostjuden hinaus!’ Jüdische Kriegsfl üchtlinge in Wien 1914–1924,” Die Stadt ohne Juden, eds. Guntram Geser, Armin Loacker (Vienna: Filmarchiv Austria, 2000) 314. 14 Ursula Simek, “1918–1924 Direktion Alfred Bernau: Stilbühne, Massenszenen und Bühnenmusik—Theatre im Zeichen des Expressionismus,” 100 Jahre Volkstheatre, ed. Evelyn Schreiner (Vienna: Jugend und Volk, 1989a) 42. 15 Pfoser 36.

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Freie Jüdische Volksbühne—a Yiddish ensemble that used a German name—presented dramas by Sholem Asch, David Pinski, Y. L. Peretz, H. Leivick and S. Anski. Journalist and playwright Abisch Meisels wrote local Yiddish plays in which the situation of the Jews was depicted in a comical and critical way.16 These plays were staged by the city’s Yiddish-language troupes.17 German-language comedies that dealt with the Jewish milieu, such as the Leopoldstädter jüdische Lokalpossen, were also written and performed. Other plays addressed contemporary Jewish problems, like Fritz Löhner’s Der getaufte Enkel [The Christened Grandson],18 which shows the difficulties facing a young Jew in Vienna. Other plays included the now lost play Der Schrei, der niemand hört [The Cry That No One Heard] by Elsa Feldmann,19 and a translation of Henry Bernstein French’s drama Israel.20 In the 1930s, there were also didactic Zionist plays, as well as a Zionist cabaret, an opera titled Purim, and Jewish comedies and cabaret pieces. It is important to note that the various genres of Jewish dramatic texts and performances—the self-caricaturing milieu farce, the didactic Zionist play, the serious linguistically and dramaturgically sophisticated discussion of anti-Semitism in the form of a thesis play, the cabaret revue, the Purim opera and Yiddish melodrama—had a substantial influence over the non-ethnic theatre scene in Vienna from 1908 to 1938, and could be seen in many theatre houses and cabaret playhouses other than those designated as “Jewish”. In this essay I will focus on popular Jewish plays written and performed in Vienna in the 1920s, notably the Yiddish comedies and

16 Abisch Meisels (b. 1896, Kulikow, Galicia—d. 1959, London) came to Vienna during World War I. He worked as a journalist and as prompter and dramatist in the city’s Jewish theatres. In 1938 he escaped to London with his family. 17 On the history of the Jewish theatre in Vienna see Brigitte Dalinger, Verloschene Sterne: Geschichte des jüdischen Theaters in Wien (Vienna: Picus, 1998; “Yiddish Theatre in Vienna, 1880–1938,” Yiddish Theatre: New Approaches, ed. Joel Berkowitz (Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2003) 107–117. 18 Beda [Fritz Löhner], Der getaufte Enkel ((1909, 1914)). The unpublished manuscript is preserved in two censored copies located in the Niederösterreichisches Landesarchiv (NÖLA), Theatre Censor Collection. 19 Elsa Feldmann (b. 1884, Vienna—d. 1942, concentration camp Sobibor) was a factory worker, journalist and writer. Her play Der Schrei, der niemand hört premiered in 1916 at the Wiener Volksbühne. 20 Henry Bernstein: Israel: A Play in Three Acts, adapted in German by Rudolph Lothar, was performed on 1 December 1925 at the Rolandbühne. The same drama, under the title Der Jude Justin Gutlieb, was scheduled to open at the Jüdisches Kulturtheater on 10 Mar. 1938. It is not clear whether this performance took place.

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revues by Abisch Meisels and the German-language Leopoldstädter Jüdische Lokalpossen, comedies set in the Jewish milieu of the 1920s and performed at the Rolandbühne. These Yiddish and German language plays were performed in Vienna’s second district, Leopoldstadt, a popular residential area for Jewish immigrants, intersected by Taborstrasse and Praterstrasse streets. I will pay special attention to the following topics as they are reflected in these works: the presence of topical problems such as anti-Semitism; the coexistence of Jews and non-Jews; the emergence of modernity; assimilation and Zionism; the specific role of women; and the connections between the Yiddish and Germanlanguage theatres in Vienna. The first piece to be discussed, Der getaufte Enkel [The Baptised Grandson] by Fritz Löhner (1883–1942),21 is a one-act play composed in German and performed in 1914 by the Jüdische Bühne in Yiddish. Löhner was a German-speaking Viennese writer who employed sarcasm to deal with assimilation and anti-Semitism. Der getaufte Enkel is about a family whose son wants to obtain a post as a civil servant. As it is practically an impossible career option for a Jew, he decides to be baptized, an act that is unacceptable to his grandfather. Der getaufte Enkel shows the problems of a Jewish family in Vienna at various levels: the anti-Semitic environment, the willingness of the younger generation to give up their Jewish identity for practical purposes, inter-generational conflict and its reflection in the attitude of different generations to their respective Jewishness. Furthermore, the play exposes the futility of religious conversion as a means to escape anti-Semitic constraints. “Ob Jude, ob Christ, ist einerlei, in der Rasse liegt der Unterschied” [“It’s all the same, Jew or Gentile, the difference lies in the race”],22 pronounce the Gentile figures in the play. The original saying, on which this line is based was: “Was der Jude glaubt, ist einerlei, in der Rasse liegt die Schweinerei!” [“It doesn’t matter what the Jew believes, it’s the race that is the dirt.”] According to Hermann Bahr, this slogan came from students, members of the Albia fraternity, who pasted this slogan in public toilets all over the city center during 1880s.23 Der getaufte Enkel reveals anti-Semitism based on 21 Fritz Löhner-Beda (b. 1883, Wildenschwert, Bohemia—d. 1942, Auschwitz) wrote a series of hits that are still well known today (such as Ausgerechnet Bananen) and Libretti (such as Franz Lehár’s Das Land des Lächelns). 22 Beda (1914) 11. 23 Hermann Bahr, Selbstbildnis (Berlin: S. Fischer, 1923) 119. Quoted from Wolfgang Häusler, “Toleranz, Emanzipation und Anti-Semitismus: Das österreichische Judentum des bürgerlichen Zeitalters (1782–1918),” Das österreichische Judentum: Voraussetzungen und

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racial prejudice, where blood rather than religious beliefs determines the Jew’s inescapable position. During the First World War, the Jüdische Bühne produced plays known as Lebensbilder, or “portraits of life”, and comedies which dealt with the problematic position of Jews in the war zones. Jews lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany, but also in Russia, and thus in the territories of both opponents, and were accused of treason on both fronts. From 1915 to 1917, three plays performed by the Jüdische Bühne took a popular approach to the dilemma: the “portraits of life” Zurück vom Krieg [Back From the War], written by Markowitsch;24 Krieg und Liebe [Love and War] by Leon Weissberg;25 and the comedy Die jüdische Heldin oder Herz und Hand furs Vaterland [The Jewish Heroine, or Heart and Hand for the Fatherland] by Abisch Meisels.26 All three plays emphasize the advantages of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany over the Russian monarchy. We see that when they have to fight for the Russians, the Jewish protagonists go reluctantly to war and intend, persuaded and supported by their womenfolk, not to fight too hard. On the other hand, Jewish devotion to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and identification with the cause of rights of the Jews, associated with Francis Joseph I personally, motivate the protagonists in Abisch Meisels’s comedy Die jüdische Heldin oder Herz und Hand fürs Vaterland, set in Galicia. The plot centers on a newlywed couple, Lila and Muniu. He is a reserve officer, who has had to fight since the outbreak of war. Lila and her aged father live at home, where they are tyrannized by a Russian soldier who has entered the house by force. The soldier loses an order he is supposed to pass on, and when Lila finds it, she gives it to the German-Austrian forces, who then gain a victory. Lila, the Jewish heroine, is honored with a “gold medal for courage” for having performed heroic acts that were just as dangerous as Muniu’s, who returns home on leave from the front with two medals. The protagonists of these propagandist war plays are devoted supporters of the emperor and the monarchy, and would do everything in their power for the “civilized nations” of Austria-Hungary and Germany. The emperor is seen as a central figure of identification,

Geschichte, eds. Anna Drabek, Wolfgang Häusler, Kurt Schubert et al. (Vienna: Jugend und Volk, 1974) 113. 24 Markowitsch, Zurück vom Krieg: Life Scene in Four Acts (Unpublished manuscript, 1915. Located in NÖLA 729). There is no information available about Markowitsch. 25 Leon Weissberg, Krieg und Liebe: Life Scene in Four Acts (Unpublished manuscript, 1915). Located in NÖLA 729). There is no information available about Weissberg. 26 Written by Meisels in 1916.

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especially in Meisels’s Jüdische Heldin. Although by the time these plays were written the emperor had long ceased to serve in this function in the dramas of other German-language Jewish authors, his image and its potency were retained by the eastern territories until the disintegration of the monarchy. The eastern Jewish authors contrasted the protection of Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany with the overtly anti-Semitic czarist policy that supported continuous persecution and pogroms. It is also interesting to note the extolling of German and Austrian civilization, a deep-seated conviction that was invoked as late as 1940 to argue the impossibility of plans for the mass murder of Jews. It must be said that these popular Jewish plays refer to a documented factual reality: “Around 1900, 10 percent of the imperial and royal officer corps were Jewish or of Jewish origin, including several generals. During the First World War, 310,000 Jews were mobilized and the names of 40,000 fallen Jewish soldiers were on the casualty list.”27 Historical studies also describe the “[. . .] fervent hatred of czarist Russia, especially among consciously Jewish and Zionistic officers.”28 The propagandistic nature of these dramas should also be seen as reaction to accusations, countering rumors about disloyalty and treason on the part Jews under Russian occupation, which stirred up anti-Semitic feelings in Austria. The positive attitude of the Jews toward Austria is manifest in these plays, as is their courageous contribution to Austria-Hungary’s interests during the war. This declaration of patriotism may have been intended for a broad, not necessarily Jewish audience. However, because these plays were performed at the Jüdische Bühne, which presented plays in Yiddish, the message remained within the boundaries of the Yiddishspeaking minority and did not reach the non-Jewish public. The popular plays I have discussed were all performed by the Jüdische Bühne and were a part of the Yiddish theatre that had settled in Leopoldstadt. The Jüdische Bühne was the first permanent Yiddish theatre in Vienna. It was established in 1908 in a hall at the Hotel Stefanie, on Taborstrasse. In the 1920s and 1930s—until 1938—the company played in several halls and small theatres on Praterstrasse. The Rolandbühne, located on the same street at Praterstrasse 25, was home to yet another form of Jewish comedy in German language. Developed in the 1920s, it was termed Leopoldstädter Jüdische Lokalpossen

27 28

Hellmut Andics, Die Juden in Wien (Vienna: Kremayr und Scheriau, 1988) 215. Häusler 76.

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by historian Werner Hanak.29 The Lokalposse, namely a “regional farce,” was immensely popular throughout German-speaking countries in the nineteen century. Farce was a genre often accused of being completely apolitical, with no civilizing impact on the audience, a mere vehicle for entertainment and distraction.30 Yet it was precisely this popular genre that was used, for instance, by the Vienna-based actor and dramatist Johann Nepomuk Nestroy (1801–1862), to parody his contemporaries and their politically reactionary stance and narrow-mindedness. The “regional farce” was developed by Viennese writers, but in the 1920s, as Werner Hanak has made clear in delineating the genre, the form of the “regional farce” was adopted by Jewish writers. They added a specific Jewish milieu, set in the Leopoldstadt quarter of Vienna (Leopoldstadt is still the name of Vienna’s second district), an immigrant neighborhood where the majority of the Jews of Vienna lived until 1938. A segment of this Jewish population, the descendants of the Jews who had migrated from Bohemia and Moravia in the 19th century, was depicted ironically in the Leopoldstädter Jüdische Lokalpossen. The portrayal of the stage figures was based on the Viennese tradition of popular entertainment, which included “caricaturing types of persons”,31 as well as on the Jewish tradition of self-parody, both traditions found in numerous texts of folk singers, cabaret, and “jargon burlesques,” which were presented well into the 1930s by explicitly non-Jewish theatres and varieties, such as Kabarett Simplicissimus. With regard to the Simplicissimus’s texts with a Jewish background, Eva Maria Haybäck writes: The basic characteristics of Jewish humor are carefree laughing slyness on the one hand, wistfully smiling cleverness on the other. [. . .] Jewish humor is almost always a self-parody, an ironic representation of their own people, whereby characteristics—exaggerated to the point of grotesqueness—become clichés.32

Werner Hanak, “Leopoldstädter Ortmetamorphosen: Eine theateranalytische Reise zu den Schauplätzen der Dramen der Rolandbühne in den Jahren 1919 bis 1926 sowie zu den ‘gesprochenen Orten’ der ‘Leopoldstädter Jüdischen Lokalposse.’” (MA thesis, University of Vienna, 1994) 43. 30 Johann Sonnleitner, “Posse und Volksstück: Anmerkungen zu Nestroy und die Kritik,” Nestroy. weder Lorbeerbaum noch Bettelstab, ed. Österreichisches Theatermuseum (Vienna: Österreichisches Theatermuseum, 2000) 47. 31 Barbara Denscher and Helmut Peschina, Kein Land des Lächelns: Fritz Löhner-Beda 1883–1942 (Salzburg: Residenz, 2002) 32. 32 Eva Maria Haybäck, Eva Maria, “Der Wiener “Simplicissimus” 1912–1974: Versuch einer Analyse des Kabaretts mit längster Bestandzeit im deutschen Sprachraum.” (Diss., University of Vienna, 1976), 78. 29

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We cannot determine today the extent to which the parodic and caricatural portrayal of Jewish types and clichés impacted Jewish audiences and, in the case of the Lokalpossen, also the non-Jewish audiences, and whether they reinforced existing prejudices and anti-Semitic attitudes. Another interesting question is whether the frequently recurring opinion (found especially in German-speaking countries) that Jews had a particular tendency to self-parody is not a cliché in and of itself that obscures deeper and more complex issues.33 Let us return to the Leopoldstädter Jüdische Lokalpossen. Lokalposse is defined by Volker Klotz as “. . . a humorous play set in the petty bourgeois scene. Partly glorifying and partly criticizing, it deals with everyday life in the city, around which the play and its language revolves”.34 In the nineteenth century, the Lokalposse had its widest audience in German-speaking countries, and in the 1920s it had a strong structural influence on the so-called “Revue”, namely musical comedies that consisted of mostly songs and sketches. As Werner Hanak noted, the Leopoldstädter Jüdische Lokalpossen are set in a petty bourgeois Jewish milieu. He describes the fluctuation of the language used by the Jewish characters: [. . .] between a Viennese German and a Jewish German that is still somewhat comprehensible today. The actual nuances of the spoken language can no longer be fully grasped. The Jewish origins of the characters are revealed in some linguistic expressions and in a tendency to deal with and self-caricaturize Jewish identity and beliefs.35

The Leopoldstädter Jüdische Lokalpossen were performed regularly from 1919 to the 1925–1926 season at the Rolandbühne. Most of these comedies centered on a character portrayed by the actress Gisela Werbezirk

33 The late literary scholar Gershon Shaked offers an interesting approach to the discussion of this question in his Die Macht der Identität (Königstein/Ts: Jüdischer Verlag bei Athenäum, 1986). In his investigation of what is “Jewish” in the work of GermanJewish and American-Jewish authors, Shaked presumes that these authors had a double identity (as Jews and as citizens of their country) and were always a minority as Jews. He writes: “The problem of the minority is that they are always stigmatized by the majority, and, what is even worse, that the minority normally internalizes this stigma. German-Jewish writers frequently accepted these prejudices” Shaked (200). Conjoining this thesis with German-Jewish theatre texts is the aim of the essay I am currently working on, “Trauerspiele mit Gesang und Tanz”: Zur Ästhetik und Dramaturgie der jüdischen Dramatik in Wien [“Tragedy with Song and Dance”: On the Aesthetics and Dramaturgy of Jewish Drama in Vienna]. 34 Volker Klotz, Bürgerliches Lachtheatre: Komödie—Posse Schwank—Operette (Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rohwolt, 1987), 89. 35 Hanak 76.

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(1875–1956),36 a widely popular actress for whom leading roles were written by Alfred Deutsch-German and Armin Friedmann.37 Gisela Werbezirk played widows who had to rely on their own strength in order to take care of themselves and their children, such as Frau Breier aus Gaya [Mrs. Breier From Gaya] (1923), Hulda Pessl in Venedig [Hulda Pessel in Venice] (1925), Paula Pelikans Pleite [Paula Pelikan’s Bankruptcy] (1926), Die Würstelbraut [The Sausage Bride] (1926) and Epsteins Witwe [Epstein’s Widow] (1926). Frau Breier aus Gaya [Mrs. Breier From Gaya], subtitled “Revue with three film interludes and legal consequences”, was written by Alfred Deutsch-German and Armin Friedmann. It tells the story of Sali Breier, a resolute goose vendor from Gaya, a town in Moravia, who comes to Vienna to help her son David, an apprentice to his uncle, the banker Maurice Kron-Korn. David’s cousin Heinz takes advantage of him by stealing money from his till, and Sali helps her son prove his innocence. Meanwhile, Maurice has climbed the social ladder. He is rich, married to a Christian, and ashamed of his sister and his origins. Sali reminds him of his roots in front of guests: Sali: No one’s said it to you yet—because of your money—but what the others say about you behind your back, that’s what I, your dear sister, will tell you right to your face. You think that because today you’re the banker Kron-Korn, that all the others have already forgotten you were once Mottche Kohn from Gaya! Everyone laughs about you. The minister, the governor, and your wife and your daughter, they laugh with them.38 Another energetic mother, but this time one that crosses the boundaries of legality, stands at the center of the comedy Paula Pelikans Pleite by 36 Gisela Werbezirk (b. 1875, Bratislava—d. 1956, Hollywood) began her acting career at the age of 30 in Bratislava. Soon she had engagements in Vienna and Berlin, where she appeared until 1938. She was a very popular, folksy actress. In 1938, she emigrated to the United States with her husband and son, where she performed with various immigrant theatre initiatives and in American films. 37 Little is known about Alfred Deutsch-German and Armin Friedmann, authors of popular Jewish plays. All known information about Alfred Deutsch-German ends in 1944, when he was known to be in Gestapo custody in the South of France. Armin Friedmann (b. 1863, Budapest—d. 1939, Vienna) was on the staff of the Neuer Wiener Tagblatt as an art editor, also a theatre critic and author of popular comedies and farces. 38 Alfred Deutsch-German and Armin Friedmann, Frau Breier aus Gaya: A revue with three film interludes and legal consequences (Unpublished manuscript, 1923. Located in NÖLA). Quoted from Hanak 86.

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Armin Friedmann and Ludwig Nerz.39 The widow and shopkeeper Paula Pelikan goes bankrupt several times within a short period of time, and each time her creditors suffer losses. One of these creditors is Consul Baron, who is not fond of Paula’s business methods but gives her an interesting piece of advice. Baron: (He lights a cigarette and takes a few puffs, then he leans over the table and speaks without any pathos) Listen Mrs. Brecher,40 you know that my business was already big when I took it over from my father, so I didn’t have to use any tricks to work my way up. There is one thing I have learned, though, and that is that the times we live in call for a little bit of primitive cunning in business. Without it, nothing goes—but—for us in particular, there is a limit. For thousands of years we have been forced to deal and to haggle and we have learnt—we have learnt very well—and we are being closely watched! Mrs. Brecher, nowadays, we have to be more honorable and more honest than everyone else, do you understand me? And any one of us that isn’t, is forging terrible weapons against us!41 While Paula Pelikans Pleite deals with both the social problems of a single businesswoman and anti-Semitism, other Leopoldstädter Jüdische Lokalpossen mention these problems only casually or humorously, as in Hulda Pessel in Venedig, when Mrs. Pessl recounts how she went in protest to parliament: Mrs. Pessl: Mirabella: Mrs. Pessl: Mirabella: Mrs. Pessl:

[. . .] I did go and I carried a big sign. Was did this sign say? Down with the Jews. What? I mixed them up and took the wrong sign.42

39 Ludwig Nerz (b. 1867, Mimon, Bohemia—d. 1938, Vienna) came from a farming background. He began performing in a traveling theatre in the provinces, and came to Vienna in 1893. He also had engagements in Prague, Brno and Hamburg. From 1899, he performed with Josef Jarno in the Theater in der Josefstadt and from 1914 he was also employed in the film branch. Nerz wrote—mostly in collaboration with other writers—several comedies and screenplays. 40 Mrs Brecher is Paula Pelikan’s name in the script. 41 Armin Friedmann and Kudwig Nerz, Paula Pelikans Pleite: A Comedy in Three Acts (Unpublished manuscript, 1926. Located in NÖLA) 21. 42 Emil Golz and Arnold Golz, Hulda Pessl in Venedig: A Burlesque in Three Acts. (Unpublished manuscript, 1926. Located NÖLA) 26. This passage has been crossed out, but was highlighted in the original. Emil and Arnold Golz were brothers, both born in 1866 in Vienna. Around 1900, they put on evenings together with their sister,

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Die Würstelbraut also evinces a “casual” anti-Semitism: Alois, who is introduced as a North Pole explorer, but who is in actual fact a drunken porter from the Hotel Nordpol, calls out (completely drunk): “[. . .] Down with the Jews!” When the Jewish Mr. Neugröschl consequently holds Alois’s mouth shut, he calls out afterwards: “Up with the Jews—long shall they live!”43 The Leopoldstädter Jüdische Lokalpossen usually portrayed a Jewish family with a mother trying to take care of her children as best she could. The Jewishness of these families is not the focal point of the plot, as in Der getaufte Enkel [The Baptised Grandson]. Rather, the Leopoldstädter Jüdische Lokalpossen addressed a specific segment of Viennese Jews, descendents of nineteen century emigrants from Bohemia and Moravia. What is Jewish in these Lokalpossen is a socio-ethnic milieu, a certain local color, presented on stage in forms which range from (self-)irony to parody. Problems such as acculturation, assimilation and anti-Semitism are only marginally addressed. The main female protagonist of these Lokalpossen is a resolute, older woman who knows what she wants and gets it without the help of a man. Although she is a self-sufficient and independent person, she does not want her daughter to emulate her. Mali Porlitzer in Die Würstelbraut states: “I’ve raised my daughter to be modern, raised her for the big world in which one is bored, not for business.”44 In her eyes, self-sufficiency and independence have been too hard-won to be regarded as something positive, and a return to the status of bourgeois women’s life appears more desirable. The Leopoldstädter Jüdische Lokalpossen were performed at the Rolandbühne in the Praterstrasse from 1919 to 1926. Their protagonists, like their audiences, were from Leopoldstadt. They were, as Werner Hanak records, “for the most part of Jewish origin and spoke German as their mother tongue,” they “themselves or their parents [were] immigrants from the nearby regions of Moravia, Bohemia or Hungary.”45

the singer Irma Goldstein; after Irma’s death in 1903, they wrote comedies and operettas. In 1940, Emil Golz was in Vienna; Arnold Golz died 1942 in the concentration camp Theresienstadt. 43 Arthur Rapp and Rudolf Haim, Die Würstelbraut: A Farce in Three Acts (Unpublished manuscript. NÖLA) 21. There is no information available about Arthur Rapp and Rudolf Haim. 44 Rapp, Haim Act I, 16. 45 Hanak 66.

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Figure 12. Abish Meisels Courtesy of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

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A completely different Jewish milieu from that of the Lokalpossen was portrayed in Yiddish plays, which were presented on the other side of the street in Praterstrasse, where Yiddish companies established a home for themselves: the Jüdisches Künstlerkabarett [ Jewish Artists’ Cabaret] in 1925 and the Jüdische Künstlerspiele [ Jewish Performing Artists] in 1927. Abisch Meisels provided them with highly popular and successful theatre revues. On the Viennese stages, the “Revue,” a series of loosely connected scenes and images, was present in several forms in the 1920s. We find an opulent costume revue presented in 1923 at the Ronacher, titled Wien gib acht! [Look Out Vienna!], as well as various sketches and songs strung together, such as the Farkas Revues in which the popular Jewish actor Karl Farkas (1893–1971) appeared, including Alles per Radio [Everything via Radio] (1924). As the theatre historian Hilde Haider-Pregler explained: “What especially distinguishes the Farkas Revues, both the demanding and the trivial, is the synthesis of the comedic evolved from the old Viennese stand-up and suburban theatre with Jewish-Viennese (verbal) wit.”46 The Yiddish playwright Abisch Meisels adopted the popular revue genre for the Yiddish stage. Only one of Meisels’s Yiddish revues is extant: Von Sechistow bis Amerika47 [ fun sechisstow bis amerika; From Sechistow to America].48 In fifteen scenes, the revue tells the story of a family from Galicia and their travels, via Vienna, to America, where they intend to claim an inheritance. Abisch Meisels ironically and critically portrays the difficulties encountered by this Galician family, which includes the former publican patrician Hersh, his wife Scheindl, their daughter Rokhl and her fiancé Shmulik. The first meeting between Hersh and one of the locals is symptomatic: he meets Franzl, a “Wiener Strizzi”, a stereotype Viennese con-man, and anti-Semite, who cons Hersh out of his money. After this, the Galician family almost invariably encounters anti-Semites. Yet the Jews from Galicia and the Jewish community in Vienna are also depicted critically. The former evidently have the part of turning prejudice into

Hilde Haider-Pregler, “‘Jeder Zeit ihre Kunst’: Karl Farkas und die österreichische Revue der Zwischenkriegszeit” Die Welt des Karl Farkas eds. M.G. Patka & A. Stalzer (Vienna: Holzhausen 2001) 25. 47 Premiere February 1927, Jüdisches Künstlerkabarett. A second version Auf nach Tel Aviv [Off to Tel Aviv] was produced in December 1927 at the Jüdische Künstlerspiele. 48 Abish Meisels, Von Sechistow bis Amerika: Eine Revue in 15 Bildern, trans. from Yiddish and eds. Brigitte Dalinger and Thomas Soxberger (Vienna: Picus, 2000). 46

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a laughing matter: at every transaction, be it a purchase or a rental fee, they haggle until the respective partner loses patience. The Jewish religious community, on the other hand, is portrayed in the course of a budget session: the representatives are all called on to give money to Yiddish, German, and Hebrew newspapers. To the annoyance of the others, each representative speaks in his own language (Yiddish, German or Hebrew), reflecting the disunity of the Jewish community in Vienna. The dramatis personae in the following scene—Mendl Kuler, Mordkhe Fridgot, Shloyme Knaker, Khaverte Malke—are based on real people, three of whom are identifiable. Mendl Kuler’s “model” is Mendl Singer (1890–1976), a prominent politician of the Poale Zion party, who was active in Yiddish publishing in Vienna in the 1920s. Shloyme Knaker is probably a factotum for Naftali Meir Raker (dates unknown), a factory owner and bourgeois Zionist, distinguished as the publisher of Yiddish newspapers. Khaverte Malke (Comrade Malke) was modeled after Malke Schorr, of Poale Zion, who joined the Communists in the early 1920s and emigrated to the Soviet Union in the 1930s.49 The characters assemble at a meeting of the Jewish Religious Community: Twelfth Scene A meeting of the Jewish Religious Community. On Stage: Mendel Kuler, Mordechai Friedgott, Shlomo Knaker, Comrade Malke, servant, secretary, later Wittler (all making a noise). Servant: Gentlemen, the President of the Community is coming. Enter President of the Jewish Religious Community. President (rings bell): Gentlemen, I hereby open today’s meeting. The meeting today is extremely important and urgent, for the budget for this year must be made. Various applications for subsidies have been received. The first application is from Mendel Kuler for the funding of a Paole Zion organ. I give the word to the applicant Mendel Kuler. Mendel Kuler: Comrades. Starting from a social perspective, an organ of our own is our foundation. That is the soul of a party, and in this current hard battle of the masses, we must not forget the obligation that has been given to us. The Jewish public is ours. We have given them a Sholem Aleichem, a Peretz, a Mendele, a

49

For more detailed information see Meisels (2000) 167–169.

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Rosenfeld, and as a result, the Jewish public is without a Yiddish word. We cannot allow this to happen, and therefore I do not request a subsidy, as was said before, but rather the funding of the entire newspaper. Long live the Jewish masses! Long live Poale Zion! President: The next speaker is Mister Mordechai Friedgott, with regard to a subsidy for his Hebrew work “Aharon”. Mordechai Friedgott: Rabotai! Rav slicha umechila . . .50 All: Yiddish! Yiddish! President: Quiet. Mr. Friedgott, I will never permit Hebrew to be spoken at the assembly of the Jewish Religious Community. Continue. Mordechai Friedgott: Rabotai, ani medaber rak bilshon hanevixim, bilshon haxavot Avraham, Yitzhak, Yaxakov.51 President: I hereby rule that you are out of order. Mordechai Friedgott: Not necessary. (To another): Can you change a hundred dollars? . . . Good brother, just give me five shillings for now, my uncle has already sent me a check. Shalom! Exit Mordechai Friedgott. President: The next speaker is Mister Shlomo Knaker, poet and editor of “Haynt” and other newspapers. Shlomo Knaker: Gentlemen! The reason why I want to found a newspaper here is very easy to understand. We Jews are Zionists and a Jewish newspaper is needed. Recall Pani Taubes . . . how many years ago was that now . . . oh about twenty years ago it was, you should have seen Jewishness then, there were a few Zionists and we used to meet at the cafe . . . don’t you remember, Pani Taubes, what the coffee house was called? Ask Silberbusch, he will confirm that for you. I myself am even in favor of Hebrew. Recall Pani Taubes, Achad Haxam’s first work “Al parashat derech”,52 now what did I want to say, recall Pani Taubes . . . President: Please get to the point. Schlomo Knaker: If you interrupt me, I can’t speak. Yes, I think, Zionists, we were Zionists then, recall Pani Taubes, how . . . how . . . I am finished.

Hebrew: Gentlemen! I cordially request your forbearance . . . Hebrew: Gentlemen, I speak only in the language of our forefathers, the language of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 52 The correct Hebrew title of Ahad Haxam’s work is “Al Parashat Drachim.” 50 51

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President: The next speaker is Comrade Malke. Comrade Malke: Comrades! Down with capital! Long live labour. We have watched long enough as reaction has progressed with seven-league boots. The black party spreads poison among the masses of workers. “Religion is opium for the people,” it was said by, I don’t remember who right now, for which reason I request no subsidy, no support, but the Jewish Religious Community is a superfluous institution, it brings darkness to the masses, therefore it must disband, and we will take over the administration, long live the commune, down with the bourgeoisie! President: Thank you for this exposition, but for now we are sitting at the table and we will do as we please.53 Not only were most of the dramatis personae who speak in this scene based on real models, but the situation itself was probably based on an actual occurrence, as suggested by Meisels: Beginning in 1926, inner-Jewish politics in Austria was marked by a sharp contrast between the “Union” (old liberals, oriented toward assimilation) and the Zionists. A representative of the “Mizrachi” (religious Zionists), Viktor Bauminger, was prohibited from holding a speech in Hebrew in the Jewish Religious Community in March 1927.54

A remark, obviously penned by Meisels, is found next to this text passage in the manuscript, noting “won’t work”. The scene was probably too strongly reminiscent of the historical meeting and therefore not performed. It was also not mentioned in the reviews. Yet the revue shows not only the conditions in Vienna, but the effects that the modern way of life in the city had on the Jewish family from Galicia. This becomes explicit in Scene 10. In the first part, the wedding of Rokhl and Shmulik takes place following the traditional ceremony. The bride is led by women underneath the chuppah; a badchen, the master of ceremonies, performs the bridal song. The second part of Scene 10, which follows the wedding ceremony, has a completely different setting: people are dancing the Charleston in a bar and even the strictly orthodox Hersh joins in and dances. A further example of slow but progressing acculturation is revealed in Scene 11: Hersh and Scheindl, who arrived from Galicia in traditional dress—Scheindl with covered hair, Hersh with hat and kaftan—fit 53 54

Meisels (2000) 130–134. Meisels (2000) 166.

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themselves out with new clothes and greet each other as if they are strangers. Hersh is now “dressed as a German” and Scheindl is wearing an evening dress. The following dialogue reflects the ambivalence that Hersh experiences, caught between his traditional Jewish identity and the acculturated, modern lifestyle, in which he is not yet sure of himself. Hersh, dressed “German,” notices his wife, who is also wearing her new garments. [. . .] Enter Hersh, dressed “German,” Scheindl in an evening gown. Hersh: That is a very lovely lady, one should become better acquainted with her. Scheindl: A charming cavalier he is, one should become better acquainted with him. Hersch: Which blessing must one say? . . . shehecheyanu vekiymanu vehigianu lazman hazeh . . .55 Scheindl: Did you say something? Hersh: No, certainly not . . . What should one say? Lovely lady, are you hungry? Scheindl: Many thanks, but I have a dinner at home. Hersh: Are you thirsty? Scheindl: I just drank a glass of apple kvas. Hersh: You are very beautiful. Scheindl: So are you. Hersh: Are you not yet married? Scheindl: Why do you ask? Are you still single? Hersh: Why do you ask? (Pause.) Well? Scheindl: Well, well! Hersh: Well? Scheindl: Well, well! (They embrace.) Oh, my husband! Hersh: Oh, my wife. Scheindl: You old sinner, is that any way for a Jew to behave? Hersh: You good-for-nothing old woman, is that any way for a proper Jewish wife to behave? Scheindl: I just wanted to test you. Hersh: I just wanted to test you, too.

55 Hebrew: . . . for giving us life, for sustaining us, and for enabling us to reach this season . . . (Hersh is reciting a blessing that is to be said on joyful occasions, but also when putting on a new garment.)

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Scheindl: If that is so, then I want to be as true to you, as you are to me. Hersh: Not necessary, I have you enough at home. Scheindl: Well come on then, come on.56 Hersh does not begin joking immediately, but rather begins with a Hebrew blessing. Afterwards, he returns his attention to his wife who has been “turned into a lady”—as if she were an unknown, sexually attractive woman. In this way, too, both Hersh and Scheindl breach their traditional way of life. Von Sechistow ends in America after the reading of the will—the inheritance turns out to be very small and the family is disappointed. In the revised version of the revue, the finale is extended: after the (disappointing) opening of the will, the family decides to go to Palestine, where the last scene in the revue is set. The German-Jewish comedies and the Yiddish plays introduced here were presented side by side. They presented the worries and problems of different social classes in a popular form. Acculturation, assimilation and anti-Semitism were significant, especially for the new immigrants, mostly Jews coming from Galicia, who for the first time gave up their traditional way of life upon their arrival. These problems are only marginally touched upon in the Leopoldstädter Jüdische Lokalpossen, which focus instead on a milieu in which people are no longer concerned with new immigration and acculturation, but rather with maintaining the middle-class style of living which their fathers and grandfathers had worked hard to achieve, and which they wanted to pass on to the next generation. In both forms of Jewish drama, a substantial portion of the comic effect is found in the contrast between city and country and their respective inhabitants. There are striking similarities in the formal structure of both forms as well, such as in Frau Breier aus Gaya and Von Sechistow bis Amerika, which are both described as revues. An example: at the end of the first act of Frau Breier aus Gaya, the director steps onto the stage and explains to the audience that the actress playing Mrs. Sali Breier will not be able to play her part and that another actress will take her place. To “prove” this story, he shows a short film, in which Gisela Werbezirk (the actress playing Sali Breier) falls asleep in a train,

56

Meisels (2000) 126–128.

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loses her luggage and then begins searching for it. At the same time, there is a disturbance in the theatre as the real Gisela Werbezirk tries to enter, but as she has no ticket, she ends up arguing with the usher. She manages to get on stage and the play goes on: Sali Breier has arrived in Vienna. A similar break between theatre and reality is found in Von Sechistow. At the beginning of the fifth scene, the master of ceremonies explains to the audience that the revue cannot go on because the script has been lost. He suggests to the playgoers that they either exchange their tickets for another evening or simply go and see another play. He proposes several alternative performances, and in the middle of the voting on the outcome of the evening, the family from Galicia suddenly arrives (apparently from outside), and the Yiddish revue can continue. What is remarkable in terms of theatre history is the use of three short film passages in Frau Breier aus Gaya (1923). Only a few months earlier in Berlin, at the Theater am Kurfürstendam, the architect Friedrich Kiesler (Frederick J. Kiesler, 1890–1965) had projected short film sequences on small surfaces of the backdrop in his stage setting for Karl Capek’s R.U.R., and had become well known in the Berlin avant-garde with this new use of film in the theatre. Although the Rolandbühne in Vienna was not an avant-garde theatre, the authors of the Leopoldstädter Jüdische Lokalposse, Alfred Deutsch-German and Armin Friedmann, were obviously in step with contemporary developments, as was the theatre management. The renowned director, Erwin Piscator, for instance, had also used film clips in his revues since 1924. Werner Hanak explains: The film scene integrated into the action on stage indicates not only the enormous dramatic and multimedia skill of the authors Armin Friedmann and Alfred Deutsch-German, but also and especially a willingness to experiment on the part of this commercial theatre. This achievement, primarily the result of the financially depressed theatre crisis and the battle against cinema, is also remarkable in terms of international development.57

Evidently, the authors and producers of the two types of Jewish drama presented here—the Leopoldstädter Jüdische Lokalpossen and the Yiddish revues—were well acquainted with recent theatrical developments in the German-speaking and international stage. The dramatists Armin

57

Hanak 84.

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Friedmann and Alfred Deutsch-German, who wrote in German, were already using film sequences when this practice was still a novelty. The Yiddish author Abisch Meisels, on the other hand, used the open form of the revue just as cleverly (and also for agitation in the later revues) as his contemporary Erwin Piscator. During the 1920s and 1930s there were many Jewish plays, cabarets, sketches and dramas to be seen in Vienna. They dealt with biblical themes as well as Zionist propaganda, and were performed in Yiddish playhouses, but also in German-speaking theatres. The themes came from Jewish life, from religious belief, from the encounter with the non-Jewish environment. Some texts reveal nostalgia for a closed Jewish world that no longer existed, and some dealt with the danger emanating from anti-Semitism. The themes and milieus of the texts and plays were Jewish, but the forms of the dramatic texts and their staging were part of the German-speaking and international world of theatre, which would have been unimaginable without the participation of Jewish artists. [Translated by Aileen Derieg] Bibliography Andics, Hellmut. Die Juden in Wien. Vienna: Kremayr und Scheriau, 1988. Bahr, Hermann. Selbstbildnis. Berlin: S. Fischer, 1923. Beckermann, Ruth. “Die Mazzesinsel.” Die Mazzesinsel. Ed. Ruth Beckermann. Vienna: Löcker, 1984. 9–23. Beda (= Fritz Löhner) (1909, 1914) Der getaufte Enkel. Unpublished manuscript. Two censored copies of the text are located in the Niederösterreichisches Landesarchiv (NÖLA), Theatre Censor Collection, carton 656 (in other NÖLA and carton numbers) “Intimes Theater, 1909” and carton 729 “Jüdische Bühne 1914.” Brückl-Zehetner, Heidemarie. “Theater in der Krise: sozialgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zum Wiener Theater der Ersten Republik.” Diss. University of Vienna, 1988. Dalinger, Brigitte. Verloschene Sterne: Geschichte des jüdischen Theaters in Wien. Vienna: Picus, 1998. ——. (2003) “Yiddish Theatre in Vienna, 1880–1938.” Yiddish Theatre: New Approaches. Ed. Joel Berkowitz. Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2003. 107–117. Denscher, Barbara and Helmut Peschina. Kein Land des Lächelns: Fritz Löhner-Beda 1883–1942 Salzburg: Residenz, 2002. Deutsch-German, Alfred and Armin Friedmann. Frau Breier aus Gaya: A revue with three film interludes and legal consequences. Unpublished, 1923. Located in NÖLA, “Rolandbühne 1923”. Friedmann, Armin and Kudwig Nerz. Paula Pelikans Pleite: A Comedy in Three Acts. Unpublished manuscript, 1926. Located in NÖLA, “Rolandbühne 1926”.

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Golz, Emil and Arnold Golz. Hulda Pessl in Venedig: A Burlesque in Three Acts. Unpublished manuscript, 1926. Located in NÖLA, “Rolandbühne 1926”. Haider-Pregler, Hilde. “ ‘Jeder Zeit ihre Kunst’: Karl Farkas und die österreichische Revue der Zwischenkriegszeit.” Die Welt des Karl Farkas. Eds. M. G. Patka & A. Stalzer. Vienna: Holzhausen 2001. 25–44. Hanak, Werner. “Leopoldstädter Ortmetamorphosen: Eine theateranalytische Reise zu den Schauplätzen der Dramen der Rolandbühne in den Jahren 1919 bis 1926 sowie zu den “gesprochenen Orten” der “Leopoldstädter Jüdischen Lokalpossen.” MA thesis, University of Vienna, 1994. Haybäck, Eva Maria. “Der Wiener “Simplicissimus” 1912–1974: Versuch einer Analyse des Kabaretts mit längster Bestandzeit im deutschen Sprachraum.” Diss. University of Vienna, 1976. Häusler, Wolfgang. “Toleranz, Emanzipation und Anti-Semitismus: Das österreichische Judentum des bürgerlichen Zeitalters (1782–1918).” Das österreichische Judentum: Voraussetzungen und Geschichte. Eds. Anna Drabek, Wolfgang Häusler, Kurt Schubert et al. Vienna: Jugend und Volk, 1974. 83–140. Hoffmann-Holter, Beate. (2000) “‘Ostjuden hinaus!’ Jüdische Kriegsflüchtlinge in Wien 1914–1924.” Die Stadt ohne Juden. Eds. Guntram Geser, Armin Loacker. Vienna: Filmarchiv Austria, 2000. 305–346. John, Michael and Albert Lichtblau. Schmelztiegel Wien—Einst und Jetzt: Zur Geschichte und Gegenwart von Zuwanderung und Minderheiten. Vienna: Böhlau, 1993. Klotz, Volker. Bürgerliches Lachtheatre: Komödie—Posse—Schwank—Operette. Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rohwolt, 1987. Markowitsch, Zurück vom Krieg: Life Scene in Four Acts. Unpublished manuscript, 1915. Located in NÖLA 729. Meisels, Abisch. Die jüdische Heldin oder Herz und Hand fürs Vaterland: A Comedy in Four Acts. Unpublished manuscript, 1916. Located in NÖLA 729. ——. (2000) Von Sechistow bis Amerika: Eine Revue in 15 Bildern. Trans. from Yiddish and eds. Brigitte Dalinger and Thomas Soxberger. Vienna: Picus, 2000. Peter, Birgit. “Schaulust und Vergnügen: Zirkus, Varieté und Revue im Wien der Ersten Republik.” Diss. University of Vienna, 2001. Pfoser, Alfred. “Konjunktur und Krise: Zur Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte eines Theaters.” 100 Jahre Volkstheater. Ed. Evelyn Schreiner. Vienna: Jugend und Volk, 1989. 34–39. Rapp, Arthur and Rudolf Haim. Die Würstelbraut: A Farce in Three Acts. Unpublished manuscript. Located in NÖLA, “Rolandbühne 1926”. Shaked, Gershon. Die Macht der Identität. Königstein/Ts: Jüdischer Verlag bei Athenäum, 1986. Simek, Ursula. (1989a) “1918–1924 Direktion Alfred Bernau: Stilbühne, Massenszenen und Bühnenmusik—Theatre im Zeichen des Expressionismus.” 100 Jahre Volkstheatre. Ed. Evelyn Schreiner. Vienna: Jugend und Volk, 1989. 40–53. ——. (1989b) “1924–1932 Direktion Rudolf Beer: Das ‘lebendigste’ Theater von Wien: literarisches Engagement, politische Provokation, bürgerliche Unterhaltung.” 100 Jahre Volkstheater. Ed. Evelyn Schreiner. Vienna: Jugend und Volk 1989. 54–60. Sonnleitner, Johann. “Posse und Volksstück: Anmerkungen zu Nestroy und die Kritik.” Nestroy. weder Lorbeerbaum noch Bettelstab. Ed. Österreichisches Theatermuseum. Vienna: Österreichisches Theatermuseum, 2000. 41–55. Soxberger, Thomas. “Zur Transkription des Theaterstücks von Abisch Meisels.” Abisch Meisels, Von Sechistow bis Amerika. Eds. Brigitte Dalinger and Thomas Soxberger. Vienna: Picus, 2000. 16–21. Weissberg, Leon. Krieg und Liebe: Life Scene in Four Acts. Unpublished manuscript, 1915. Located in NÖLA 729.

SECTION FOUR

PRESENCE AND ABSENCE IN THE AMERICAN THEATRE

ON ARRIVING FRONT AND CENTER: AMERICAN JEWISH IDENTITY ON THE AMERICAN STAGE* Ellen Schiff One of American drama’s finest achievements is routing the veteran troupe of Jewish stock characters that for centuries found steady employment on the European stage. That is a milestone in theatre history. Curiously, Jewish villains and moneylenders and exotic belles Juives maintained their persistent hold on the Western stage, irrespective of the changing circumstances of Jews in society outside the theatre. Even the expanding number of Jewish dramatists in the increasingly cosmopolitan and more tolerant last decades of the nineteenth century bowed to cultural convention and audience expectations. Here, for example, is French boulevard favorite Alfred d’Ennery in 1886, explaining the total absence of Jews from his popular plays: I believe that in the theatre one must not fight public opinion . . . If I had put a Jew on the stage, naturally I would have been obliged to make of him a usurer or a crook or a traitor, or some sort of nasty type. I would have found that unacceptable, since I am myself of Jewish origin. So . . . you won’t find a single one in my plays. By contrast, you will find in them a number of Catholic missionaries who throw themselves into the midst of fires to rescue children in peril.1

America absorbed this essentially anti-Semitic practice along with the rest of her European heritage. Perhaps it explains why the first American Jewish dramatists, Mordecai Manuel Noah, Isaac Harby and Jonas P. Phillips did not represent Jews on the stage. As Harley Erdman details in his study, Staging the Jew: The Performance of an American Ethnicity, 1860–1920, cunning and wicked Jews were gradually upstaged by variety shows and vaudeville’s Hebrew comics and good-natured characters, like those played by David Warfield [Wohlfelt]. A notable example is the 1903 Broadway hit, The Auctioneer, the appealing story of * An abbreviated earlier version of this essay appeared in Modern Jewish Studies, 12 (Yiddish 12:4) 2000. 1 Abraham Dreyfus, “Le Juif au théâtre,” Actes et Conferences de la Société des Etudes Juives, 51 (1889): 52.

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the reverses and recoveries of a Jewish businessman with a heart of gold. This was a Jewish success story, the starring role written for Warfield by Arthur Lee [Arthur Lee Kahn] and Charles Klein, the play produced and directed by theatre giant David Belasco. However, firmly, conventional stage practices and stereotypes were finally undermined by waves of mass migration that began in the 1880s. The newcomers flocked to every corner of the theatre and to both sides of the footlights. Immigrants transformed the demographics of theatre audiences. Conspicuous among them were Jews, whose performing tastes and talents were not confined to the vibrant new Yiddish stage. One estimate has it that by 1905, more than half the people working in the theatre industry in New York were Jews.2 It is no surprise that by World War I, an indigenous, identifiably American theatre had emerged. It was largely the creation of newcomers and first-generation Americans, an exuberant hive of ethnic energy, alive with ideas, and nourished by opportunity and freedom of expression. Distinctly Jewish imprints on the American theatre multiplied and intensified through the twentieth century. Writing in Commentary in 1952, Henry Popkin observed somewhat sourly that in New York, then as now the nation’s theatre capital, “playwrights and the public are reconciled to the existence of the Jews and think their stage representation neither exotic nor obscene”.3 “Reconciled” or gratified, the important thing is that for the first time in theatre history, and particularly in the United States, the Jew is regularly represented publicly from the inside, as it were, for audiences who are thoroughly accustomed to seeing Jewish characters and Jewish themes. The American stage has become a frequent venue for social commentary and political inquiry by Jewish playwrights who speak as secure members of the society they are depicting. That confidence is the base from which they explore territory which often includes their own identity as American and Jewish. That matter has become ever more critical as affiliations multiply and loyalties are tested. The American repertoire came into the twenty-first century enriched by a large, varied body of American Jewish plays. Established artists

2 Leonard Dinnerstein Uneasy at Home: Anti-Semitism and the American Jewish Experience (New York: Columbia UP) 25; quoted in Harley Erdwan. Staging the Jew (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP) 96. 3 Henry Popkin, “The Vanishing Jew of Our Popular Culture,” Commentary 14:1 ( July 1952): 46.

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like Tony Kushner, David Mamet, Donald Margulies and Wendy Wasserstein, as well as newcomers like Daniel Goldfarb, Karen Hartman and Ari Roth, continue to build on a checkered history. It grows out of the unselfconscious Jewishness of the repertoire of the 1920s and ’30s. Then, Jewish dramatists were writing for a society dissimilar from today’s, but also vastly different from that of the 1940s and ’50s, when the prevailing climate of caution and fear (an attitude Arthur Miller would dramatize a half century later in Broken Glass, 1994) led to the deliberate de-Judaizing of the arts. However, following that mid-century nadir of generalized invisibility, American Jewish arts, energized by the sweeping social and cultural transformations that began churning in the 60’s, have flourished more vigorously than before. These shifting circumstances background my overview. Because the theatre is topical and public, it serves as a valid, current index to how America perceives Jews and how Jews perceive themselves. It is the latter that engages my interest here. How have Jews represented themselves on the English-language American stage since the 1920s? My focus is on what seems to me a central preoccupation of American Jewish drama: the question of what it means, how it feels, to be a Jew and an American, or, more difficult, how Jewish to be in America. What it means to be Jewish in America is a large enough question to include when to be overtly Jewish in America. The question is asked, first of all, by the playwrights of themselves. As early as the 1920s, Jewish dramatists settled into what has become a signature practice of alternating between writing explicitly Jewish plays and scripts with no Jewish content at all, an indication of their being perfectly at ease in America to do so. Clifford Odets and Elmer Rice figure among the bestknown early practitioners of the toggling back and forth; it continues to characterize the work of Jon Robin Baitz, Richard Greenberg, Kushner, Lebow, Margulies, Jeffrey Sweet, Wasserstein, and many others. Not that there was anything equivocal about the pioneer playwrights’ statements of their Jewish identity. Consider a delightful and astonishingly explicit work by the then-popular Aaron Hoffman, one of the most prolific writers for the American stage according to his 1924 New York Times obituary. In his 1920 play, ironically entitled Welcome Stranger, Hoffman portrays the efforts of a Jewish merchant to establish himself in tiny Valley Falls, New Hampshire in the face of the organized antiSemitism of the town fathers. The determination of his antagonists and the self-assurance of the plucky Isidor Solomon are displayed in this spirited exchange with the pillars of the community. They are the

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mayor, the town’s only merchant, and its lawyer—anti-Semites to a man. The scene leaves no question about how Solomon (or his creator, Aaron Hoffman) defines himself: Whitson [the mayor]: You’re the nucleus of something we don’t want in this town. Isidor: What’s that? Whitson: A Ghetto. Isidor: Oh, I see—you mean, they don’t like me because I’m a Yahooda—Oh say—that’ll wear off—I’ve been in places before where they didn’t like ’em at first and then after a while they got used to them—and when they ain’t around they miss them. Trimble [the merchant]: Well, this is one place you’ll never be missed. Whitson: You’re not going to be here long enough to get used to . . . Isidor: Well, . . . I’m not altogether ignorant . . . and it just happens that I’ve read the Constitution of the United States where it says that you can’t deprive a man of his rights on account of his race, color, or creed, and you want to remember that the Constitution is bigger than Congress—bigger than the President, and one sure thing—it’s bigger than the Mayor of Valley Falls . . . Trimble: Now let me tell you something—you and your kind can’t come in here and take away my bread and butter—I’m giving you fair warning—I’m going to wipe you out. Isidor: And let me tell you something, Mr. Trimble—for thousands of years better men than you have been trying to wipe us out and crush us and annihilate us—you can go all the way back to Pharaoh—but they can’t do it—and why? Because for some particular reason God wants us to live and prosper and—what the Hell are you going to do about it?4

4 Aaron Hoffman, Welcome Stranger in Awake and Singing: Seven Classic Plays from the American Jewish Repertoire, Ellen Schiff, ed. (New York: Penguin/Mentor, 1995), 46–47.

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Isidor Solomon is not alone in laying confident claim to the promise of the American half of his dual identity. The highly accomplished protagonist of Elmer Rice’s Counsellor-at-Law (1931) also does battle with the hostile elite. Attorney George Simon counts on wit, ambition and Jewish morality to prevail against the inbred bigotry of the socially privileged. Unlike Hoffman’s Isidor Solomon, Rice’s George Simon is neither an unqualified success nor a totally admirable human being. Elmer Rice (né Reizenstein) makes an emphatic statement of his selfassurance as an American Jew (and a lawyer) in putting on stage in 1931 a Jewish character who, despite his many sterling qualities, exploits the law, that basic article of Jewish belief, in a humane effort to save his client and his career. Far less well-placed than attorney George Simon, but just as avid for his place in American society, is Ralph Berger, the angry young man in Clifford Odets’s classic Awake and Sing! (1935). Despite his mother’s claim that “here without a dollar you don’t look the world in the eye,” Ralph insists that “Boys and girls can get ahead . . . We don’t want life printed on dollar bills.”5 He aspires to escape the practical but constricting circle of his first generation parents, preoccupied with survival of family and home. Ralph, the spokesman for his author’s left-wing political convictions and personal ambitions, looks for a different community. For him, the future lies in the interaction of ambitious workers from many ethnic backgrounds: “Colleti to Driscoll to Berger,” he declares, “that’s how we work”.6 However, not all Jews on the early twentieth century stage were as confident of themselves and their prerogatives and opportunities as citizens of a democracy. Insecurity provides the dramatic tension of Arthur Laurents’s first play. Home of the Brave (1945) depicts the Jew as a member of the all-American platoon of World War II, where barracks and trenches fostered unprecedented relationships between Jews and those who had never before met a Jew. In Laurents’s play, young Peter Coen enters the Army with no illusions about prejudice: he had grown up in a tough anti-Semitic neighborhood. But in the Army, Coen bonds with a non-Jew; for the first time in his life, he feels totally accepted, easy with his Jewishness. When the friendship is

5 Clifford Odets, Awake and Sing! in Awake and Singing, new ed. Ellen Schiff, ed. (New York: Applause Theatre Books, 2004), 237. 6 Awake and Sing! 238.

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undermined by a misperceived slur and ended by enemy fire, Coen is literally immobilized; it takes intensive psychiatry to rebuild his trust in himself as a Jew and as a worthwhile human being. It is tempting to draw a straight line from these plays from the first half of the twentieth century to the more recent works they appear to anticipate. For example, Arthur Laurents’s paranoid soldier of 1945 seems to announce the bemused Army veteran of David Mamet’s 1985 Goldberg Street. Visiting a military cemetery in France, Mamet’s man wistfully observes that there is a Rybka Street and a Smith Street, but no Goldberg Street. Then he demonstrates his ambivalence as a Jew who had worn the American uniform: “Our shame,” he admits, “is that we feel they’re right. I have no desire to go to Israel. But I went to France.”7 The determination of immigrants and first generation Americans to “make it” as Jews in America as treated by Rice, John Howard Lawson and Odets is subsequently dramatized by Herb Gardner in Conversations With My Father (1991). The play traces the dogged efforts of a new American to establish a saloon in lower Manhattan, guided, or misguided, by distinctly conflicted notions about being Jewish in America. In pursuit of American identity, he changes his name from Itzik Goldberg to Eddie Ross and decorates his barroom with Americana. While vigorously disclaiming anything Jewish, he insists that his son attend Hebrew school. But seeing the boy leave for Hebrew school wearing his kippah, Eddie explodes, “How many times I gotta tell ya, kid—that is not an outdoor garment. That is an indoor garment only. . . You put it on in Hebrew School where it belongs”.8 Consider too how Aaron Hoffman’s feisty merchant, who dares to establish himself in hidebound New England, prepares the way for Parade (1999), Alfred Uhry’s dramatization of Leo Frank’s real life story. Frank’s courageous but naïve endeavor to make his life as a Jew in the racist Georgia of the 1910s ends disastrously in his lynching. Uhry is one of a number of today’s dramatists whose work is dominated by questions of identity. In The Last Night of Ballyhoo (1997), for instance, he portrays the scorn with which smug assimilated German Jews look down on “the other kind”. In the Southern Jewish society Uhry writes

7 David Mamet, Goldberg Street, in Fruitful and Multiplying: Nine Contemporary Plays From the American Jewish Repertoire, Ellen Schiff, ed. (New York: Penguin/Mentor, 1996), 188. 8 Herb Gardner, Conversations With My Father, in Awake and Singing, 2004.

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about, the chosen people are Christians who have been in America for 150 years. Their elitism is acknowledged and aped by Jewish wannabes, who parrot the practices and institutions of their “betters.” They hold, for example, that “Christmas is just another American holiday if you leave out all that silly nonsense about Jesus being born”.9 These Southern Jews, in turn, are utterly convinced of their own superiority to “pushy New York Yids” who do not have Christmas trees and cotillions, and who do look forward to family Seders with unabashed delight. There is no question where Uhry stands in this antagonism. He draws sympathy for a young Southern woman who confesses, “It’s only ignorance. I don’t know anything. There’s just a big hole where the Judaism is supposed to be”.10 In a plot resolution that is dramatically flabby but morally emphatic, the playwright redeems his misguided characters by showing them joined in welcoming both the New Yorker and Shabbat into their home. The repertoire of the last few decades is well endowed with plays that consider a number of questions about the values and attitudes shaping American Jewish lives. In Adam Baum and the Jew Movie (1999), Daniel Goldfarb depicts the confused thinking that motivates a film tycoon to revel in the tasteless extravagance of his son’s Bar Mitzvah while angrily rejecting a script about Jewish life because he deems its dead-on depiction of just such excesses “too Jewish”. Goldfarb’s Modern Orthodox (2003) has its fun at the expense of a flamboyantly observant and very pushy jewelry salesman, who nonetheless influences a disaffected Jewish customer to reappraise the value of his own Judaism. Donald Margulies’ Sight Unseen (1991) exposes the spiritual and moral emptiness of an artist who has traded his youthful Jewish values and sincere convictions for commercial and critical success. A few years later, Margulies took his cue from a controversy over a book that American Jewish novelist David Leavitt based on the experiences of his non-Jewish teacher, English poet and critic Stephen Spender. In Collected Stories (1997), Margulies reverses the ethnicity of the characters. The mentor becomes a Jewish professor who has had a love affair with Delmore Schwartz. She is outraged when her gentile protégée turns her correspondence with Schwartz into a novel. “Who gave you the right to

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Alfred Uhry, The Last Night of Ballyhoo (New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1997): Ballyhoo 76.

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write about Jews?” she angrily demands. To which the younger woman responds, “What, because I haven’t lived it I can’t write it? . . . I can’t write about Jews because I’m not Jewish?’ ” I’m saying it’s bogus coming from you,” the professor protests, “Inauthentic. Irresponsible . . . You’ve appropriated my life! ”11 This issue clearly engages Donald Margulies. In the autobiographical prefatory note he contributed to my collection of plays in 1996, he wrote that he sees himself not as a Jewish playwright but rather “as a playwright who is Jewish.” He continues, “I bristle when ethnicity is used as an adjective. It diminishes the work and seems to suggest that writing what one knows is tantamount to cheating”.12 A year later, in Collected Stories, Margulies’s concern is whether writing what one does not know—specifically, a Jewish experience—is cheating. These questions reflect the musings of a Jew so thoroughly integrated into American life that he can “write about what [he] knows” both as a Jew and as an American of unspecified identity. Margulies won the Pulitzer in 2000 for Dinner With Friends, his first play with no Jewish content at all. But when media interviewers sought him out, they found him in Seattle for the premiere of his adaptation of Sholom Asch’s Yiddish classic, God of Vengeance.13 Although such examples suggest an unbroken history of plays that treat forthrightly the claims and complexities of balancing Jewish and American identity, the line of evolution is far from straight. In the middle years of the century, the appeal of total assimilation to upwardly mobile Jews, hostile nativism, and the black shadow of Nazism muzzled uninhibited Jewish exuberance in all the popular arts. “In 1944,” writes Irving Howe, “Ben Hecht noticed ‘the almost complete disappearance of the Jew from American fiction, stage, and movies’ ”.14 In 1954, Irving Berlin worried about the ethnic behavior and speech patterns he had parodied some forty years earlier. Berlin wrote to Groucho Marx, “There are some songs I would be tempted to pay you not to do”, since “they would no longer be taken in the spirit in which they had been written”.15 Henry Popkin explains that the taboo “originates 11 Donald Margulies, Collected Stories (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1998): 64–65. 12 Donald Margulies, in Fruitful and Multiplying, 385. 13 God of Vengeance in Schiff and Posnick, eds., Nine Contemporary Jewish Plays, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005). 14 Irving Howe, World of Our Fathers (1983 rpt. New York: Schocken, 1989): 567. 15 Howe 1989, 562.

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not in hate, but in a misguided benevolence—or fear; its name is ‘shasha.’ . . . If we pretend that the Jew does not exist, the reasoning goes, he will not be missed; the anti-Semite, unable to find his victim, will simply forget about him”.16 But if Jewish presence faded in the popular arts at mid-century, the presence of Jews did not. They simply put on masks. For instance, names were changed in the transition of scripts from stage to screen, an already well-established Hollywood practice: Sol Ginsburg, the protagonist of John Howard Lawson’s Success Story (1931), which had earned critical raves for Luther Adler on stage in 1932, two years later became Joe Martin, played by movie idol Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Sol’s sweetheart, Sarah Glassman, a part brilliantly portrayed by Stella Adler, was reborn as Sarah Griswold in the 1934 movie, which featured Colleen Moore in the role. When Arthur Laurents’s Home of the Brave (1946) came to the screen in 1949, the battle-scarred Jew, Peter Coen, became a black soldier, Peter Moss. Since Laurents was involved with the film script, we might assume he approved the altered ethnicity of his hero. (However, the serviceman’s new name hints that there may be a bit of coded mischief. “Moss” and “Mossie,” the black character’s nickname, were common early names for stage Jews.) While the filmmakers’ motive was clearly to shift the focus from anti-Semitism to troubled race relations, it remains consonant with Laurents’s principled rejection of cooperation with prejudice and his conviction that members of a minority should “stand tall in American society”. Still, conversions were routinely performed by Jewish playwrights who gave transparently Jewish characters vanilla names. Here is the mother in Neil Simon’s first play, Come Blow Your Horn (1961): “What are you yelling? I’m only trying to make you happy. Who do I cook for, myself ? I haven’t eaten anything besides coffee for ten years”.17 That was a woman named Mrs. Baker, “whose speech and appearance”, the stage notes insist, “are definitely American”, protesting to her son, Buddy. (There is a snapshot of the evolution of Simon’s willingness to assert his Jewishness if we compare this 1961 play to his autobiographical “BB” trilogy some twenty years later.)18 A more substantial matter is the

Popkin 1952, 46. Neil Simon, Come Blow Your Horn (1961) in The Comedy of Neil Simon (New York: Avon, 1973) 55. 18 The explicitly Jewish plays are Brighton Beach Memoirs (1983), Biloxi Blues (1985) and Broadway Bound (1986). 16 17

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enduring riddle of the “real” ethnic identity of Arthur Miller’s salesman. The unmasking of Willie Loman has probably provoked almost as much critical commentary as the play itself.19 Like Simon, Miller began to mine the substance of his American Jewish identity late in his career. In Broken Glass (1998), his first and only full-length theatrical treatment of American Jewish life, Miller dramatizes two dominant concerns: the fearful timidity about Jewish particularism that feeds self-hatred, and the helplessness of American Jews in learning about pre-Holocaust German barbarities against their European co-religionists. Confronting the excruciating challenge of representing the Holocaust on stage posed a critical dilemma for America’s Jewish dramatists. How could they write plays about the event—but how could they not? At stake were two issues, neither exclusively Jewish. The first matter was the feasibility, not to mention the propriety, of recreating, in theatrically present time and space, chapters of history that even survivors could not verify or agree on.20 When, for example, Edith and Harold Lieberman’s meticulously researched Throne of Straw (1973), a play about the Lodz ghetto and its megalomaniacal Chief Elder, Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, was performed in New York for an audience of Lodz survivors, their responses ranged from outrage at revivifying and thus “honoring” Rumkowski’s controversial behavior, to embracing the playwrights for preserving their story. The second issue was the credibility of an American point of view and the consequent approach to the material. Unlike many of their European colleagues, American Jewish playwrights are witnesses only through the imagination, a precarious viewpoint. However, that has not stanched what has become a flood of American Jewish Holocaust plays. Among the earliest are Shimon Wincelberg’s Windows of Heaven

19 An early example is George Ross’s persuasive argument that “the Yiddish version reveals the real Willie Loman” in his essay “ ‘Death of a Salesman’ in the Original,” Commentary 11:2 (February 1951), 184–86. 20 There has been a storm of critical responses to staging the Holocaust. See, for example, Robert Skloot’s introductions to his two anthologies, each of which includes American plays, The Theatre of the Holocaust (1982) and The Theatre of the Holocaust, v. 2 (1999) (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press), and his many essays, e.g., “Stage Nazis: The Politics and Aesthetics of Memory,” History and Memory, 6:2 (fall/winter 1994), 57–87. See also Edward R. Isser, ed., Stages of Annihilation: Theatrical Representations of the Holocaust (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh U.) and Staging the Holocaust: The Shoah in Drama and Perfor mance, (Cambridge: Cambridge 1998).

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(1962, retitled and published in 1981 as Resort 76)21 and Arthur Miller’s Incident at Vichy (1965). Jewish dramatists came to more solid ground when they began to write out of an authentically American experience: not having experienced the Holocaust, but belonging to families who had. Hence Barbara Lebow’s A Shayna Maidel (1987), about the postwar reunion a New York woman with her sister and father who had sent her to safety while they remained behind, and Deb Filler’s Punch Me in the Stomach (1992), a blackly comic performance piece about her birthday present, a trip to Auschwitz with her father, whose arm still bore his tattooed numbers. Lisa Lipkin calls her play What Mother Never Told Me: Reminiscences of a Child of a Holocaust Survivor (1991). Leeny Sack’s The Survivor and the Translator (1980) is subtitled, “A solo theatre work about not having experienced the Holocaust by a daughter of concentration camp survivors”. Sack enacts the tale that she says “was slipped under my skin before I could say yes or no or Mama”.22 One of the earliest and most telling mid-century displays of American Jewish ambivalence about identity in representing the Holocaust on stage was the controversy over the dramatization of the Anne Frank diary. The writer Meyer Levin, who was responsible for the diary’s being translated and published in the United States, recognized the work’s dramatic potential. In 1951, he obtained the support of Anne’s father, Otto Frank, and adapted it for the stage. Levin’s script retains the Jewish specificity of the diary, a focus that was subsequently deemed much too particular by several powerhouses of the American theatre, all Jews. With one eye on the box office and the other on their own self-images—Jewish paranoia or, it has been suggested, their Communist sympathies—they oversaw the transfer of rights from Levin to the gentile Hollywood scriptwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett and the eventual suppression of Levin’s play. It was a sad spectacle of Jews—Otto Frank, Meyer Levin—contesting other Jews—Herman Shulman, Kermit Bloomgarden, Lillian Hellman, and Garson Kanin—over the degree of Jewishness appropriate to the staging of this profoundly Jewish story. The latter took exception, for instance, to some dialogue between Anne and Peter in the secret annex. Peter has just protested that they

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In Skloot, The Theatre of the Holocaust (1982). In Skloot, The Theatre of the Holocaust, v. 2, 120.

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were being hunted down only because they were Jews. Anne responds, “We’re not the only Jews that’ve had to suffer. Right down through the ages there have been Jews and they’ve had to suffer.” Kanin insisted that this exchange be excised. He found it embarrassing as “special pleading”. He explained, “The fact that in this play the symbols of persecution and oppression are Jews is incidental, and Anne, in stating the argument so, reduces her magnificent stature . . . The play has the opportunity to spread its theme into the infinite”.23 It is inconceivable that such a transparently craven opinion would be voiced today. Beginning with the 1960s’ celebration of ethnicity, the transforming impact on Jewish image of the Six Day War, and the fuller understanding of the devastation of the Holocaust, confident assertions of Jewish identities of every kind have re-emerged in all the arts. However, the growth and prominence of the American Jewish repertoire in the last decades of the twentieth century have, I believe, underpinnings different from those beneath the frank stage depictions of Jewish experiences earlier in the century. Jewish playwrights in the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s were conscious of themselves as outsiders in America. They wrote from the heart of Jewish ardor for success in America and of the ploys and perturbations, the sacrifices and compromises involved in striving for it. At the same time, as the Hoffman, Rice and Odets plays demonstrate, they wrote defiantly. They were aware that a Jew on stage, as on the street, was not likely to escape notice, judgment—even censure. That America has passed into history. However indelible anti-Semitism may be, Jews have ceased being a curiosity. Jewish names, characters, lifestyles are staples of all the arts. As impressive as the Jewish names on marquees and on stage and the explicitly Jewish substance of today’s plays is their affirmation of the security and self-assurance of Jews to be Jews in America. Can there be a more persuasive indicator of that sang-froid—or chutzpah—than Mel Brooks’ smash hit, The Producers (2000)? The joke is in the naiveté of the title characters, who do not count on Americans recognizing that a chorus line of Nazis can only be a parody and, like the outrageous work itself, an unmistakable affirmation of Jewish survival.

23 Both citations quoted by Lawrence Graver, An Obsession with Anne Frank (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989) 89.

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Security and self-assurance have liberated creative Jews to use the theatre, among the other arts, to consider Jews in the gamut of their responses to a range of contemporary issues. Those include, for instance, gender (Harvey Fierstein’s gay man as Jewish mother in Widows and Children First, 1979), cultural responsibility ( Jon Robin Baitz’s Mizlansky, Zilinsky, or Schmucks, 1997, about Jews as filmmakers), social responsibility for AIDS (Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, 1984), and abuses of power (political in Kushner’s 1992 Angels in America, financial in Jerry Sterner’s Other People’s Money, 1989). There are international concerns as well: the world citizenship implicit in dual identity that inspires plays about American Jewish reactions to problems in Israel, like Allan Havis’ Vow of Silence, 1994,24 and Meryl Felt’s Asher’s Command, 2000,25 both depictions of Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, along with Joshua Ford’s Miklat (2002), about assimilated American parents’ consternation when their son remakes his life in Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community. Security and self-assurance, together with an unblinking look at the challenges of being Jewish in a rapidly shifting, multicultural society, have even motivated concerned dramatists to reflect on the dire possibility of the disappearance of the Jews. A play with exactly that title forms the first part of David Mamet’s 1998 trilogy, The Old Neighborhood. In The Disappearance of the Jews, two middle-aged friends lament the mediocrity of their lives, laying the blame on assimilation. They have drifted away from the watered-down Jewishness they were barely aware of in their youth and now recall with rue and longing. Similarly, the first act of Richard Greenberg’s Everett Beekin (2002) is set in the crowded 1940s Lower East Side tenement where Jewish family disharmony is further upset by the arrival of a gentile boyfriend. In Stack contrast the play’s second act, fifty years and two generations later, takes place on a nearly empty and anonymous California patio, denuded of every trace of ethnicity. But at the same time, playwrights continue to mine explicitly Jewish sources to explore the contemporary relevance of religious heritage and cultural lore. Such works demonstrate both Jewish dramatists’ interest in their own tradition and their confidence in the audience appeal of their subjects. The Hebrew Bible remains an inexhaustible source of subjects. Karen Hartman’s Girl Under Grain (2002) works with Midrashic

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In Fruitful and Multiplying, Schiff, 1996. In Nine Contemporary Jewish Plays, Schiff and Posnick, 2005.

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and contemporary readings of the Book of Ruth to tell its three-sided love story and explore present day social and gender issues. In one of their captivating, highly innovative ensemble pieces God’s Donkey (2002) A Traveling Jewish Theatre uses music, masks and movements as theatrical vehicles for a play about Moses. The Yiddish repertoire remains an endless wellspring. Sholom Asch’s 1907 play, God of Vengeance, has recently inspired at least four English adaptations, as well as a work about the 1923 court action brought against the play by scandalized uptown New York Jews. Anski’s The Dybbuk has served as a matrix many times since Paddy Chayefsky wrote The Tenth Man in 1959. It has, for instance, been performed by the National Theatre for the Deaf, adapted for masked actors and puppets in Between Two Worlds (1988), and handsomely reworked as A Dybbuk by Tony Kushner in 1998. The Manhattan Ensemble Theatre’s 2002 production of The Golem continued ongoing adaptations of Leivick’s 1921 play about Jewish suffering and tenacity and the limits and ethics of Jewish power. They include Seattle’s Bathhouse Theatre’s puppet version of the classic in 1995, GOH Productions/La Mama’s with marionettes (1998) and Ernest Joselovitz’s reworking, Vilna’s Got a Golem, mounted by the American Jewish Theatre in 1996. As a juror in the National Foundation for Jewish Culture’s annual New Jewish Plays commissions competition, I marvel at new, multiform expressions of Jewish identity. Recently my fellow juror, Michael Posnick, and I published a collection of several of the commissioned plays, Nine Contemporary Jewish Plays (2005). Among them are Ari Roth’s Life in Refusal, an account of an American woman’s reconnecting with her Jewishness through her involvement in a Russian Jew’s struggle to emigrate, and Jeff Sweet’s dramatization, in The Action Against Sol Schumann, of an actual case in which the sons of a Holocaust survivor cope with the discovery that their father, who has lived for decades in America as an observant Jew, had been brutal kapo in one of the camps. As a number of the plays I have mentioned here demonstrate, when the American theatre closed the stage doors to negative stereotypes of Jews, it opened them wide for representations that range from the admirable to the disagreeable—and worse. David Mamet’s rapacious real estate salesmen in Glengary Glen Ross (1983), Jerry Sterner’s ruthless arbitrager, Larry “the Liquidator” Garfinkle, in Other People’s Money (1989), Tony Kushner’s unscrupulous powerbroker Roy Cohn in Angels In America (1992), Arthur Miller’s self-hating coward in Broken Glass (1994) illustrate playwrights taking advantage of their liberty to show

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Jews behaving reprehensibly to a public that no longer expects that they can be expected to. As for those traditional stereotypes, including some carried over from the Yiddish repertoire, they are simply too useful to disappear entirely. Dramatists have delighted in reshaping them to their own purposes. Surely no stock figure has undergone more makeovers than the Jewish mother. She is, for instance, a self-declared shiksa in James Lapine’s Table Settings (1979), an alcoholic in Woody Allen’s The Floating Light Bulb (1981), and an artificially inseminated single woman in Sybil Rosen’s Brink of Devotion (1985). The thoughtful, critical examination of the relationships between identity and conduct of all kinds is a logical and valuable product of a free society. Moreover, it lends itself to compelling theatre. Thankfully, playwrights and theatregoers alike have gotten beyond the criterion of what is “good for the Jews” and one more engaged in portraying what is true. When it comes to the intersection of American and Jewish identities, there seem to be no issues that cannot serve as the subject of plays, no attitudes that cannot be aired, no characters that escape dramatization. That is another of American drama’s finest achievements. Selected Bibliography Asch, Sholom. God of Vengeance. In Nine Contemporary Jewish Plays. Eds. Ellen Schiff and Michael Posnick. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005. Backalenick, Irene. East Side Story: Ten Years With the Jewish Repertory Theatre. Lanham, MD: UP of America, 1988. Clurman, Harold. The Fervent Years: The Story of the Group Theatre and the Thirties. New York: Hill and Wang, 1957. Cohen, Edward M., ed. New Jewish Voices: Plays Produced by the Jewish Repertory Company. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985. Dinnerstein, Leonard. Uneasy at Home: Anti-Semitism and the American Jewish Experience. New York, Columbia University Press, 1987. Dreyfus, Abraham, “Le Juif au theatre,” Actes et Conférences de la Société des Études Juives, 51 (1889): 52. Erdman, Harley. Staging the Jew: The Performance of an American Ethnicity, 1960 –1920. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997. Gardner, Herb. Conversations With My Father. In Ellen Schiff, ed. Awake and Singing, New Edition: Six Great American Jewish Plays. New York: Applause, 2004. 419–506. Goldstein, Malcolm. The Political Stage: American Drama and Theatre of the Great Depression. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974. Graver, Lawrence. An Obsession With Anne Frank. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. Harap, Louis. “The Jew in Drama.” Dramatic Encounters: The Jewish Presence in Twentieth Century American Drama, Poetry and Humor and Black Jewish Literary Relationships, Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1987.

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Hoffman, Aaron. Welcome Stranger. In Awake and Singing: Seven Plays from the American Jewish Repertoire. Ed. Ellen Schiff. New York: Penguin/Mentor 1995. 46–47. Howe, Irving. World of Our Fathers (reprint). New York: Schocken, 1989. Isser, Edward R., ed. Stages of Annihilation: Theatrical Representations of the Holocaust. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh University, 1997. Mamet, David. Goldberg Street. In Fruitful and Multiplying: Nine Contemporary Plays From the American Jewish Repertoire. Ed. Ellen Schiff. New York: Penguin/Mentor, 1996. 180–188. Margulies, Donald. Collected Stories. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1998. Nahshon, Edna, contributing editor. Jews and Performance, Special Issue of American Jewish History 91:1 (2003). Odets, Clifford. Awake and Sing! In Awake and Singing, New Edition: Six Great American Jewish Plays. Ed. Ellen Schiff. New York: Applause Theatre Books, 2004. Popkin, Henry. “The Vanishing Jew of Our Popular Culture.” Commentary 14:1 ( July 1952), 46. Ross, George, “‘Death of a Salesman’ in the Original.” Commentary 11:2 (February 1951): 184–86. Savran, David. In Their Own Words: Contemporary American Playwrights. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1988. Schiff, Ellen. From Stereotype to Metaphor: The Jew in Contemporary Drama. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982. ——. “The Greening of American Jewish Drama.” Handbook of American-Jewish Literature. Ed. Louis Fried. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988. ——. Awake and Singing: Seven Classic Plays from the American Jewish Repertoire, New York: Penguin/Mentor, 1995. ——. Fruitful and Multiplying: Nine Contemporary Plays from the American Jewish Repertoire, New York: Penguin/Mentor, 1996. ——. Awake and Singing, New Edition: Six Great American Jewish Plays. New York: Applause Theatre Books, 2004. Schiff, Ellen, and Michael Posnick. Nine Contemporary Jewish Plays, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005. Schumacher, Claude, ed. Staging the Holocaust: The Shoah in Drama and Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Shapiro, Ann, ed. Jewish American Woman Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical and Critical Sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994. Simon, Neil. Come Blow Your Horn (1961). In The Comedy of Neil Simon. New York: Avon, 1973. Skloot, Robert. The Theatre of the Holocaust. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. ——. “Stage Nazis: The Politics and Aesthetics of Memory.” History and Memory 6:2 (fall/winter 1994): 57–87. ——. The Theatre of the Holocaust. Vol. 2. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999. Uhry, Alfred. The Last Night of Ballyhoo. New York: Dramatists’ Play Service, 1997. Whitfield, Stephen J. In Search of American Jewish Culture. Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 1999. 115–138. Wincelberg, Shimon. Windows of Heaven (1962); retitled Resort 76. In Skoot, Theatre of the Holocaust, 1982. 39–112.

GENERATIONAL SHIFTS IN AMERICAN JEWISH THEATRE1 Linda Ben-Zvi Ellen Schiff, in her study From Stereotype to Metaphor: The Jew in Contemporary Drama, and in her two anthologies of American Jewish plays, uses as her yardstick for inclusion those works in which personae are Jews, either self-determined, as David Ben-Gurion broadly defined the Jew, or societally marked, as Jean Paul Sartre argued, that is “one whom other men consider a Jew”.2 However, she omits from consideration plays in which characters “may be Jews” but do not “proclaim their Jewish identity, whether by boast, lavent or resignation”.3 What I am interested in interrogating in this essay are precisely the areas which Schiff’s study and anthologies omit, particularly those social and cultural forces that, during the period of composition, may have shaped the works of specific Jewish playwrights and determined the writers’ decisions to focus on, camouflage, or completely efface Jewish characters and ethnic markers in the worlds they create. Such omissions of Jewish elements in one period may be as telling of about ethnicity concerns as are the overt signs of Jewishness in another epoch, and thus central to the study of American Jewish theatre. I will be discussing specific examples, culled from American theatre practice since the middle of the last century, but these tendencies and trajectories have application for other international theatres and Jewish playwrights’ deracinations or celebrations of Jewish elements in their writing. My starting point is Arthur Miller, the most distinguished Jewish playwright America has produced, honored in his own country and abroad. He is the author of what is arguably the greatest American drama of the past century, Death of a Salesman, a play which has been

1 A version of this paper appears under the title “ ‘The Sins of the Fathers’: Third Generation American Jewish Playwrights Settle Accounts”, in Assaph: Studies in the Theatre, special issue on Jewish theatre (2008). 2 Quoted in Ellen Schiff 1982, From Stereotype to Metaphor: The Jew in Contemporary Drama (State University of New York Press, 2008) x. 3 Ibid. 189.

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translated into over fifty languages and has been staged around the world. Schiff, naturally, cites Miller in her studies, but given the parameters she sets out, only three Miller plays qualify as Jewish. They are: No Villain, his first work, written while he was an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan in 1936, and given three performances at the University Hillel Association and one performance by the Jewish Community Center of Detroit, Michigan under the title They Too Arise; Incident at Vichy, written twenty-eight years later and performed in New York in the first season of the Lincoln Center Theatre in 1964; and The Price, mounted by the same theatre in 1968. This is the list of plays Miller himself cited in a 1969 interview, when asked to identify those plays which had “Jewish content”. He omitted After the Fall, despite its Holocaust theme, because its protagonist Quentin is not a marked Jew.4 Since that date, only one other Miller play, Broken Glass (1994), which deals specifically with Kristallnacht in Germany and growing Jewish fear of anti-Semitism,5 would thus qualify as a Jewish work. And what of Death of a Salesman? Miller scrupulously avoided any overt, demarcating signs of ethnicity in the work. The Lomans live in Brooklyn; they are of Brooklyn, residents long enough to have memories of a more pastoral moment, before the “bricks and windows” of the surrounding apartment houses engulfed their home and lives. The only sign of European tastes or lineage is Willy’s preference for Swiss cheese, not the “new kind of American-type cheese”,6 hardly an Eastern European or specifically ethnic culinary preference. Miller does provide his hero with antecedents, or at least a fleshed out male progenitor, but this forefather is one-hundred-percent American, a mythic pioneer vividly described by Willy’s specter brother, Ben, as “a very great and a very wild-hearted man. We would start in Boston, and he’d toss the whole family into the wagon, and then he’d drive the team right across the country; through Ohio, and Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and all the Western States”.7 The state names resonate, becoming a paean to

4 Robert Martin, “The Creative Experience of Arthur Miller: An Interview,” Conversations with Arthur Miller, ed. Matthew C. Roudané ( Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1987) 183. 5 In a 1994 interview with Tzipi Shochat, reporter for the Israeli daily paper Ha’aretz, Miller said of Broken Glass, “I always write as a Jew, but the Jewish issue may be more emphasized here. Sylvia must be a Jew.” 6 Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman in Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman: Text and Criticism, ed. Gerald Weales (New York: Vintage Press, 1967) 17. 7 Ibid. 49.

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American Western expansion and mythic lore. Ben calls their father “an inventor” who sold the flutes he made; Willy’s childhood memory of him is of a shadowy figure with a big beard who sat around a family campfire, someone Willy glimpsed from his vantage point under a wagon somewhere in South Dakota. Through these scant details, Miller brilliantly sketches the genealogy of the iconic ur-American pioneer against which the playwright measures subsequent generations in Salesman, who live sad diminutions of such a glorious American past. Willy is no frontiersman. He covers the demarcated “Eastern territory” for a manufacturer, selling what others make. One son, Biff, meanders aimlessly from West to East and back without purpose or trade; the other, Happy, stays fixed in a showroom, an assistant to an assistant, taking pride only in seducing other men’s wives; while the youngest generation depicted in the play—the son of Willy’s boss Howard—is reduced to a disembodied voice in a tape recorder, the newest mechanical device, rattling off geography in alphabetical order: “The capital of Alabama is…”8 Nowhere in the constructed Loman family tree are there Jews; the memories, like the cheese, are prepackaged and All-American. Death of a Salesman, however, started out differently. American theatre scholar and Miller archivist C. W. E. Bigsby claims that the play’s origins can be traced to an early short story entitled “In Memoriam”, which Miller wrote at the age of seventeen, during a brief period when he worked in his father’s coat business before graduating high school. In the story, a salesman named Alfred Schoenzeit is crushed by the weight of the Depression, which robbed him of his livelihood and dignity. Unable to make any sales, he is reduced to asking the young man who carries his samples for change to get home. Although Miller ends the story with the salesman’s death, he does not indicate the cause. However, written on the manuscript is the author’s note indicating that the man on whom the character is based committed suicide by throwing himself under the wheels of a New York subway.9 In the story Schoenzeit is clearly a Jewish salesman. Yet, by the time the character walked onto the stage of the Morosco Theatre on February 10, 1949, returning home after one more futile sales trip, he had shed all traces of origin.

Ibid. 77. Christopher Bigsby, ed., Arthur Miller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) 173. 8 9

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He instead became Willy Loman, a made-in-America everyman, whose belief system “came with the territory”. He was a character who held inviolate a faith in those tenets that underpinned his vision of the American dream: personal charm and popularity as keys to success, physical attractiveness and sporting prowess as requisites for leadership, and advertising as an indication of quality. Willy moved the hearts and minds of those who saw him in 1949 America, and sixty years later continues to do so, one of the country’s most durable cultural exports to the world, imbibed, ironically, as avidly as the American products and commodification that destroyed the man. Yet for all its all-American status, the play’s critical history has been marked by a long list of critics who assume that Willy, although not specifically indicated as such, is in fact Jewish. When the play first opened in Israel in 1951, there was no doubt about Willy’s ethnic background. In virtually all reviews he was described as a shtetl immigrant, a Jew still plying the familiar trade of peddler, still rootless and still hounded, although now transported to an America that promised much but gave him little. “Finally a Jewish play, the portrayal of the American Jewish family and a very cruel unmasking of the alienation of Jews when they do not succeed”, one critic wrote;10 another argued that Willy’s very preoccupation with his psychological state was a mark of his Jewishness, as was his rootlessness;11 a third found that while the play could be considered universal, it was also very Jewish, “Willy, like the dreamers of Sholem Alecheim”.12 There were also some early American critics who found a basic flaw in the play because of Miller’s sidestepping of what they saw as the clear Jewish markers in the work. Mary McCarthy was one who pointed to dissonances in Salesman. Willy seemed Jewish, she argued. He spoke with the vocabulary and cadences of a Jew, but Miller had, like so many others of what she called “the American School”, sanitized his character, leaving linguistic traces of origin and nationality, but nothing else to differentiate the man. The reason: a quest for “profundity”, McCarthy concluded.13 Miller’s retort was to point out that when McCarthy’s brother, Kevin, starred in one production, the critics 10 Ha’boker 26 May 1951. For reactions to Miller’s theatre in Israel, see Ben-Zvi, “Arthur Miller’s Israel and Israel’s Arthur Miller,” Arthur Miller’s Global Theater, ed. Enoch Brater (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007) 15–34. 11 Al Ha’mishmar 27 May 1951. 12 Davar 26 May 1951. 13 Mary McCarthy, Sights and Spectacles (New York: Farrar, Strauss & Cudahy, 1956) 58.

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referred to the Lomans as “Irish”, Miller’s way of indicating that the family could be claimed by any ethnic group.14 This is precisely what contemporary playwright David Mamet regrets, when he evaluates the play. He argues: The greatest American play, arguably, is the story of a Jew told by a Jew and cast in “universal” terms. Willy Loman is a Jew in a Jewish Industry. . . . But he is never identified as such. His story is never avowed as a Jewish story, and so a great contribution to Jewish and Jewish-American history is lost . . . to the culture as a whole; and more importantly, it’s lost to the Jews, its rightful owners.15

Miller’s answer to fellow Jewish American playwright Mamet was, “Well, he got it, so it couldn’t have been lost. I mean, what more could anyone want?”16 Miller had a similar response when he was asked in 1969 to comment on Leslie Fieldler’s claim that by effacing the Jewish elements in the play the playwright was evincing “a loss of artistic faith, a failure to remember that the inhabitants of Dante’s Hell or Joyce’s Dublin were more universal as they are more Florentine or Irish”.17 “It’s his problem, not mine”,18 he said about Fiedler’s retort. Critic Harold Bloom also assumed Willy’s Jewish character: Willy Loman is hardly a Biblical figure, and he is not supposed to be Jewish, yet something crucial in him is Jewish, and the play does belong to that undefined entity we call Jewish literature, just as Pinter’s The Caretaker rather surely does. The only meaning of Willy Loman is the pain he suffers, and the pain his fate causes us to suffer. His tragedy makes sense only in the Freudian world of repression, which happens also to be the world of normative Jewish memory. It is a world in which everything has already happened, in which there never can be anything new again, because there is a total sense of meaningfulness in everything, which is to say, in which everything hurts.19

Bloom agrees with McCarthy that “Willy could not be Jewish because he had to be American”, but conjectures that “the play might be stronger if Willy were more overtly Jewish”.20

Bigsby 174. Quoted in Leslie Kane Weasels and Wisemen: Ethics and Ethnicity in the Work of David Mamet (New York: Plagrave, 1999) 57. 16 “Responses to an Audience,” 1998, 822. 17 Quoted in Martin 182. 18 Ibid., 183. 19 Quoted in Martin 5. 20 Harold Bloom, ed., Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (New York: Chelsea House, 1988) 5. 14 15

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In some ways, it seems like carping to complain that Salesman could be stronger if Jewish, since its sixty-year track record has proved unequivocally its staying power and its consummate effect on audiences as far removed as China and Israel.21 And yet, in the context of Jewish theatre, it is instructive to study more closely the case of Arthur Miller and ask why this son of an immigrant parent—his mother born in America, his father, arriving at five alone from Poland, a tag pinned to him indicating his final destination22—chose to omit any racial elements in Salesman, particularly those that would naturally have been associated with the playwright’s own experiences. McCarthy assumes that Miller strove for universality and seriousness; Miller himself provides another answer. In an unpublished letter entitled “Willy and the Helpless Giant”, found among his papers in the Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, he writes, as Steven Centola paraphrases it, that “Tragedy results when one tries to attain honor by putting on a mask and performing for the public instead of being what one really is and does best”.23 When Centola asked him about this idea, Miller cited as an example the rigid, class-structured society found in eighteenth and nineteenth century France, when “All costume, dress, manners, habits and mores were predetermined, so that authenticity and sincerity were hardly values at all.” In such a society, “For the sake of good order, one had to adopt some kind of persona, which is not necessarily the one that one really has”.24 In the interview with Centola, Miller compares this condition of masking to a central American trait, one de Tocqueville noticed in his study of the country: the American desire to fit in, not to be “set aside from the mob”. Miller explains, “That means people will adopt a mask in order to be like everybody else. And maybe it’s implicit in that statement that Americans don’t want to be separated from the mask”. This desire, he continues, may even “go along with democracy, oddly enough”.25 The dissonance between the authentic self and the mask, between repression or suppression and actualization, of course can be discussed in Freudian terms, as Bloom argues. Miller, however, tends to contextualize

21 Miller documents the great success of the play in China in his book Salesman in Beijing (New York: Viking Press, 1983). 22 Arthur Miller, Timebends (New York: Penguin Books, 1995) 8–9. 23 Steven Centola, “‘The Will to Live’: An Interview with Arthur Miller,” Conversations with Arthur Miller 345. 24 Ibid. 25 Quoted in Centola, 345–46.

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such issues according to sociological, political, and ethical considerations. His protagonist is usually placed within the confines of society, the action set in motion as he—and the Miller protagonist is invariably masculine—engages in social communication with his neighbors and psychological warfare with himself. The common desire, the desire of all human beings, Miller posits, is for home and the commensurate retrieval of “a lost identity.” Yet the dilemma for the individual within the society is that in order to be part of the community, that is “home”, he must take up the mask, “be one of us”. Miller lists Christianity and Communism, but not Nationalism or Judaism, as those institutions that seem to promise communitarian succor, and “unalienated existence”. Join us and you’ll never walk alone. But, of course, the promise cannot be kept because the price for joining is conformity to the group. The result of striving for place and personhood, as Miller sees it, is finally not “unalienated existence” but “inevitable alienation”, depicted but unresolved in all his plays. What does such a vision of modern life have in common with Jewish experience, and what does it suggest about the dearth of Jews in Miller’s writing, and the possibility of approaching him as a Jewish playwright? Everything, I would argue. What Arthur Miller seems to describe and, in coded form, does stage, particularly in Death of a Salesman, is similar to what Sander Gilman has called “Janus-faced images of dichotomy”, the portrayal of stereotypical Jews serving “to define the borders of acceptability, which must be crossed into the world of privilege”.26 Miller’s depiction also has much in common with Gilman’s analysis of Jewish self-hatred, stemming from “the outsider’s acceptance of the mirage of themselves generated by their reference group—that group in society which they see as defining them—as reality”.27 In Salesman, Miller offers no reference group, as Gilman uses the term. Willy is not a Jew, therefore not one of those self-hating Jews reflecting, as Gilman says, “the image of the dominant society seeing them and projecting this created anxiety about being seen thus onto other Jews as a means of externalizing their own status anxiety”.28 Instead of marking the reference group, Miller leaves it blank, unnamed, and thus capable of being marked Other in the broadest 26 Sander Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred: Anti-Semitism and the Hidden Language of the Jews (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986) 4–5. 27 Ibid. 2. 28 Quoted in David Brauner Post-War Jewish Fiction: Ambivalence, Self-Explanation and Transatlantic Connections (London: Palgrave, 2001) 46.

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Sartrean sense: someone determined by the majority and struggling to be accepted into the comforting fold this majority represents to the outsider. Therefore Willy Loman can be, as Miller rightly claimed and audiences have intuited, all outsiders asking to be admitted to the dominant society. The Chinese-American playwright David Henry Hwang noted that he finds Salesman “the best play yet written about an American immigrant family”,29 and can immediately identify the outlines of his own home in the Loman’s. What he finds difficult to explain, however, are the mythic American elements, the South Dakota references particularly, which he dismisses as perhaps “Willy’s delusions”.30 On the contrary, what Miller captures in Willy’s reveries of his father and his childhood are those desires for inclusion that prompt immigrants to embrace as their own the myths of the majority; that is, to substitute South Dakota for Riga, Lublin, Naples, or Dublin, and American pioneers for shtetl or old country progenitors. Hwang is correct; the myth of American forebears and the American pioneering dream is a “delusion”, but it is shared, Miller implies, by all immigrants who seek acceptance, and who willingly put on the mask of the majority and accept its antecedents and its history as their own. This effacement of self and of roots as the price of acceptance into the society is certainly one of the tragedies of Willy Loman, although Arthur Miller never makes this tragic theme overt in his socio-psychological study. Although Miller argues that in the case of Eddie Carbone, the hero of A View from the Bridge, his social code “must be localized before it can be extended to all people”, he goes on to say that “I see nothing in Salesman . . . which is of that nature”.31 Instead, Miller in his depiction of his little man who “but slenderly knows himself ”, creates a generalized, tragic hero for the modern world, not King but “low-man”, left unmarked by ethnic or religious specificity in order to be able to subsume all “low-men”. Unlike the Catholic novelist James Joyce, who made his everyman, Leopold Bloom, specifically a Jew, arguing that the Jew as marginal figure stands for the marginality experienced by modern man, Miller opts for universality through generality. His position is in contrast to American Jewish fiction writers, such as Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth, also sons of immigrant and David Henry Hwang, “Death of a Salesman: A Playwrights’ Forum,” Michigan Quarterly Review 37 (Fall 1998): 605. 30 Hwang 606. 31 Quoted in Martin 183. 29

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first-generation parents, who demanded that “attention be paid” (Linda Loman’s plaint) to their characters’ Jewish roots, and made certain that it was by providing detailed accounts of experiences of Jewish life and identity in clearly demarcated locales, at specific time periods, and in carefully chosen language connected to the ethnic community depicted. As Roth repeatedly asserts, only through invoking individual lives can one hope to touch on any universal elements of modern society relevant for both Jew and non-Jew.32 In a similar way, the African-American playwright Lorraine Hansberry argued that only through the particular could the general be approached. When A Raisin in the Sun, the first drama staged on Broadway written by a Black writer and depicting the lives of Black protagonists, opened in 1959, Hansberry eschewed all attempts to see her play as presenting an image of the universal American family, whose experiences could be understood as synonymous with those of the Lomans, or Tennessee Williams’s Wingfields in The Glass Menagerie. “I’ve told people that not only is the Younger family a Negro family specifically and definitely and culturally, but it’s not even a New York family or a Southern Negro family. It is specifically about Southside Chicago”.33 Before audiences blur difference, homogenize experience, and remove color, they need to understand exactly what individualizes people, Hansberry claimed. To fail to take this step is to deny selfhood; it is also, she indicated, to assume that all families, not just rich families, are the same, and they are White. Only by seeing her characters as they are, without the neutralizing mask, will they be understood and accepted, Hansberry believed. Miller may, in fact, be implying the same thing. However, rather than creating his ur-hero as Jewish, he shows the price his hero pays for attempting to “pass”. Willy is already the homogenized American, the most American of Americans, and Miller shows how his effacement of self and his total acceptance of the mask of conformity finally kill him. Miller’s play is thus far bleaker than Hansberry’s because the protagonist himself is the one who, in his own voice and person, demands that attention not be paid to his uniqueness and his person.

32 In a discussion with Philip Roth, Isaac Bashevis Singer said about critics who question his use of Jewish types, “They [some critics] said ‘Why do you write about Jewish thieves and Jewish prostitutes?’ and I said, ‘Shall I write about Spanish thieves and Spanish prostitutes?’ I write about the thieves and prostitutes that I know.” (Quoted in Brauner 158). 33 Quoted in Steven Carter, Hansberry’s Drama (New York: Medium, 1993) 26.

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Yet some marks of ethnicity do seep through, and they have given rise to the claims that Willy’s origins are Jewish. For example, many have noticed the vocabulary and rhythms of Jewish speech and phraseology in the play. Phrases such as “for spite” and “attention must be paid”, George Ross notes, may be acceptable English, but they do not have the widespread use or resonance of their Yiddish translations “af tsuloches” and “gib achtung”.34 Ross argues that, in fact, the 1951 Yiddish theatre production of Salesman, entitled Toyt fun a Salesman, starring the famous Yiddish actor Joseph Buloff as Willy35 “is really the original, and the Broadway production was merely—Arthur Miller’s translation into English”. He concludes that in the English version, “Miller tried to ignore or censor out the Jewish part, and as a result succeeded only in making the Loman family anonymous”.36 His point is that by making Willy so general, Miller had lost an important ingredient, for how can someone’s character be represented if it is “stripped of a particular milieu and culture”?37 The question still remains as to why Miller chose to deny Willy his background and Jewish origins. McCarthy’s answer is that he strove for profundity. However, a quick glance at the period in which the play was written indicates that other concerns seem to have prompted his decision. Only ten years separate Death of a Salesman from A Raisin in the Sun, but while Hansberry’s work turns to the future and portrays characters actively seeking ways to overcome the stigma of white domination and identification, Arthur Miller’s world is shaded by the past—specifically by the Depression and the Holocaust, through which the Jewish community had just lived and from which Miller “learned that the sky can fall”.38 In his autobiography Timebends (1995), he candidly admits how he, as a Jew, learned the codes of behavior taken from the American Conduct Book of Manners and Customs, and was a quick study. Shamed at six by “my father’s so-Jewish name, Isidore”, he stood paralyzed before the librarian who needed it to fill out his first library card. “Is” is all Miller could manage to say, “Is what?”39 34 Joel Shatzky claims that Miller himself had fluent Yiddish. See Shatzky’s “Arthur Miller’s Jewish ‘Salesman’,” Studies in American Literature 2 (Winter 1976) 1–11. 35 Buloff went on tour with this Yiddish production. In fact, the first time Death of a Salesman was performed in Argentina it was done in Yiddish, with Buloff as Willy. 36 George Ross, “Death of a Salesman in the Original,” in Weales 259. 37 Ibid. 260. 38 Bigsby 8. 39 Bigsby 24.

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she demanded of the silent boy, who escaped through the door, rather than attempt to explain the name or its Jewish origins. Instead, he fantasized about entering American society through sports, and worshiped sport heroes, not Old Testament Gods. Miller does present the vivid memory of sitting with his great-grandfather in synagogue, and the old man’s “holy and violent shhhh”40 used to quiet the restless boy during religious services, a sound the playwright would transfer to Willy Loman, whose “shhh” is his last utterance in Salesman. Any other sign of Miller’s Jewish past is summarily silenced in the play. Miller’s motivation for omitting ethnic markers from his protagonist Willy Loman stemmed not only from the desire of an immigrant child to belong, but also from the fear of anti-Semitism, rife when Miller wrote his play. In an “Afterward” to Focus,41 his 1945 novel, reissued in 2002, he describes the atmosphere at the time he wrote the book, heightened in his mind by “my own Hitler-begotten sensitivity” and “the threatening existence of Nazism”.42 He explains, “As far as I knew at the time, anti-Semitism in America was a closed if not forbidden topic for fiction”.43 Therefore, when he decided to write about the subject, he chose for his protagonist a self-doubting, self-hating, anti-Semitic non-Jewish Englishman, who is taken for a Jew when he dons glasses. This displacement of non-Jew for Jew allowed Miller to broach the forbidden topic in 1945 by placing it into a wider sphere, addressed to all who struggle to be accepted by the majority, and the price they must pay for such acceptance. Miller indicates that the ruse in his novel was needed because Jews in America at the time were such a small and fearful group. Even when the first signs of the Holocaust horrors began to emerge in 1942, they “did not dare to demand that rescue efforts be put in motion, such was the fear of exacerbating the American people’s hostility not only to Jews but to foreigners in general”.44 Instead, American Jews practised escape and denial. In such an atmosphere of fear, Miller bravely penned Focus, but did not provide a Jewish protagonist; three years later, in the same month that the State Bigsby 37. Miller’s “Afterward” is a reprint of an 1984 essay he wrote for the New York Times (14 October), entitled “The Face in the Mirror: Anti-Semitism Now and Then”. In 1998, a film version of Focus was made starring William Macy and directed by Neal Slavin. 42 Arthur Miller, Focus (New York: Methuen, 2002) 213. 43 Focus 214. 44 Timebends 63. 40 41

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of Israel came into being—May 1948—he sat in a small wooden cabin he had built on his property in Connecticut, and quickly “poured out” (his words) Death of a Salesman, another product of its time, also a coded Jewish work. However, while the novel is included in studies of post-war Jewish fiction—for example, David Brauner’s book on the subject—the play is omitted by critics such as Schiff and others canvassing the post-war Jewish theatre scene. Yet both Miller works arise from the same tensions and illustrate the same questions related to Jewish experience; in fact both point to the same Jewish dilemmas of masking and unmasking, of seeking approval and seeking a home.45 The inclusion of both in Jewish-American studies would provide a wider picture of what Jews were experiencing at the time Miller composed the works and how and why he chose to, or felt forced to, ameliorate these experiences in his art. It is important to note that Miller was not alone in his obliteration of Jewish markers.46 Harley Erdman, in his book Staging the Jew: The Performance of an American Ethnicity, 1860–1920, offers a concluding chapter entitled “Getting Reformed: The Transition Toward Jewish Invisibility in Popular Performance”. In it, he indicates that some of the movements to sanitize the Jew on the stage were a reaction to the earlier manifestation of the Jew as grotesque. Yet Erdman writes: To clean oneself up, to reform one’s image into something more naturalized and palatable, can be a sign of empowerment but also an action taken under duress. To take a step toward invisibility, to adjust one’s body to suit the neutrality of the melting pot appearances, is not necessarily

45 Although it is not in the confines of this paper, it would be possible to see other elements of Jewish origin present in the body of Miller’s non-Jewish plays. Of The Crucible, for example he has said: I felt strangely at home with these New Englanders, moved in the darkest part of my mind by some instinct that they were putative ur-Hebrews, with the same fierce idealism, devotion to God, tendency to legalistic reductiveness, the same longings for the pure and intellectually elegant arguments (quoted in Brauner 195). One could also argue, as many critics have, that Quentin’s obsessive feeling of guilt can be traced to Jewish roots. 46 As Sarah Blacher Cohen suggests, Lillian Hellman’s plays also do not feature Jews, although she herself is Jewish. The Hubbards in The Little Foxes are Southerners, and even her wartime plays Watch on the Rhine (1941) and The Searching Wind (1944), which bring up questions about the war, have no Jewish characters or any direct reference to the persecution of the Jews. As Blacher Cohen comments, Hellman’s “negative images of the Jew, coupled with her Hemingwayesqe world view, suggests a flight from her own Jewishness.” See: Sarah Blacher Cohen, Making a Spectacle: The Contemporary Drama of Jewish American Women (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1997) 6.

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an act of liberation. Performing oneself as a Jew-without-a-beard is, after all, the requisite first step toward performing oneself as no-Jew-at-all. Indeed, this new type of Jewish body signaled the beginning of an era where ethnic visibility in general and Jewish visibility in particular were no longer desirable. In its place came invisibility as Jewish characters became less perfectly seen on major American Stages.47

It could be argued that Miller actually embeds this problematic state of self-erasure into his play without giving it a name. Willy’s references to his own body, which others deride, and his sense of awkwardness and of not fitting in, of being too loud, of dressing inappropriately, of eliciting laughter and derision, may stem from this very sense of Jewish self-hatred prompted by the acceptance of the grotesque stereotypes foisted on the Jew, yet not made overt in the play. What Erdman notes is that What had once been a grotesque visibility gradually transformed itself into a generalized invisibility. In the era of the melting pot, these stage types performed and created new ideals of Jewish-American assimilation, resulting in a decades-long popular-culture disappearing act.48

Willy Loman can be added to the list of the disappeared Jews. Times, however, change. In the 1984 essay, reissued in Focus (2002), Miller makes it clear that the anti-Semitism that prompted the book has abated, although certainly not vanished completely: The differences now, of course, are that no Hitler stands at the head of the greatest armed force in the world vowing the destruction of the Jewish people, and there is an Israel which, notwithstanding all the futility of much of its present vision, is still capable of defending the right of Jews to exist. “Focus,’’ in short, was written when a sensible person could wonder if such a right had reality at all.49

Besides a sense of security for Jews, what has also changed radically in the past twenty-five years are the ever-increasing number of groups in America that no longer seek to meld into the majority culture, and which have not donned, but rather seek to rip off, masks of conformity and display and embrace their ethnic, as well as racial and sexual,

Harley Erdman, Staging the Jew: The Performance of an American Ethnicity, 1860–1920 New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997) 145. 48 Ibid. 49 Focus 214–15. 47

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differences. They are no longer willing to efface marks of difference in order to be accepted by some totalizing institution or label, whether it be national, religious, or social. This shift toward agency in a multicultural environment is reflected in the writings of a younger generation of American Jewish playwrights. Their plays, like earlier American Jewish fiction, is awash in the particular—in Jewish words, dress, habits, rituals, and customs—all those things that Arthur Miller assumed the “home-seeking” Jew would try to suppress, or fear to show in his quest for acceptance by the majority culture. What follows are only a few examples of this trend. All the references are to male playwrights, in order to set up parallels to the male-dominated world Miller creates. Another study could certainly be devoted to American Jewish women playwrights, such as Joan Schenkar, Wendy Kesselman, and Emily Mann, who often make their Jewishness and their social concerns manifest in their plays. David Mamet, Tony Kushner, and Donald Margulies range in age from their early fifties to early sixties and grew up in a period that seems, at least nominally, to acknowledge, if not embrace, difference; they are therefore less hesitant about showing overt signs of Jewishness in their works and lives. In fact, they cite an opposite dilemma. Each has been raised in a Willy Loman-type family, which put a premium on assimilation and acceptance and which practised Reform Judaism, a form of religion which Mamet has called “nothing other than a desire to pass in American society”,50 and Kushner has noted, “removed everything that was beautiful out of Judaism”.51 As Mamet puts it in his essay The Decoration of Jewish Houses, “I don’t know what a Jewish house looks like,” and he expands this point in a New Yorker interview when he explains, “My life was expunged of any traditions at all. Nothing old in the house. No color in the house. The virtues expounded were not creative but remedial: let’s stop being Jewish, let’s stop being poor”.52 Mamet, Kushner and Margulies were required to be bar-mitzvahed (the religious coming of age ceremony), but were not expected to do more than to memorize and chant the prayers accompanying the ritual, certainly not to understand what they were saying. Quoted in Kane 12. Quoted in David Savran, “Ambivalence, Utopia, and a Queer Sort of Materialism: How Angels in America Reconstructs the Nation,” Approaching the Millennium: Essays on Angels in America, eds. Deborah Geis and Steven F. Kruger (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997) 84. 52 Quoted in Ranen Omer, “The Metaphysics of Lost Jewish Identity in David Mamet’s Homicide” Modern Jewish Studies 11 (2000): 38. 50 51

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Donald Margulies makes such a meaningless act the central event in his play The Loman Family Picnic, the playwright’s paean and contemporary response to Death of a Salesman.53 Stewie, his thirteen-year-old persona, has been studying for a year to learn the Hebrew Torah text that will mark his religious entry into the Jewish community, but when he has the temerity to ask his Rabbi what the words he has memorized actually mean, he is told curtly, “What does it matter? You can read it”.54 When Stewie persists, “Yeah, but what does it mean?” the Rabbi explodes with, “It means you are bar mitzvahed!” Angry and disillusioned, the young boy counters, echoing Caliban, “You taught me how to read but you didn’t teach me how to understand! What kind of Jew is that?!”55 Stewie must, nevertheless, go through with the ceremony because his mother insists. Nothing else in her life is celebratory in any language. This contemporary family, avatars of the Lomans, do not deny their Jewishness; instead, they cling to it frantically, hoping that its rituals will somehow provide meaning and purpose absent in their otherwise sterile American lives. Unschooled and untrained in Jewish precepts, they are instead heirs to hollow forms and eviscerated practices. Stewie’s bar mitzvah becomes an occasion for new clothes, presents, and a lavish meal “that will make the family’s eyes pop”. Margulies and his contemporary Jewish playwrights Mamet and Kushner suggest that they deserve, and need, more. Kushner might be speaking for them all when he admits that he would not be a playwright if he didn’t believe in the possibility that rituals can transform one’s sense of self and that the rituals of Judaism are as good as any to use, especially if you are a Jewish playwright. Miller’s American rituals, sacrosanct for Willy—football, salesmanship, physical attractiveness, material success—are no longer enough for this third generation of writers in America. In her study Weasels and Wisemen: Ethics and Ethnicity in the Work of David Mamet, Leslie Kane approaches all of Mamet’s varied writing from a Jewish perspective, identifying the central thrust of his work as “identification with Jewish cultural experience and moral imperative”.56 Using such a broad brush, she argues that Mamet’s American 53 Margulies in a video conference related how Miller tried to stop the production of The Loman Family Picnic, arguing that it trespassed on his original work (Video Lecture, Tel Aviv, 2004). 54 Donald Margulies, The Loman Family Picnic, Sight Unseen, and other Plays (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1995) 204. 55 Marguelies 205. 56 Kane 1.

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Buffalo and Oleanna are Jewish texts. Kane’s study notwithstanding, it is difficult to see the body of David Mamet’s extensive work for stage, radio, and film driven primarily by “the substantive Jewish content and methodology”.57 However, in recent years Mamet has been studying Jewish traditional religious texts and history and has written essays, poems, short plays, and novels that mirror this search for roots.58 In his three short playlets, The Disappearance of the Jews, Jolly, and Deeny, linked together under the composite title The Old Neighborhood (Mamet 1998),59 Mamet offers a minimalist vision of Jewish identity and its loss. They focus on Mamet’s recurring persona Bobby Gould, who, estranged from his non-Jewish wife and uncertain about what direction to take in his private or professional life, has returned for a weekend to his—and Mamet’s—old neighborhood: the Southside and Rogers Park sections of Chicago, traditionally home to the city’s Jewish community. Through his conversations with his childhood friend Joey, his sister Joy, and his first girl friend Deeny, Bobby attempts to work through the problems he is facing and seek direction in his life. These dialogues are marked by what has become known as “Mamet talk”: rapid-fire exchanges, circumlocutions, repetitions, lacunae, and slang that make communication between his characters virtually impossible. Central components of this style are the punctuating rhythms and intonations of Yiddish and American Jewish speech patterns.60 The opening of The Disappearance of the Jews is typical: Joey:

What I remember . . . what I remember was that time we were at Ka-Ga-Wak we took Howie Greenberg outside. Bobby: Was that Howie Greenberg? Joey: Yeah . . .

Ibid. Mamet’s writing on specifically Jewish subjects and themes is diverse and growing: the essays “The Decoration of Jewish Houses” and “A Plain Brown Wrapper”; the novels The Old Religion, concerning the trial and execution of Leo Frank, falsely accused of raping and killing his employee; the film script for Homicide, focusing on the Jewish detective Bob Gold (a variation on Bobby Gould); the poem “The Hero Pony”; and the short story “Passover”. In addition, Mamet has written children’s books on Jewish holiday practices and a book on Torah interpretation. 59 The Disappearance of the Jews also appears along with the short plays Goldberg Street and The Luftmensch in Three Jewish Plays, (London: Samuel French, 1987). 60 For discussions of Mamet’s use of Jewish intonation and speech patterns, see Toby Zinman, “Jewish Aporia; The Rhythm of Talking in Mamet.” Theatre Journal 44 (1992): 207–15. 57 58

generational shifts in american jewish theatre Bobby: Joey: Bobby: Joey: Bobby: Joey: Bobby: Joey: Bobby: Joey: Bobby: Joey: Bobby:

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No. No? Who was it, then? It . . . It was Howie Greenberg. Red hair . . . Yeah. Red hair. Braces. That was Howie Greenberg? Yeah. From Temple Zion? No, he never went to Zion? No? No. Hey, Bob, no, you never went to Zion. What’s that mean. I don’t know who went there . . .?61

The only way to make sense of Joey’s line, “No, he never went to Zion?” is to say it with the intonation that reveals the irony and sarcasm in a statement that purports to be a question, a central Yiddish form, that is carried over into American Jewish dialect patterns, as well as comedy routines. Answering a question with a question is another typical Jewish strategy of discussion—and debate. As Ranen Omer notes about Mamet’s film Homicide, with its Jewish policeman: The dialogue of Mamet’s works are filled with italics and question marks, verbs and pronouns that possess a disconcerting questioning emphasis, as if to suggest that language itself is so devious even the most simple statement can mean something outside its face value.62

Mamet’s play is marked not only by Jewish speech patterns but also by Jewish concerns. After the friends talk about old times, old hangouts, and old girlfriends, the conversation turns more serious, Bobby stating how important it is to him that his son be considered Jewish. Joey reminds him, “Well Bob, the law says he’s a Jew, his, you know what the law says, he’s a Jew, his mother is a Jew.”63 Bobby retaliates. “Joey, Joey, what are you saying, a kid of mine isn’t going to be a Jew? What is he going to be? Look at him . . .”64 Despite the law, he argues, “They start knocking heads in the schoolyard looking for Jews, you fuckin’

61 62 63 64

Disappearance of the Jews 3–4. Omer 46. The Old Neighborhood 13. Ibid. 14.

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think they aren’t going to take my kid because of, uh . . . [. . .] Cause he’s so blond and all, ‘Let’s go beat up some kikes . . . Oh, not that kid’.”65 Despite the brevity of the exchange, Mamet makes the point that there is no “disappearance of the Jews,” as the title of the playlet states, as long as anti-Semitism exists and as long as the old neighborhood is coded in the language and the memories of the past. The Lomans, at least the younger generation, spoke “American”; Mamet’s second and third generation characters speak their ethnicity, not only in this work but in the majority of his plays. In another departure from Miller’s play, Mamet illustrates that these Jews, unlike Willy Loman, do not want to buy into the American dream; if anything, they seek ways of getting out of what has become for them a nightmare. They have seen the clear and present dangers inherent in assimilation, even if it were possible. In one of the most powerful images in the play, Joey, a barely articulate character, invokes a mythic figure against which he measures his sad, constricted life. He is neither Willy’s iconic pioneer father nor his capitalist role model, the aptly-named salesman Dave Singleman. He is, instead, a romanticized progenitor from the “old world”, the shtetl Jew metamorphosed into a physical giant, a man in his own country, who works his own land, not a foreigner in America. It is this mythic figure Joey dreams of becoming: Reb Lewis, “the strongest man in Lodz”,66 who’d work the field or the forge, live by his own hands, and revel in his strength. In Joey’s Jewish scenario, Bobby, the intellectual, would be the Talmud scholar, explaining to the community what Rabbi Akiva said. What neither would be, Mamet implies, is Willy Loman or their own fathers “driving through Idaho for Green and Green”.67 Joey imagines a better old age for them: The time should come, we’re sixty, we look back, our wives are there, our children, the community . . . and we are sitting there, we are something . . . And we’ve been men. You know . . .? . . . and we’ve lived. [. . .] We’ve lived the life we were supposed to live. (Pause.) Not this, Bobby. Not this . . . I don’t know, I’m getting old. I look at the snow, the only thing I long for that I should be in Europe.68

For these latter-day Jews in America, the American romance is over, but there is nothing to take its place, only a vague yearning for an authentic 65 66 67 68

Ibid. Ibid. 19. Ibid. Ibid. 20.

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past, for Jewish roots that their parents allowed to shrivel in American soil, for a place, as Joey puts it, “where their lives are a joy. Where questions are answered with ritual. Where life is short. We read them in the books.” “What books?” Bobby asks, and Joey can only reply: I don’t know what books . . . that’s what I’m saying . . . but there are things . . . there are things . . . there . . . there are ways to get there that exist. They . . . (pause.) In rituals, I’m saying that you didn’t make up, but existed . . . they would cause you pain. [. . .] They’d take you in a hut, you’d come out, you would be a man and, by god, that is what you would be.69

Not “by god . . . rich”, as Willy’s conjured brother Ben intones throughout Salesman, but rich as a man, a Jewish man, whose rituals would not be mumbled prayers in an alien tongue, nor be the rituals of capitalism, embraced to fill the void. David Mamet has called The Old Neighborhood an “epic”, but it is a decidedly abbreviated one, taking less than an hour’s playing time. The same cannot be said of Tony Kushner’s monumental, two-part epic Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Perestroika, both subtitled A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. In its seven hours, Kushner paints contemporary America with wide, sweeping strokes and multi-colors: Jews, Mormons, Blacks, Whites, old, young, heterosexuals, and gays mixed in a melting pot where, as the Rabbi who opens the play intones in a heavy Yiddish accent, “nothing melted”. One of the central protagonists, Louis Ironson, is a Jew; so, too, is its central villain, the infamous New York, McCarthy-era lawyer Roy Cohn. Neither hides his ethnicity or attempts to deny it. If subterfuge is the order of the day, it has more to do with sexual orientation than religion. Kushner, writing from his own Jewish and gay experience, demonstrates the implicit scapegoating of all marked Others, using the gay experience to interrogate the Jewish as well as the Black experience in America. “I want to be thought of as a Jewish writer. I want to be thought of as a gay writer—mostly a gay writer because I experience in my life a lot more homophobia than I do anti-Semitism.”70 As critic Alissa Solomon observes in her essays, “Wrestling with Angels: A Jewish Fantasia,” and “Azoi toot a Yid,” the typical homosexual or stereotypical AIDS infected homosexual, as the

Ibid. 34. Quoted in Robert Vorlicky Tony Kushner in Conversation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998) 69. 69 70

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WASP-American Prior Walter calls himself in the play, becomes the metaphorical Jew, one hyphen as defining of difference as another. Re-figuring Miller’s Jews who would be American pioneers, Kushner begins his epic with Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz (to be played by a woman) celebrating the life and death of Sarah Ironson, a different kind of mythic figure, “The Last of the Mohicans,” because she was someone who did not deny or submerge her origins. She was a reminder of “the villages of Russia and Lithuania—and how we struggled, and how we fought, for the family, for the Jewish home”.71 It is her ethnic heritage that she bequeaths to those who follow, and it is this epigraph that Kushner uses to begin his play: the reminder that Jews have a rich past and a legacy they must carry into the future, not some self-deluded myth of America that trapped and tricked poor Willy Loman. Practicing what the rabbi preaches, Kushner weaves into the play excerpts from Jewish songs, Yiddish phrases, Hebrew prayers, and Jewish idioms. These elements have not diminished the general acceptance of the work. When the noted British director Richard Eyre, in his eight-part BBC series on theatre, mentioned the great play which came across his desk when he was the head of the National Theatre—a work he equated with Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot—it was Angels in America, which the National staged to wide acclaim. The film version of the play, directed by Mike Nichols, was also widely embraced by the American public, and it was aired on two prime-time Sunday evenings to a record-setting viewership. That Al Pacino and Meryl Streep played key roles enhanced its appeal but did not significantly diminish its Jewish content. Kushner has also turned his hand to classic Jewish plays, reworking The Dybbuk to supply a feminist slant by adding a section in which yeshiva scholars debate a woman’s role in religious prayer. He has also written Notes on Akiva, a play for two men, during which they go through the steps required to prepare the traditional Passover dish Charoset, made with apples and honey, and used symbolically during the Passover ritual to represent the mortar the Jews were forced to make as slaves in Egypt. As they do so, the men discuss ghosts of Passovers past, theological arguments of Jewish thinkers, and the ways that fathers pass on to sons the need to follow in their footsteps and continue the heritage of Judaism, even when they fail to supply the reasons for doing so.

71 Tony Kushner, Angels in America: The Millennium Approaches (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1990) 11.

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Donald Margulies, the youngest of the trio of American Jewish male playwrights, most directly takes on the family dramas of Arthur Miller, particularly Salesman, which he reworks in The Loman Family Picnic, substituting specific Jewish characters, rituals, customs, and experiences for Miller’s generalized types. Rather than a story of fathers and sons, with a selfless mother seen only as facilitator for the men in the family, Margulies focuses on Doris, his contemporary Linda Loman, and offers her thoughts about what it is to live with a frustrated Jewish salesman/ husband. And instead of the mythic Ben, come from the past to sell the American Dream, Margulies conjures up dead aunt Marsha to prod the female hero to “live a little”, and “enjoy” traditional Jewish cries and variants on Kushner’s last words in Angels: “More Life”. However, all that Doris can imagine to break the tedium of her unhappy existence and her failed marriage is her son’s bar mitzvah, a gala affair in which she, a Jewish Cinderella, will be belle of the ball. Once the event is over, she must wait another two years for her next son’s “affair”. The bar mitzvah becomes the Jewish equivalent to T. S. Eliot’s measuring of one’s life in coffee spoons. What these three very different Jewish playwrights share, and what separates them from Arthur Miller and his generation, is the ease with which they inject Jewish markers into their works, and their desire to explore their roots rather than deny them. “What can you write about except your own experience,” Mamet asks rhetorically in an interview, when questioned about his interest in Jewish sources. “The amount of energy that most of us put into denying spiritual content to our lives while desperately trying to reinvent a meaningful cosmology is vast.”72 This same focus on Jewish themes and explorations of meaningful Jewish rituals is not confined to American third-generation playwrights; it can be found in other countries as well. For example, prominent among prolific young Canadian playwrights are a considerable number of Jewish writers, who have written about their Jewish experiences and who have found favor with a general, non-Jewish audience. They include Jason Sherman, Diane Flacks, Richard Greenblatt, Daniel Goldford, Adam Pettle, and Anton Piatiorsky. Sherman is the most honored of this recent group, and among the most prolific. Since 1993 he has written ten plays, all of which have clearly identifiable Jewish characters and

72 Quoted in John Koch, “David Mamet and Leo Frank,” Boston Globe 9 November 1997.

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draw from Jewish experience. His play Patience, a modern version of the Book of Job, has been awarded the Canadian Governor General’s award and was named Best Play of the Year in 1996. The Retreat deals with the life of a thirty-three year old Hebrew teacher in Canada; After Hebron, with the Israeli and Palestinian conflict; and None Too Many, adapted from the book by Irving Arbella and Harold Troper, with the refusal of Canada to allow entry of Jews escaping Hitler’s Germany. Sherman and these other Canadian playwrights not only dare to speak their differences, they often wave their Jewishness like a flag, despairing only that they do not know enough to be able to read the symbols emblazoned on it. In Arthur Miller’s generation, socialism and the dream of some communitarian movement made the positing of difference antithetical to any universal model, and the specter of anti-Semitism made many Jews feel safer positing a less revealing ideology. Younger playwrights, for the most part, recognize the collapse of any totalizing system. Raised by parents like Willy Loman, they also now recognize that they will not find identity in some unifying myth of nationhood. At the same time, they feel more comfortable being Jews, and have less patience with, and understanding for, the fears that prompted their parents to wear masks. They understand—as Willy Loman did not—that tragedy lies in denying self. And since they are Jews, a logical place to start the search for authenticity in their plays and, for many, in their own lives, begins with Jewish identity. Their writing also allows critics to rethink those works of previous eras and interrogate what was, heretofore, hidden or disguised: the face behind the mask. In other words, this recent theatre work makes it possible to return to Death of a Salesman and understand it as a Jewish play, a play of its time, in which Jewishness is marked by its absence, an absence that is as relevant to Jewish experience as the presence of Jewish characters in other works. Bibliography Ben-Zvi, Linda. “Arthur Miller’s Israel and Israel’s Arthur Miller.” Arthur Miller’s Global Theater, ed. Enoch Brater. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007. 15–34. Bigsby, Christopher, ed. Arthur Miller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Bloom, Harold, ed. Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. New York: Chelsea House, 1988. Brauner, David. Post-War Jewish Fiction: Ambivalence, Self-Explanation and Transatlantic Connections. London: Palgrave, 2001.

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Carter, Steven. Hansberry’s Drama. New York: Meridian, 1993. Centola, Steven. “ ‘The Will to Live’: An Interview with Arthur Miller.” in Conversations with Arthur Miller. Ed. Matthew C. Roudané, Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1987. 343–59. Cohen, Sarah Blacher. Making a Spectacle: The Contemporary Drama of Jewish American Women. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1997. Erdman, Harley. Staging the Jew: The Performance of an American Ethnicity, 1860 –1920, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997. Feingold, Michael. “Introduction.” Donald Margulies, The Loman Family Picnic, Sight Unseen and Other Plays. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1995, ix–xv. Gilman, Sander. Jewish Self-Hatred: Anti-Semitism and the Hidden Language of the Jews, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Goldstein, Laurence, ed. Michigan Quarterly Review: Arthur Miller Issue 37 (Fall 1998). Hwang, David Henry. “Death of a Salesman: A Playwrights’ Forum”. Michigan Quarterly Review 37 (Fall 1998): 605–06. Kane, Leslie. Weasels and Wisemen: Ethics and Ethnicity in the Work of David Mamet. New York: Palgrave, 1999. Koch, John. “David Mamet and Leo Frank,” Boston Globe 9 November 1997. Kushner, Tony. Angels in America: The Millennium Approaches. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1990. McCarthy, Mary. Sights and Spectacles. New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1956. Mamet, David. The Old Neighborhood. New York: Vintage Books, 1998. Margulies, Donald. The Loman Family Picnic, Sight Unseen, and other Plays. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1995. ——. Video Conference Interview, Cultural Affairs Office, American Embassy, Tel Aviv, April 2004. Martin, Robert, “The Creative Experience of Arthur Miller: An Interview,” in Conversations with Arthur Miller. Ed. Matthew C. Roudané. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1987. 177–86. Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. In Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman: Text and Criticism. Ed. Gerald Weales. New York: Vintage Press, 1967. 11–139. ——. Salesman in Beijing. New York: Viking Press, 1983. ——. Timebends. New York: Grove Press, 1987; Penguin Books, 1995. ——. “Responses to an Audience Question and Answer Session”, Michigan Quarterly Review: Arthur Miller Issue 37 (Fall 1998): 803–26. ——. Focus, first published by Reynal and Hitchcock, New York: 1945; reprinted New York: Methuen, 2002. ——. “The Face in the Mirror: Anti-Semitism Now and Then.” New York Times 14 October 1984. Reprinted in Focus, 2002. Omer, Ranen. “The Metaphysics of Lost Jewish Identity in David Mamet’s Homicide.” Modern Jewish Studies 11 (2000): 37–50. Ross, George. “Death of a Salesman in the Original.” Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman: Text and Criticism. Ed. Gerald Weales, New York: Viking Press, 1967. 259–64. Savran, David. “Ambivalence, Utopia, and a Queer Sort of Materialism: How Angels in America Reconstructs the Nation.” Approaching the Millennium: Essays on Angels in America. Eds. Deborah Geis and Steven F. Kruger. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997. 13–39. Schiff, Ellen. From Stereotype to Metaphor: The Jew in Contemporary Drama. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982. ——, ed. Awake and Singing: 7 Classic Plays from the American Jewish Repertoire. New York: Mentor, 1995. ——, ed. Fruitful and Multiplying: Nine Contemporary Plays from the American Jewish Repertoire, New York: Mentor, 1996. Shatzky, Joel. “Arthur Miller’s Jewish ‘Salesman’.” Studies in American Literature 2 (Winter 1976), 1–11.

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Shochat, Tzippi. “Interview with Arthur Miller”, Ha’aretz (1994, n.d.) [Hebrew]. Solomon, Alissa. “Wrestling with Angels: A Jewish Fantasia.” Approaching the Millennium: Essays on ‘Angels in America’. Eds Deborah R. Geis and Steven F. Kruger, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997. 118–133. ——. “Queering the Canon: Azoi toot a Yid.” in Alissa Solomon, Re-Dressing the Canon: Essays on Theatre and Gender. London: Routledge, 1997, 95–129. Vorlicky, Robert, Tony Kushner in Conversation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998. Zinman, Toy Silverman. “Jewish Aporia: The Rhythm of Talking in Mamet.” Theatre Journal 44 (1992), 207–15.

SECTION FIVE

PERFORMING THE HOLOCAUST/DEBATING ISRAEL ON STAGE

STAYING UNGOOSELIKE: THE HOLOCAUST AND THE THEATRE OF CHOICE Robert Skloot “The only way to resist geese is to stay as ungooselike as possible”. (George Tabori, The Cannibals)

What more can be said about the Holocaust after the uncountable memoirs, histories, poems, films and theatre pieces have testified to its opaque and forbidding nature? After new critical approaches and historical revelations have made necessary new kinds of investigations into its multiple meanings? And after too many “enthusiasts” have exploited it for political or other agendas?1 For those, like myself, who did not live through those terrible times, and who probably would have died in them had we been there, our work has continued to seek understanding of the Holocaust through persistent study and creative endeavor. Despite the hostile forces of critical obfuscation, commercial exploitation, and intellectual fatigue, I believe there is yet a useful knowledge still to be gained from contact with artistic texts—including musical and dance compositions—knowledge that can be extracted from investigations of “texts of catastrophe”. I believe also that those texts must be included in any broad study of human affairs, and of genocide in particular. Although I do not believe that unanimity of opinion can ever be achieved as to what lessons can be learned from this knowledge, I intend these remarks to shed some light on the ethical and aesthetic problems that preoccupy artists and critics as they go about their difficult tasks. These remarks are influenced by my own work as an American teacher and stage director who has attempted to retrieve useful knowledge from a time when, in a metaphor consistent with George Tabori’s play, we ate each other up.

For example, see Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Anne Frank and the Future of Holocaust Memory (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2004), 14–17 (“Manipulating Anne Frank’s Image”). 1

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Of the fields that have the most immediate power to confront and assess the Holocaust, the arts have no peer, and the theatre stands as the first among equals. By asking us to confront our thoughts and feelings publicly and communally as members of an audience, theatre is best suited to have us think and feel through the implications of stories of people who seek to negotiate their survival in the face of terror and violence. Playwrights, in a dozen languages, ask us to spend a few hours tying our fate to human beings whose stories were silenced before they could be spoken, but whose traces of existence remain nonetheless for us to consider. The Holocaust is storehouse of stories from a world that survived the worst that could be done to it, and the theatre artists take its inventory. There is, of course, no one correct way to dramatize the Holocaust experience, and there can be no one play, poem, painting, novel, dance or film that encompasses all of its losses, meanings or implications. The theatre that deals with the Holocaust comes to us in numerous forms and styles, from relentless tragedy to terrifying comedy, from detailed realism to the illogic of expressionism. It can be austere or extravagant, somber or hilarious, lyrical or plain, respectful or rude. But if it is doing its essential work, by which I mean the serious engagement with universal themes, its tales of good and evil, self-sacrifice and betrayal, faith or loss of belief, innocence or guilt, courage or shame will move us with wonder and thoughtful insight. These are the subjects of the great theatre in every age. The five plays discussed in this essay define a particular type of play, a type that focuses on the terrible dilemmas forced upon people in times of genocidal violence which demand some kind of ethical choice. They advance images of Jews and non-Jews struggling both to survive and to survive with dignity, until the moment when no options but one are left to them. As a group, these plays move audiences to inquire into the crucial question that the Holocaust provokes in everyone who came after it or lived outside it: what would I have done in that time, in that place? Taken together, Throne of Straw, Ghetto, Camp Comedy, Who Will Carry the Word? and The Cannibals reveal in a powerful way the efforts of playwrights to come to terms with the ethical dilemmas that confronted the Holocaust’s most desperate victims, and to suggest ways for us to think about our future.

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Harold and Edith Lieberman’s Throne of Straw2 retells the history of the ghetto in Lodz, Poland, from the time of its establishment in 1940 until it was liquidated four years later. The administrative structure of the Lodz ghetto was similar to that of other ghettos where a council of Jews ( Judenrat) was created by the German authorities to deal with the daily operations such as sanitation and health. In some ghettos, the Judenrat members refused to cooperate with the Germans and were murdered; in others, they did cooperate, and were killed nonetheless. Some cooperated and resisted simultaneously, helping covertly to save their Jewish brethren while seeming to be in the thrall of the Nazi overseers. Lodz holds a special place in this double-edged strategy of deception because the ghetto administration, under the leadership of businessman Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, appeared to be especially successful in negotiating and extending the life of the ghetto and its inhabitants. Rumkowski was selected by the Germans for reasons that remain unclear, but it was a choice that proved beneficial to many: Jews, Germans and himself. He remained in office for the entire time of the ghetto’s existence. Lodz, known as “the Manchester of the East”, as a tribute to its huge textile industry, was the home (as the expression had it) of the richest and poorest Jews in Poland. When the war began, about a third of the population of 700,000 was Jewish. When the Russian army liberated the city in August, 1944, fewer than a thousand remained alive. Of the multitudes transported by cattle car to Auschwitz and Chelmno, only a minuscule number survived. Rumkowski reported to Hans Biebow, a German coffee merchant and head of the Ghetto Authority, who was appointed by the Germans to be their overseer in the ghetto and the conduit through which their directives would be delivered. Together, he and Rumkowski re-established the ghetto as a thriving manufacturing center producing uniforms, parachutes and camouflage for the Nazi military and lingerie, hats and leather goods for German high society. The raw material, often damaged by war or stolen from Jews, was sold to Rumkowski at inflated prices and repurchased at the cheapest of rates.

2 Harold and Edith Lieberman, Throne of Straw, in Robert Skloot, ed., The Theatre of the Holocaust, vol. 1 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981) 113–196.

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Figure 13. From the final scene of Harold and Edith Lieberman’s Throne of Straw, University of Wisconsin Theatre, 1978. Director: Robert Skloot. Scene: “At the Umschlagplatz.” L. to R.: Ada Wolf (Marjorie Grube) and Zosia Wolf (Marcia Freeman). Photo by Zane Williams.

The goods were produced by Jewish slave laborers who were paid in food or ghetto scrip that Rumkowski’s favorites distributed in a miserly manner guaranteed to result in slow starvation. Preyed upon by disease and terrible living conditions, the laborers’ chance for long-term survival remained slim at best, and many were killed outright. Rumkowski had many enemies in the ghetto, and many comfortable allies as well. From the former group, large numbers were selected and sent away to death, while the ghetto continued to accept new contingents of the desperate and impoverished from across Europe for the Germans (and Rumkowski) to abuse and exploit. In September, 1942, the order was received to deport all ghetto youth under the age of ten. In the Liebermans’ play, Biebow asks for Rumkowski’s cooperation, explaining how he stood up to the German hierarchy and got them to reduce the age of selected children from fifteen. Rumkowski is stunned and, left alone, initiates “a dialogue with God” in the long Jewish tradition reaching back to biblical Abraham’s negotiations over the saving of Sodom and Gomorrah.

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Now it’s growing very dark and there’s no ark to carry us to safety. There’s only me. And if that’s your idea of a joke, forgive me if I can’t laugh . . . When this is over, I will be one of Your most detested creatures. Do you really want a wretched me serving an indifferent You? One thing I promise You. I won’t kill myself like Czerniakow in Warsaw. Very cheap. And easy. To wash his hands of the problem with some poison . . . I never ran away or cared about my life or reputation. I wanted only to serve You. So I feel I must tell You this. Nobody will understand about the children. Nobody.3

Later in the play, Rumkowski blames his antagonists for their cowardice and, whereas he acknowledges his part in the terror, it is clear he believes himself to be the savior of the Jews of Lodz, a belief that was not unreasonable, however misguided. In the summer of 1944, with the Russian artillery heard from the eastern outskirts of the city, there yet remained alive between 60,000 and 70,000 Jews, and their rescue was not impossible to foresee. The Nazis, however, acted first. Though he saw himself as a second Moses, Rumkowski’s career ended with his murder in Auschwitz alongside the Jews he swore he would save. Throne of Straw concludes with a speech by Yankele, a half-mad Hasid who moves through the play as a comic fool and a voice of doom. He delivers to the audience the message that articulates the moral of the tale just witnessed. He speaks to them directly. And why am I still here? Because you are still here . . . I take this passion play from place to place And please while it’s with you Don’t feed me your dinner table morals about how They should have behaved; Only say what you would have done.4

Yankele’s rebuke advances two ideas. First, it warns us against what Michael Andre Bernstein has called “foregone conclusions”, the assumptions of predeterminism we make about human actions when they are recounted retrospectively and with the benefit of hindsight.5 Bernstein points out that the dramatizing of stories occurs in a perpetually unfolding present time, making the opportunities which the characters have Lieberman, in Skloot, vol. 1 (1981) 175. Lieberman, in Skloot, vol. 1 (1981) 196. 5 Michael Andre Bernstein, Foregone Conclusions: Against Apocalyptic History (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1994) 113. 3 4

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real possibilities in the world they inhabit, thereby rejecting the desire “to satisfy an expectation of closure”6 on the part of the audience. Second, Yankele insists that by seeing Rumkowski’s future as “open”, even as history has recorded his demise (and in several versions), we have to claim the same possibilities in our lives in the ethical arena where our future will be determined. Shining theatrical light on the Chairman’s grotesque career, Yankele argues, must not distract us from taking action in a world of violence and terror, and the temptation to condemn or condescend to the Rumkowskis of that world as an easy way to do nothing is repudiated. The playwrights write about how the smallest moments of ghetto life involved the largest moral implications of the sort that provoked writer and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi to see “the Rumkowski case” as a paradigm for ethical preparedness and endeavor. In his luminous essay “The Grey Zone”,7 Levi saw the Chairman’s career as “an astonishing tangle of megalomaniac dream, barbaric vitality, and real organizational and diplomatic skill”.8 The essay’s last sentences summarize a condition of human behavior that is ambiguous in the search for moral clarity. They advance no guarantee of success in the fight against the temptation to act badly, even murderously. The skeptic Levi concludes that “we are all mirrored in Rumkowski, his ambiguity is ours, it is our second nature, we hybrids molded from clay and spirit”.9 In his play Ghetto,10 Israeli playwright Joshua Sobol focuses on Jacob Gens, another ghetto leader who faced a terrifying situation. As head of the Jewish council in Vilna (Vilnius), Lithuania, Gens’s precarious position amid the continuous slaughter of the Jews under his care was identical to Rumkowski’s. Gens hoped to keep the ghetto’s residents alive by cooperating with the German demands, resisting the murderous orders when possible, and mandating an extraordinary array of cultural and educational activities to alleviate the suffering of the Jews in his care. In the play, his antagonists are Kruk the librarian who argues that there should be “no theatre in a ghetto”, and Kittel the Bernstein (1994), 113. Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, tr. Raymond Rosenthal (New York: Summit Books, 1988) 36–69. 8 Levi (1988) 62. 9 Levi (1988) 69. 10 Joshua Sobol, Ghetto, adapt. Jack Viertel in Eleanor Fuchs, ed., Plays of the Holocaust (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1987) 153–225. 6 7

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saxophone-playing Nazi, whose smooth cruelty becomes a paradigm for the image of evil. Jacob Gens was shot by the Gestapo two days before the ghetto’s liquidation in September, 1943. His life has no more claim to political success or history’s favor than Rumkowski’s. But he too is given the opportunity to defend his actions. You think I’m a traitor, you wonder what I really want out of all you upright, innocent people . . . Well, Gens has his own way of hiding Jews from the butchers. I wheel and deal, right?! I’m a monster, right?! Well, for me only one thing counts. Not Jewish honor. Jewish life! Jewish lives . . . You people are all saints, I know! You don’t dirty your fingers. Gens gets down in the mud and wrestles with the pigs. And if you survive, then you can say: Our conscience is clear. But me? If I live through this I’ll walk through life dripping shit, blood on my hands, and I’ll turn myself over to the Jewish tribunal and say, ‘Look at me! Everything I did, I did to save as many Jews as I could. To save some, I led others to their deaths with my own hands. And to preserve the consciences of many, I had no choice—I plunged into the sewer, and left my conscience behind.’ A clean conscience for Jakob Gens? I couldn’t afford one!11

To a historian like Philip Friedman, as he elucidates in his book Roads to Extinction, Rumkowski and Gens were complicated yet unpardonable accomplices of evil, “not simple brutes or tyrants”, but “pseudo-saviors” and deluded opportunists.12 But for playwrights Sobol and the Liebermans, the two ghetto leaders present a different picture and a more uncertain moral, of a desperate struggle and genuine ethical aspiration in conflict with the darker, more unwholesome components of their characters. The anguished, lonely figure of the compromised Jew is found again, though this time portrayed with considerable comedy, in Roy Kift’s Camp Comedy;13 two such Jews appear in it. The play is set inside the concentration camp of Theresienstadt, the grotesque Nazi invention that came to be called the “paradise camp”, and the one that contained a large number of noted European artists (composers, painters and musicians) whose last degraded months were spent both creating and

Sobol, in Fuchs (1987) 203. Philip Friedman, Roads to Extinction: Essays on the Holocaust (New York: Conference on Jewish Social Studies, 1980) 334. 13 Roy Kift, Camp Comedy in Robert Skloot, ed., The Theatre of the Holocaust, vol. 2 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999) 35–113. 11 12

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dying. When, in the summer of 1944, the Germans permitted a visiting delegation from the International Red Cross to assess the treatment of the Jews there, Theresienstadt was hurriedly made-over and recreated as a stage set that displayed fraudulently benign conditions completely contrary to the desperate lives of the people incarcerated there. The deception was entirely successful, and the Red Cross’s report exonerated the Nazis of atrocity. Seeking to extend their propaganda success, the Germans ordered the artist/prisoners in the camp to produce a film with the same theme (contented Jews) and purpose (exculpation of the Germans) that could be shown throughout Europe. The result was Der Fuehrer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt, a film produced under terrible threat with the prisoners used as actors. It was directed by Kurt Gerron, a famous German Jewish performer-director. In Kift’s play, Gerron refuses to accept the job until he is convinced by Jakob Eppstein (his real name was Paul) that the project will prolong the life of the camp for as long as Gerron can delay the completion of the film. Like Rumkowski, Eppstein hoped the Jews could outlive the Nazis’ terror and aimed to turn his complicit leadership to an advantage. In the speech below, Eppstein solicits Gerron’s help, reminding them both of the ethical issues involved. But you are unique. There’s no way they can get rid of you without endangering the whole project. Objectively, it’s repugnant. We all know that. But in a situation like this, which of us has clean hands? Only if we blind ourselves to the rights and wrongs of a situation do we descend to the level of rats . . . But who knows? It might turn out to be a blessing in disguise.14

The playwright exercises great comic skill in dramatizing the shooting of the film, and his inclusion of the original musical compositions throughout the play often transform the gloom of the story into highspiritedness while the catastrophe plays itself out. The final moment, with the camp’s murdered citizens rising from the dead, is entirely impossible, an example of a theatrical vision overcoming historical fact; all of the workers on the film were transported to Auschwitz a few days after the movie was completed with Gerron on the last train.15

Kift, in Skloot, vol. 2 (1999) 64–5. For an extensive discussion of Gerron’s life and career apart from his work in Theresienstadt, see the PBS Home Video documentary Prisoner of Paradise, dir. Malcolm Clarke and Stuart Sender (2003). 14 15

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The Liebermans, Sobol and Kift, among many other playwrights of Holocaust drama, shrink the volitional area of moral action to a space that barely allows of humane possibility, but still suggest that something remains, however minimally, of the older time that preceded the collapse of Europe into genocidal savagery of unprecedented dimensions. Their characters resist the temptation to complicity, at least for a while, though their resistance is unavailing when seen through the long view of history. The playwrights show more than grasping self-preservation in their leading characters, despite the unflattering images used to describe them. They refuse to discard entirely the fragile ethical scaffolding upon which the future, however blighted, can be built. “A story like this is not self-contained”, wrote Primo Levi. “It is pregnant, full of significance, asks more questions than it answers . . . and leaves one dangling. It shouts and clamors to be understood, because in it one perceives a symbol, as in dreams and the signs of heaven.”16 The characters in Charlotte Delbo’s Who Will Carry the Word?17 differ markedly from the protagonists of the other plays discussed here, primarily because they are women. Because of their gender, they have no public existence or status as leaders of the community or figures of authority in the ghetto or camp hierarchy. But they suffer horribly nonetheless and, as has been remarked, suffered differently than their male counterparts, as evidenced in their concern for family and domestic experience.18 Yet, in Delbo’s play, we also see dramatized the degrading and dangerous personal choices which the Nazis’ victims made, the better to maintain an ethical commitment no matter how compromised. Delbo, who wasn’t Jewish, based her play on the experiences of 230 women, including herself, who arrived at Auschwitz in January, 1943. Forty-nine survived.

Levi (1988) 66–67. Charlotte Delbo, “Who Will Carry the Word?” tr. Cynthia Haft, in Robert Skloot, ed., The Theatre of the Holocaust, vol. 2 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999) 267–325. 18 Writing about the Lodz ghetto, David Unger concludes “In this terrible ordeal, women seem to have outperformed men in the imperatives of endurance and adjustment, as manifested, inter alia, in their lower mortality . . . Despite the equal duties, however, women were not given equal rights . . . Women were unrepresented in the senior administration of the ghetto, which included factory managers and directors of Judenrat deparments. . . . no woman attained any of the highest-ranking positions”; from “Women in the Lodz Ghetto”, in Women in the Holocaust, ed. Dalia Ofer and Lenore J. Weitzman, (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1998) 138–39. 16 17

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Who Will Carry the Word? dramatizes the final weeks of twenty-two women who are shown declining in strength and number as the play progresses. At the end, only two, Francoise and Denise, remain alive to lament the apparently impossible challenge they face in their status as survivors: to convince those who will greet their return about the agony they endured in the camps, and to tell the stories of those who were murdered with a clarity and force so as to make the terror palpable and undeniable. “Why should you believe/those stories of ghosts/ghosts who came back and are not able to explain how?” are the words with which Francoise ends the play. Unlike Rumkowski, Gens, Gerron or Eppstein, these women have no public role or status, and their postcamp existence will demand a further struggle to overcome their quiet, if lyrical modesty and their painful sense of guilt and shame to make themselves heard over the chorus of doubters. They know that to be effective, before the word can be carried, it must first be created, and out of language whose meanings have changed drastically. Despite the fact that Delbo’s women comprise a non-theatrical presence (the stage directions specify that “the faces do not count” and “the costumes do not count”), they are tormented by the need to make choices that involve their lives and the lives of others. The cruelties they suffer in this drama of physical diminishment are consistent with the reports told in hundreds of memoirs, though Delbo’s theme, so poignantly presented, avoids language of atrocity as well as its representation. The playwright declares in her note of introduction that the “movements will always be slow and voices will never be raised”, directions that would inform the words of Francoise as she recalls her futile participation in keeping her friends alive. When Mounette died, Mounette for whom I stayed, Mounette whom I would have carried until the return because her life was so promising that it broke my heart to see such waste, when Mounette died, I was violently tempted to give up. But Denise was alone. There were hardly any among those who could still stand who could have helped her. I stayed for her. It’s true, I leaned on Gina. And maybe also because after having lasted for weeks, I didn’t want to lose my investment.19

19

Delbo, in Skloot, vol. 1 (1981) 309.

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The moment of terrible choice that the play has been moving toward is faced by Gina during her recruitment into the “White Kerchief Kommando” whose task it is to prepare the arriving children for their deaths. Refusing to perform that work, Gina takes her leave and “disappears into the night”. Her last advice to Francoise is to “bring back Denise.” (Levi writes in his memoir Survival in Auschwitz: “. . . We still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last—the power to refuse our consent.”) The sound of a rifle tells us that Gina has been shot to death before she can walk into the electrified fence. It remains for the last two prisoners in the Epilogue to articulate the burden of witness and testimony that they must carry into the future. We must be careful not to see in Gina’s suicide a widespread victory for goodness, nor to judge it as a gesture too anomalous to integrate into the wide variety of behavior that the Nazis elicited from their struggling victims. Instead, with modesty and unbearable calm, Delbo offers the audience an image that is sustainable and sustaining within the murderous context of the Holocaust. Without declaring victory over evil, Delbo nonetheless acknowledges that something akin to an awareness of wider human possibilities has occurred when Gina leaves the barracks and walks off the stage to be murdered in the night. “Performances enact virtues”20 writes the playwright/critic William Monroe, speculating on the way to reinvigorate the concept of empathy in postmodern times. In his terms, Gina is a “being-in-process,” a character growing into a new awareness before our eyes, and in her refusal to comply with evil she is able to create and accept the opportunity to keep constant to an ethical code that provides a positive image for us who, whether naive or disbelieving, are delivered “the word” that in death and in performance she has carried. The last play on this list, George Tabori’s The Cannibals,21 provides the title for this essay. Tabori, a Hungarian-born playwright and theatre director, has created a unique kind of theatrical inquiry over a half-century that has sought to penetrate the mysteries of human behavior during the Holocaust. With his mordant wit and assaultive performance style, influenced by avant-garde theatre in the post-war

20 William Monroe, Power to Hurt: The Virtues of Alienation (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998) 31. 21 George Tabori, “The Cannibals”, in Robert Skloot, ed., The Theatre of the Holocaust, vol. 1 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981) 197–265.

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years, he is interested, like the other playwrights discussed here, in the subject of ethical choice, well expressed in this play as a culinary metaphor: “to eat or not to eat, that is the question”. The Cannibals is set in a white room that stands for a sacrificial space, part kitchen, part torture chamber, where the inhabitants of a concentration camp barracks confront their mortality. In the play, the sons of the murdered concentration camp victims assemble to tell the stories of their fathers and how they met their death. Although filled with references to the Hebrew bible, to Christian ritual and to Shakespearean drama, The Cannibals is more preoccupied with visions of the body than with literary reference. At the emotional and physical center of the play lies the monstrous body of the prisoner Puffi. Its dismembering and cooking becomes the action that leads all the prisoners to an ethical choice and the crisis that concludes the story Tabori is telling about the starving inhabitants of a camp lager. Late in the play, Uncle, the character who stands for the playwright’s father who “perished in Auschwitz, a small eater”, hosts the dinner party being prepared by the sons of murdered fathers. He offers them the bits and pieces of their cooked comrade, counseling them to reject the offering, and they respond with revulsion and incapacitating disgust. He pursues them, berates them, and like a seance’s medium who calls up the dead with the deceased’s artifacts, leads the famished diners into a resurrection of sorts. There are, to be sure, religious overtones to the entire ritual, and when the moment of truth arrives concerning whether “to eat or not to eat”, abstaining becomes a humane reaffirmation of the belief in an ethical life, however shrunken. But not to be overlooked is Tabori’s understanding that the two characters who chose to eat, Heltai and Hirschler, have thereby survived for the worthy mission of carrying the word of their dead comrades to the world. Without them, in the play’s terms, we would know nothing of what took place in the barracks. It is Tabori’s little irony that they have no children of their own. Our connection to the Holocaust experience in The Cannibals is visceral, not historical. It asks us to ponder the human body not for its strength, but for its vulnerability. It explores the response of appetite when the meal required for survival is the meal we must reject. It forces our attention on human nakedness to enact the moment when being stripped to the skin became, for some, no excuse to abandon the ethics of the fathers. When Uncle’s clothes are removed down to his naked form, he falls to the floor, shivering. He remembers the humiliations

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the Nazis forced upon his father, and through his pain and cruelty he reaffirms the body and its Jewishness. Thereby, he recreates a community that, though starved, offers him love. The others “surround him, pressing against him, to give him warmth, and they dress him, gently”. A few minutes later, the eaters themselves will be consumed. The Cannibals, it must be noted, is a farce, filled with Tabori’s discovery in images of annihilation the most outrageous sort of humor. After all, the pragmatic advice he is extracting from this tale of historical atrocity is to “stay ungooselike”. Among its many comical references are the meals that Jews take together, communally, at a number of celebrations during the year. But many Jewish festivals also recall times of persecution, and the necessary activity of eating is often mixed with images of times when food was difficult to obtain. Thus, what might begin as a choice of whether to have the soup or the salad, the tart or the torte, the melange or the cappucino, is turned by Tabori into a tale of the Holocaust that, as Hamlet refers to Polonius, is not where one eats but where one is eaten. In the concentration camps where the horrible became the normal, the choices demanded on the moral menu were nearly impossible to swallow. At the end of the play, the “fathers” decline dinner, remove their clothes, and leave the stage, naked for the fire. The two eaters will survive into a childless future. In Tabori’s Holocaust kitchen, The Cannibals is his piece de resistance, at once tasteless and astonishingly succulent. What are we to make of these plays, and others like them, whose inhabitants struggle against death and disgust, against compromise and oblivion? The plays, through the careers of their characters, enumerate a space unbearably constricted, ethically speaking. Only a romantic would see these tales of suffering and woe as victories for goodness, but only a fool would mistake them for expressions of complete despair. The plays, taken together, alert us to the need for ethical vigilance, without apology or belief in its ability to guarantee a more humane future. They condemn people who drift into cruelty or opportunism, but hesitate to surrender anyone who makes the effort to adhere to a vision of something even slightly better than the worst the bad world offers. In the worst of times, the playwrights seems to say, ethical aspiration can substitute for survival, and a moment of self-understanding marked by evidence of humanity may be sufficient replacement for an unobtainable universal ideal. In those theatrical moments, to quote the

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first words of Andre Schwarz-Bart’s novel The Last of the Just, “our eyes register the light of dead stars”.22 We are familiar by now with the historian Raul Hilberg’s three kinds of Holocaust “actors”: perpetrators, victims and bystanders.23 Some time ago, the perpetrators and victims seemed simple enough to separate, until the playwrights, philosophers and novelists made the distinctions less discrete and, thereby, more accurate. Who are Rumkowski, Gens, Gerron and the tormented unfortunates of Tabori if they are not capable of acting a full range of parts? And at the same time, what of Delbo’s suffering women, not possessing something of “the solid moral armature” that Primo Levi supposed was the bulwark against doing evil? I think it is possible to conceive of Hilberg’s Holocaust triad as having an aesthetic dimension, in particular when “bystanders” become the audience for plays about the Holocaust experience. For those like myself who live in the Holocaust’s shadow, we are tested by the artists’ stories of human behavior in dark times. Witnessing performances of these plays, will we bystanders move to the perpetrator’s side or to the victim’s? In this question we may find a method to evaluate the ethics of a Holocaust play, and move closer to answering the question I began this essay with: what would we have done to survive? Two lesser but useful recommendations seem to me clear and compelling from a reading of these texts: never put someone in the position where they will have to make these kinds of choices, and, don’t be a goose. This essay is dedicated to Laura Forti for her courage, her artistry, and her friendship. Bibliography Friedlander, Saul, Probing the Limits of Representation: Nazism and the “Final Solution” (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992). Fuchs, Elinor, ed., Plays of the Holocaust (New York, Theatre Communications Group, 1987). Hayes, Peter, Lessons and Legacies: The Meaning of the Holocaust in a Changing World (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1991).

Andre Schwarz-Bart, The Last of the Just, tr. Stephen Becker (New York: Atheneum, 1960). 23 Raul Hilberg, Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe 1933–1945 (New York: Harper Collins, 1992). 22

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Schumacher, Claude, ed. Staging the Holocaust: The Shoah in Drama and Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Skloot, Robert, The Darkness We Carry: The Drama of the Holocaust (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988). ——, ed. The Theatre of the Holocaust (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, Vol. 1, 1981; Vol. 2, 1999). Young, James E., Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust: Narrative and the Consequences of Interpretation (Bloomington: University of Illinois Press, 1988).

JOB’S SOUL AND OTTO WEININGER’S TORMENTS: JEWISH THEMES IN THE THEATRE OF HANOCH LEVIN AND YEHOSHUA SOBOL Freddie Rokem The biblical figure of Job and the 19th century Viennese philosopher Otto Weininger do not really have anything in common. In spite of his painful losses, Job was able to withstand the temptations to deny the existence of God. Otto Weininger, on the other hand, gave up his Jewish faith and converted to Christianity after having published his infamous tractate Geschlecht und Charakter (Sex and Character) where he set out to prove the common moral inferiority of “the woman” and of “the Jew”. A few months after having published this book, during the night between the 3rd and 4th of October 1903, at the age of 23, Weininger committed suicide in the room where Beethoven had died in 1827. Job, who even in terms of the biblical narrator lived “once upon a time” in the mythical country called Uz, and who as the Bible formulated it “died old and sated with days,” after his possessions and children had been “returned” to him is clearly a fictional, even mythical character. Otto Weininger was a historical figure, but he lived in the now for very different reasons in mythologized fin-de-siècle Vienna, at the time of the budding Zionist movement. The reason, however, for bringing Job and Weininger together in the context of discussing the configurations of Jewish theatre, and in particular the Jewish sources of the Israeli theatre, is that within a little more than a year, just before and during the first phase of the war in Lebanon in 1981–82, these two male-figures were cast as the heroes of what now, in a twenty-five-year perspective, must be considered as two seminal, and I believe very significant, Israeli theatre performances. Job is the hero of Hanoch Levin’s play Yisurey Iyov (The Torments of Job), which premiered at the Tel Aviv Cameri Theatre in April 1981, with the playwright himself directing; Otto Weininger is the hero of Yehoshua Sobol’s Nefesh Yehudi: Ha’layla Ha’akharon shel Otto Weininger (Soul of a Jew: Weininger’s Last Night). This performance premiered October 2, 1982 at the Haifa Municipal Theatre, directed by Gedalia Besser, on the eve of the 79th anniversary of Weininger’s suicide, a detail which, I am certain, was not a coincidence.

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When writing these plays in the early 1980s, Levin and Sobol had not yet reached the “canonized” positions they achieved a few years later. It is possible in retrospect, though, to see how they were gradually working towards such a position, but using quite different means and strategies. For Levin, his play about Job signified more of a full-fledged transition to plays based on mythological sources than did Hotsa’a La’horeg (Execution) in 1979; it was a genre he continued developing after his play about Job in Ha’zona Ha’gedola Mi’bavel (The Great Whore of Babylon), which premiered in April 1982. This was after Levin had already written controversial political satires in the late ’60s and a number of grotesque or absurd domestic plays in the ’70s. He continued in the genre of political satire with Ha’patriyot (The Patriot), criticizing the war in Lebanon, which, just like Soul of a Jew, premiered in October 1982. Sobol, on the other hand, trying to reach a broader, less exclusive audience than Levin, was deepening his exploration of the theatrical potential of the historical sources of the Zionist movement and the Shoah, after having written Milkhamot Ha’yehudim (The War of the Jews), a play about the Second Temple period, which was performed at the Jerusalem Khan Theatre in 1981. In this play, Sobol relied on source materials similar to Levin’s. Sobol’s more significant break through came with Ghetto, which premiered two years after Soul of a Jew, in 1984; as a result, he became internationally known as a playwright. Levin, on the other hand, was struggling, though not always successfully, to build up a local audience. The Great Whore of Babylon had a very mixed, even hostile reception, and only in the early ’90s after his production of The Boy Dreams at the Habima Theatre did Levin become accepted and appreciated by broader audiences. In spite of the significant differences between The Torments of Job and Soul of a Jew, they address quite similar ideological and existential issues, situating a male figure struggling with God in a world that is gradually approaching destruction in the center. It is even possible to show that Levin and Sobol, through these plays, as in much of their playwriting, were conducting an implicit “dialogue” about power and agency, about the relations between “male” and “female” and about the presence, or rather the absence, of God in the modern world. They were, though from quite different perspectives, exploring the delicate balance and dialectics between Jewish and Israeli identities. They were also engaged in a radical critique of the Israeli ideological establishments, frequently taking up subversive positions vis-à-vis contemporary developments of the country. In trying to elicit this dialogue between Levin and Sobol,

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each of whom has his own distinct style and his own ideological positions, it will also be possible to say something about the ways in which the Israeli theatre has internalized and even, though in quite an ironic mode, embraced its Jewish heritage. In this paper, I will examine these issues with particular regard for the complex interaction between the mythological and the historical dimensions of this Jewish heritage; in other words, how these playwrights confront the dialectical relations between the religious and the secular sources of the Jewish/Israeli identity of their heroes. The Torments of Job belongs to an important tradition in the development of the professional Hebrew (pre-state) and Israeli theatre, beginning with the Habima Theatre, founded in Moscow in 1917, which for a short while was even called “The Biblical Studio” by its founders. This tradition relies on the Bible as an ideological source for inspiration as well as its narrative materials. This dependence on biblical narratives follows traditional Jewish folk theatrical traditions, in particular the Purim play. Even though plays and performances based on the Bible have constituted a relatively small percentage of the total repertoire on the Israeli stage, they have been much more frequent than in other national theatre traditions. This is so for quite obvious reasons, such as the ability to use the original texts on the stage and the implications of these texts for the Zionist ideology, supposedly creating a trans-historical bridge between the Jewish people and their ancient homeland. But Levin paradoxically subverted this ideological presupposition by situating his version of the story of his tormented Job in the Land of Israel during the time of the Roman conquest, not in a fairy-tale land, showing that Job’s suffering is at least partly the result of a particular historical situation, unlike the biblical source where it is caused by the bet between God and Satan. Job suffers because of the decisions of the Roman emperor. For Levin, as well as for a number of Israeli playwrights like Nissim Aloni (Cruelest of all, the King) Gilead Evron ( Jehu) or directors like Hanan Snir, who directed both of these plays in the 1990s at the Habima Theatre, or in Rina Yerushalmi’s Bible Project, also from the 1990s, the Bible has served as a source of inspiration for a sometimes radical avant-garde theatre, criticizing the ideological presuppositions of this textual body in both its religious and its Zionist contexts. In Levin’s version of the book of Job, after losing his property and after the death of his children, Job is left toothless on the stage scratching his naked, convulsing body. Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad,

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and Zophar, try to comfort him, attempting to convince him of God’s wisdom and justice, when an Officer sent by the newly crowned Roman Emperor arrives and announces: The god of the Jews is null and void, wiped out. All who believe in him are heretics and rebels. To reinforce the new belief and make it crystal clear: All those who believe in the god of the Jews will have A spit stuck up their rear.1

Job’s friends are now facing a terrible dilemma, but after considering the fact that their fields have to be harvested and their children are still young, they somewhat unwillingly and pragmatically compromise their convictions and in particular their belief in God. Only Job, who has nothing to lose and in a feverish vision has seen his dead father, whom he believes is God, affirms His existence and is immediately punished with the pole on which he hangs until he dies. Levin’s Job ironically flirts with Christianity as he is crucified on the pole, just like Weininger, who converted to Christianity. Sobol employed a diametrically opposite strategy with regard to the dialectics between myth and history in Soul of a Jew. While Levin historicized the biblical myth, Sobol mythologized the moment in modern Jewish history when the Zionist movement was born. The title of the play itself refers to the trans-historical entity of “Nefesh Yehudi”—the Jewish Soul—that according to Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikva,” has been longing for its homeland for two thousand years. Sobol places this “soul”, a longing and suffering mythological entity, within the historical context of the turn-of-the-century Vienna where the figures of Freud, Herzl and the first openly politically anti-Semitic figure, the mayor of Vienna Karl Lueger, are struggling over Otto’s tormented soul. Each of these ideological forces is pulling Otto’s Jewish soul in a different direction: Freud represents honest introspection, Herzl collective self-realization by moving to Palestine, and Lueger transforms official anti-Semitism, a precursor of Hitler’s Nazism, into Otto’s self-hatred. Finally, Otto becomes the victim of the last of these possibilities: selfhatred and self-denial, reminiscent of Levin’s Job, which, beginning with

Hanoch Levin, The Torments of Job, in The Labor of Life, trans., Barbara Harshav (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003) 77. 1

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Otto’s conversion to Christianity, become the credo leading directly to his suicide. In a heated conversation with Clara, who wants to convince Otto that “Zionism will create a new type of Jew”2 he retorts that Zionism will be engulfed in the abyss of Judaism like a pebble in a swamp. A new type of Jew? Character is indelible. Immutable. The Jew doesn’t believe in anything—not in himself, not in his guilt, not in genuine repentance. Nothing. Jews have never done a thing that does not pay off in hard cash. When it comes to Dr. Herzl, there’s one point where I agree with him. One bright day, the Jewish people should wake up, and precisely at high noon they should march off to the church three abreast and be baptized in unison.3

Sobol implies that the Zionist project will not only lead to conversion, meaning that Israel will become just as racist as Europe was at that time, but also to a form of self-destruction. Soul of a Jew begins with a shot that can be heard in the dark, and this is presumably the bullet with which Otto commits suicide. All the scenes of the play, appearing in a dreamlike atmosphere, beginning with Otto’s arrival in the apartment where he shoots himself, are flashbacks presenting a series of gradually revolving scenes from Otto’s life, with his friends, with his teacher, with his parents, with Freud and with his female double, a figure who serves as a gendered complementary unconscious. I will not be able to examine the gendered aspects of Sobol’s play in detail here, but they are also a central aspect of the implicit Levin-Sobol dialogue I am bringing to light. One of the central ideas in Sobol’s Soul of a Jew is that Weininger has “stolen” one of Freud’s early ideas about the double nature of the human soul, containing, as Freud had then already discussed in his letters with Wilhelm Fliess, both male and female aspects. It is on the basis of this double nature that the historical Weininger in his psycho-philosophical writings pairs the female with the Jewish and the male with the Aryan. These live in opposition and strife, an idea that later even Hitler himself highly appreciated, because, according to Weininger, the female and the Jewish

2 Joshua Sobol, Soul of a Jew: Weininger’s Last Night, trans. from the Hebrew by Betsy Rosenberg and Miriam Schlesinger, (The Israeli Centre of the International Theatre Institute [ITI], no place or date of publication), 21. 3 Joshua Sobol, Soul of a Jew: Weininger’s Last Night, trans. Betsy Rosenberg and Miriam Schlesinger. (The Israeli Centre of the International Theatre Institute [ITI], no place or date of publication) 22.

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are corrupt. Otto is homoerotically drawn to the Aryan, rejecting both women as well as his own Jewish identity. Freud was actually the first person to read an early draft of Weininger’s dissertation, a historical fact that Sobol uses effectively, crafting a meeting between them in his play. Freud’s subsequent reaction to Weininger’s book Sex and Character appears in a footnote to “Little Hans” (1909) where, in what must be an understatement, Freud says that “Weininger (the young philosopher who, highly gifted but sexually deranged, committed suicide after producing his remarkable book, Geschlecht und Charakter), in a chapter that attracted much attention, treated Jews and women with equal hostility and overwhelmed them with the same insults.”4 This footnote is quite ironic because in Sobol’s play, after Freud scolds Weininger for having stolen his ideas, Weininger says that “If your [Freud’s] name will be remembered a thousand years from now, it will only be on account of your talk with me, provided I deign to record it in my diary.”5 It is today Freud’s footnote and its connection to issues of the identity of the (male) Jew and femininity that are worthy of notice. The historical Weininger emphasized the traditional, stereotypical split of women into mothers and whores, and Sobol quotes quite extensively from his writings in Soul of a Jew. If in the plays of Sobol, however, the female characters themselves as a rule do not split into this traditional dichotomy, Levin’s female characters deserve a detailed examination in this context. The Levin play immediately following The Torments of Job—at least in terms of the performances—was The Great Whore of Babylon. Here it is impossible to bridge the female split between mother and whore. In this play the “Great Whore” Bigwai is raped by her brother-in-law, Bradach, on the grave of her sister, Bradach’s dead wife, and bears him a son. But she renounces motherhood, and when she finds the opportunity she has her son slaughtered and serves him as a meal to his father. In this play the female element is represented as a form of lustful perverted cruelty. In The Torments of Job, the treatment of femininity does not have a prominent position, except through the stripper in the circus scene.

4 Sigmund Freud, “Analysis of a Phobia in a five-year-old Boy (‘Little Hans’)”, Case Histories (Harmondsworth: The Penguin Freud Library, 1977) 198, note 2. See also Nancy A. Harrowitz and Barbara Hyams, eds., Jews and Gender: Responses to Otto Weininger (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995) 8. 5 Sobol 33.

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After Job has affirmed the existence of God and is punished with a stick in his rear, a Ringmaster, the owner of a circus, appears, saying that it is too bad For such a performance as this to go to waste. All those potential tickets mutely crying out Like the souls of unborn children dying out. Not to mention the educational worth For those who still think god exists on earth. I’ve run musical circuses in all the most Important capitals of Europe. I can even say that I’ve run Europe. /. . ./ Five hundred dinars to the royal treasury For the right to put this man In my circus.6

After a tough bargaining with the Officer (representing the newly crowned Caesar), the “torments” of Job become the main attraction of the circus. The theatre, and art in general, Levin seems to imply, is cynically exploiting human suffering. The Ringmaster, who has “run Europe”, as he expresses it, is now discovering new ways to transform human suffering into art. Among the attractions in the circus there is a stripper who when she sees Job with the stick in his rear, clearly feels that this is something from which she can get full sexual satisfaction. According to Levin’s stage directions, and this is also more or less how it was realized on the stage: The Stripper spreads her legs, puts her crotch to the spit, rubs against it and moans with pleasure as if in response to Job’s groans of suffering, as he is stuck on top with his legs spread wide to the sides. Their spasms and groans ostensibly resemble a fornication in which the spit serves as a penis.7

This is clearly an image where the homoerotic “punishment” for Job’s belief in God and the pleasures achieved by the stripper become unified. Sobol, in his play about Weininger, works with the same narrative materials, having Otto meet his father in a Viennese brothel, where he discusses Otto’s future studies at the university there while the whores 6 7

Levin 2003, 84–5. Levin 2003, 87.

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are giving them satisfaction. The brothel scene in A Soul of a Jew also has a theological subtext, because Otto’s female double, realizing the split between the masculine and the feminine in Otto, who introduces the scene, greets them with a perverted prayer: Lord, God of our age, The most Jewish and womanly stage, Blessed art Thou, hallowed thy name Who givest the coition game.8

Both the plays I am examining here thus bring up theological issues within the context of sexually extreme situations, where homoerotic elements and the attraction to the aspect of the female represented by the whore or the stripper are also intermingled. To this end, both the playwrights also add a meta-theatrical dimension through which the theological issues as well the sexual dimensions are communicated. In Levin’s play, this is connected to the spectacle of the circus, where Job’s suffering is displayed as a result of having affirmed the existence of God. The Ringmaster, who thought he had bought a lucrative attraction, has one problem; he is not able to have the return on his investment before the tormented Job vomits and dies. I will return to how this final gesture of vomiting proves the existence of God. Sobol’s play also contains a meta-theatrical dimension, which is directly connected to something that is considered divine, though it is never realized on the stage with the same theatrical force as in The Torments of Job. Otto’s parents are sacrificing almost everything of their everyday comfort in order to enable him and his father to visit the Bayreuth festival and to listen to the music of Wagner there every year. Whereas Job has become a circus attraction because he affirmed the existence of God, Otto denies his Jewish faith for the sake of another, heathen God residing in the Aryan spirit of Wagner’s divine music. The ending of The Torments of Job, even if it supposedly affirms the existence of God, does so in a very cynical, even iconoclastic manner. In the opening of Levin’s play, Job is seated together with his friends and has just finished a festive meal after which there is even enough food on the table to satisfy the Beggars who eat from the leftovers, as well as the Beggars of the Beggars who eat from what is left of these leftovers. This, they say, is the proof that God gives. Only the Beggarly

8

Sobol 21.

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Beggar, the poorest and most decrepit of them all, gets nothing to eat this time. But, he says, Be patient, my friend, And someone will surely puke in your hand. Well, somehow we manage to live. There’s a God in the sky.9

At the moment Job dies vomiting and the circus abruptly disperses the Beggarly Beggar returns and licks the vomit, saying: Just like I said: a little patience And somebody finally pukes. Yes, Somehow we manage to live. There’s a god in the sky Tra-la-la, tra-la-lie.10

This form of divine “benevolence”, Levin implies, is very different from the ending in the biblical narrative, where Job’s possessions are returned and he even fathers new children. In Levin’s version of the story, after the vomit has “proved” the existence of God, only the voices of the dead can be heard. They have been transformed into angels paraphrasing Sonya from the final scene of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya: “But there is mercy in the world/And we are laid to rest.” The final chord of The Torments of Job thus expresses a strong compassion for the suffering. Soul of a Jew ends on a similar note, mixing religious travesty with a quest for emotional fulfillment and rest. At the very end of the play, as he is dying, Otto’s mother sings a lullaby in Yiddish for her son, cradling him in her arms in what is clearly a subversive pieta. Just before this moment of motherly compassion, supposedly during the last nightmarish moments before his death, Otto, turning to his close friends, calls Zionism “A miserable and pathetic farce”, saying that in the future, when the Jewish state is founded, it will Turn into a monstrous caricature of Aryan existence. We should have overcome our Jewishness from within, to be rid of it for good so that Zionism might have had a chance of succeeding. But you wouldn’t. Small wonder that your Jewishness overcame you instead and by doing so, has led you to ruin. You’ll always be drawn towards the Diaspora, the quintessence of Jewishness, even when you do have a state of your own. That

9 10

Levin 2003, 56. Levin 2003, 91.

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The solution to the ideological problem, just like the issue in Levin’s play as to whether there is a God, is a parody of what for most of the spectators no doubt is the accepted and “correct” ideological position. Sobol asks the Israeli audience of 1982, viewing the “spectacle” of Weininger’s death, to question the basic ideological presuppositions of the Jewish state, claiming that the Diaspora will finally become the home of the Jews and that the idea of a Jewish state leads to ruin. What The Torments of Job and Soul of a Jew finally have in common is a radical critique of the political and ideological positions of the state of Israel at the time they were performed. Sobol gives voice to the gradually growing criticism of the Israeli military adventure in Lebanon, beginning in June 1982, which, even if his play about Otto Weininger was conceived before the war itself began, premiered a few months later, in October that year. Sobol is saying that the Jewish soul has become Aryan and aggressive. Levin’s play criticises the affluence and self-confidence of Israeli society after the peace treaty with Egypt had been signed between the Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin and the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1976, a situation that eventually led to the outbreak of the war in Lebanon, but was clearly mapped out before it. This treaty had left the Palestinian issues unresolved, and therefore they re-emerged in the tensions that gradually developed into the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and the expulsion of the Palestinian leadership from Beirut to Tunis. The Torments of Job starts out with a Job who lives in a world where his greatest worry is the fatigue he and his guests feel after having eaten a festive meal. But a potential despair lies lurking behind their temporary satisfaction, which in itself already is a form of death, though quite different from the torments he will have to confront at the end of the play, even if both are based on a strong anal fixation. Says Levin’s Job as the play opens: What is a man who has eaten his fill? A man who is finished, done for it, nil. What hope can he wield? It’s all delivered, signed, sealed. He sprawls inert, barely taking in air.

11

Sobol 55.

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Life lies like a rock on his heart. Can I describe such despair? Darkness like that can’t be found anywhere. But two hours later? Two hours later, despair despairs. Though less clear-cut, the horizon grows brighter. The man doesn’t budge, his belly still presses, But his breath is lighter. And four hours later? Four hours later, hope begins to creep Into his belly. Not a peep Of appetite but some idea steals in, And the man who lay on his back an hour before like a turtle, With no feeling, Aiming belches of sorrow up at the ceiling, Wakes up a bit, turns over on his belly Like a block And shifts the job of honking from front to backside. Whoever said that life is a rock? And six hours later? Six hours later the rock turns into a bird; For life is light, colorful, spreads its wings, Soars, fresh and wide awake, salivating, to the table. A new man is born every six hours.12

It is this kind of cynical escapism, believing “a new man is born every six hours,” that finally leads to the loss of Job’s possessions and his children, just as Israeli society, unaware of the dangers it houses, will eventually risk everything through the obliviousness of its military adventures. Levin’s play is a biting critique of this kind of hedonistic forgetfulness, which had started to become the standard form of behaviour in Israel, beginning with the military victory in the 1967 Six Day War. What Levin shows in his play about Job is that this kind of pleasure can very suddenly be ended by the series of disasters that Job is subjected to. In closing, I wish to reflect one more on Levin’s and Sobol’s choice of characters to represent the Jewish/Israeli soul, and the extent to which these figures “belong” to Israeli culture, as Jewish figures. Even if the biblical Job can be seen after the Shoah as a representative of the Jewish people, he is definitely not, in the biblical context, an Israeli, 12

Levin 2003, 53–54.

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even if he fears God, but rather a stranger of sorts. And Sobol’s choice of Otto Weininger as the carrier of the Jewish soul is no doubt quite subversive. Weininger is the ultimate outsider. The Russian Jewish writer Shemarya Gorelik, a radical Zionist who lived in Berlin in the 1920s, claimed somewhat provocatively that “The real test of a future Jewish state would be whether a reborn Jewry would erect a monument to Weininger.”13 Sobol’s Soul of a Jew, at the same time as actually it is such a monument, shows how impossible it is to even imagine such a monument in today’s Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. Bibliography Freud, Sigmund. “Analysis of a Phobia in a five-year-old Boy (‘Little Hans’).” Case Histories. Harmondsworth: The Penguin Freud Library, 1977. Harrowitz, Nancy A. and Barbara Hyams, eds., Jews and Gender: Responses to Otto Weininger, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995. Levin, Hanoch. The Labor of Life, trans. Barbara Harshav. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. Sobol, Joshua. Soul of a Jew: Weininger’s Last Night. Trans. Betsy Rosenberg and Miriam Schlesinger. The Israeli Centre of the International Theatre Institute (ITI) [no place or date of publication]. Weltsch, Robert. “Introduction.” The Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook VI (1961): xvi.

13 Quoted by Robert Weltsch, “Introduction”, The Leo Beck Institute Yearbook, VI, 1961, p. xvi.

INDEX

A Bunch of Violets [Grundy], 135 A Journey Through Warsaw (Podróz po Warszawie) [Schober], 65 Abortion theme in German theatre, 165 Acculturation of Jews, 191–193 in the German theatre, 153–159 reflected in plays, 220–221 Action against Sol Schumann, The [Sweet], 212 Adam Baum and the Jew Movie [Goldfarb], 205 Adler, Jacob P., 83, 84, 117, 125 Adler, Luther, 207 Adler, Stella, 207 African-American playwrights, 223 After Hebron [Sherman], 236 After the Fall [ Miller], 216 Agrarian labor, 25, 28, 34, 46 Ahad Ha’am, 154 Ahasverus, king (Purim story), 15, 21, 22 Alberto (Lo Schiavetto), 102, 105 Aldridge, Ira, 125 Allen, Woody, 213 Alles per Radio (Everything via Radio) [revue], 188 Allosemitism, 117, 121, 128 Alois (Die Würstelbraut), 186 Aloni, Nissim, 259 American Buffalo [ Mamet], 229 American Jewish Holocaust plays, 208–210 American Jewish playwrights, 200–213 American Jewish Theatre, 212 American Jewish theatre, generational shifts in, 215–236 American theatre absence of Jews from, 199–200 Jewish character name changes in, 207–208 Jewish influence on, 200–213 Amor nello specchio (Love seen in a Mirror) [Andreini], 102 An Old Jew [Grundy], 133 defense against detractors, 143–144 exoticism of Jews, 149 opening of, 137, 139

representation of Jew’s masculinity, 148 reviewed by Zangwill, 144–145 reviews critical of, 141–142 synopsis of, 139–140 Anczy, W adys aw Ludwik, 71 Andreini, Francesco, 103 Andreini, Giovan Battista, 100, 108 absence of individualization in Jewish characters, 109–110 emphasis of visual aspect of performance in his writings, 103, 105 literary works of, 102–103 portrait, 104 theme of slavery of the written theatrical word, 106 theme of the double, 111 Andreini, Isabella, 103 Angels in America: Millennium Approaches [ Kushner], 211, 212, 233–234 Anidjar, Gil, 113, 123 Anna Karenina [Tolstoy], 40 Anne Frank’s diary adaptation for theatre, 209 Anski, S., 178, 212, 283 Anti-Semitism, 4 in American Jewish theatre, 225–228 in American theatre, 199–200, 202–203 in German theatre, 156–159 in German theatre post Weimar Republic, 166–170 in Germany during World War I, 161 in pre-war Austria, 160 in Professor Bernhardi [Schnitzler], 159–161 in Vienna’s post World War I, 176–180, 186, 188–191 Antigone (Hasenclever adaptation), 163 Antigone [Sophocles], 162 Arbella, Irving, 236 Archer, William, 135 Armstrong, Gareth, 115 Arnshteyn, Mark, 65 Asch, Sholem, 178, 206, 212 Asher’s Command [Felt], 211

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Assimilation of Jews in American theatre, 206–208 into society, 179 Association of Jewish Theatres (AJT), 7 Auctioneer, The [ Lee and Klein], 199 Austria, anti-Semitism in prewar, 160 Avigael (Shulamis), 85 Avisholom (Shulamis), 85, 89, 91, 92 Awake and Sing! [Odets], 203 Backalenick, Irene, 7 Bahr, Hermann, 179 Baitz, Jon Robin, 201, 211 Bamat Yiskhak, 86 Bander, Fritz (Shosha), 53 Bar-Ilan University, Jewish Theatre Studies, 8 Bar Kokhba [Goldfaden], 94 Barabander, Maks (Scum), 57, 58 Baratoff, Paul, 169 Barnaba Fafuła i Józio Grojseszyk na wystawie paryskiej (Fafuła and Grojseszyk at the Paris [ World] Fair), 65–66 Barnowsky, Victor, 160, 162 Baron de Hirsch Fund, 28 Bartfeld, Fernande, 5 Basilea, Simone, 107 Bathhouse Theatre, 212 Bauman, Zygmunt, 117 Beddoe, John, 124 Beer-Hofmann, Richard, 176 Beer, Rudolf, 176 Beerbohm, Max, 134 Beerbohm-Tree, Herbert, 149, 150 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 26, 31, 34, 257 Begin, Menahem, 266 Belasco, David, 200 Belle Hélene [Offenbach], 87 Ben-Gurion, David, 215 Berger, Ralph (Awake and Sing!), 203 Bergner, Elisabeth, 176 Berlin, Irving, 206–207 Berman, Herman, 87 Bernas, Israel, 87, 88, 91, 94, 95, 96 Bernau, Alfred, 177 Bernstein, Henri (Henry), 3, 178 Bernstein, Michael Andre, 245–246 Besser, Gedalia, 257 Bialik, Chaim Nachman, 170, 171 Bible as source for Jewish theatre, 259 Bible Project [ Yerushalmi], 259 Biblical Studio, The, 259

Biebow, Hans, 243 Bigsby, C.W.E., 217 Bigwai (The Great Whore of Babylon), 262 Black theatre, definition of, 9, 10 Bloom, Harold, 114, 219 Bloom, Leopold, 222 Bloomgarden, Kermit, 209 Boles awski, Boles aw, 89 Book of Esther, 15, 19, 21 Boy Dreams, The [Levin], 258 Bradach (The Great Whore of Babylon), 262 Brauner, David, 226 Breier, Sali (Frau Breier aus Gaya), 184, 193, 194 Brink of Devotion [Rosen], 213 Broken Glass [Miller], 201, 208, 212, 216 Brooks, Mel, 210 Bruckner, Ferdinand, 165 Buber, Martin, 171 Bücher, Georg, 157 Bu at, Miros awa M., 93 Buloff, Joseph, 224 Burattelli, Claudia, 108 Burgtheater, 175–176 Burnard, F.C., 134 Burnside, Bertie (An Old Jew), 140 Business is Business [Grundy], 135 Caccini, Giulio, 105 Caino (Lo Chiavetto), 106, 109 Camp Comedy [Kift], 242, 247–248 Cannibals, The [Tabori], 242, 251–253 Capital punishment theme in German theatre, 165 Carbone, Eddie (A View from the Bridge), 222 Cassedy, Steven, 30 Centola, Steven, 220 Chaim (Piekło), 76–77 Chayefsky, Paddy, 212 Chekhov, Anton, 265 Chemelwitz, Isidor (Angels in America), 234 Cheyette, Brian, 117 Children of the Ghetto [Zangwill], 133, 145, 149, 151 Chto takoe iskusstvo? (What is Art?) [Tolstoy], 33 Coen, Peter (Home of the Brave), 203–204, 207 Cohn, Roy (Angels in America), 212, 233

index Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 122 Collected Stories [ Margulies], 205–206 Come Blow Your Horn [Simon], 207 Comedies, German-Jewish, 178–193 Commedia dell’Arte, 101, 108, 110 Consul Baron (Paula Pelikan Pleite), 185 Conversations With My Father [Gardner], 204 Cooke, Thomas, 124 Counsellor-at-Law [Rice], 203 Credé, Carl, 165 Criminals attending theatre, 58 Cruelest of all, the King [Aloni], 259 Cumberland, Richard, 137–139, 144–145 Czystogorski, Ludwik, 93 Dawison, Bogumił, 70 de Hirsch, Maurice, 142 Death of a Salesman [Arthur Miller], 9, 215, 226, 228–236 lack of Jewish ethnicity in, 216–227 Decoration of Jewish Houses, The [ Mamet], 228 Deeny [Mamet], 230 Dejmek, Kazimierz, 78 Delbo, Charlotte, 249–251 Denise (Who Will Carry the Word?), 250–251 d’Ennery, Alfred, 199 Der Fuehrer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt [film], 248 Der getaufte Enkel (The Christened Grandson) [ Lohner], 178, 179, 186 Der Goldonkel aus Amerika (The Rich Uncle from America), 83 Der Graf von Charolais [ Beer-Hofmann], 176 Der Kaufmann von Berlin (The Merchant of Berlin) [ Mehring], 166, 168–170 Der Schrei, der niemand hört ( The Cry That No One Heard) [ Feldmann], 178 Deutsch-German, Alfred, 184, 194–195 Deutsches Volkstheater, 175–176 Di finsternish in rusland (Power of Darkness) [ Tolstoy], 29 “Di Gest” [ Bashevis-Singer], 52, 54, 57, 58 Di kishefmakherin (The Witch) [Goldfaden], 94–95 Di makht fun finsternish (Power of Darkness) [ Tolstoy], 29 Di terkishe khasene (The Turkish Wedding) (“The Briefcase”), 51

271

Diaspora, 21, 108, 265–266, 281 Die Journalisten [Freytag], 157 Die jüdische Heldin oder Herz und Hand furs Vaterland (The Jewish Heroine, or Heart and Hand for the Fatherland) [Meisels], 180 Die Räuber (The Robbers) [Schiller], 157 Die Verbrecher (The Criminals) [Bruckner], 165 Die Wandlung (The Transfiguration) [ Toller], 163 Die Würstelbraut (The Sausage Bride) [Rapp and Haim], 184, 186 Dinner With Friends [Margulies], 206 Disappearance of the Jews, The [Mamet], 211, 230 Dobrzański, Lucjan, 92, 95 Doll’s House, A [Ibsen], 9 Don Giovanni [Andreini], 102 Doris (The Loman Family Picnic), 235 Drama Review, The (TDR), Jewish Theatre Issue, 1980, 5 Dreiman, Sam (Shosha), 53, 55, 58 Dreyfus Affair [Rehfisch and Herzog], 166–167 Du Bois, W.E.B., 6 Du Maurier, George, 145, 149 Dukhovno-bibleiskoe Bratstvo (Spiritual-Biblical Brotherhood), 27 Dybbuk, A [Kushner], 212 Dybbuk, The [Anski], 212, 234 Dziennik Łódzki (newspaper), 84, 90–91 Echo Muzyczne, Teatralne i Artystyczne ( journal), 88 Eclipse Theatre (London), 9 Ehtnic theatre movement, 6 Eikhl, Zusskind, 57 Elam, Kier, 21 Emigracja chłopska (Peasant Emigration) [Anczyc], 71 Encyclopaedia Judaica, 4 Environmental theatre, 17–18 Epidemia [ Narzymski], 90 Eppstein, Paul ( Jakob) (Der Fuehrer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt), 248, 250 Epsteins Witwe (Epstein’s Widow) [Golz], 184 Erdman, Harley, 199, 226–227 Ethics reflected in American-Jewish theatre, 243–254 Everett Beekin [Greenberg], 211 Evron, Gilead, 259 Eyre, Richard, 234

272 Facceto (Lo Schiavetto), 102, 107, 110 Fafu a, Barnaba (Podróz po Warszawie), 71–72, 74–78 popularity of, 65–66 Fairbanks, Douglas Jr., 207 Falavolti, Laura, 109 Fallen women (in fiction), 39 Families portrayal in Lokalpossen, 186–187 Farce in Viennese theatre, 182–187 Farkas, Karl, 188 Farkas Revues, 188 Feitelzohn, Morris (Shosha), 56, 58 Feldmann, Elsa, 178 Feliński, Feliks, 93 Felt, Meryl, 211 Female actress characters in works by Bashevis Singer, 51–53 Female, stereotyped in Israeli plays, 261–263 Ferdinando I Gonzaga, 107 Fiction, human identification with, 39–40 Fiedler, Ephraim (Di Kreytser Sonata, Gordin), 34, 35, 36 Fiedler, Gregor (Di Kreytser Sonata, Gordin), 33–36, 38, 42, 43, 44, 45 Fieldler, Leslie, 219 Fierstein, Harvey, 211 Filler, Deb, 209 Filler, Witold, 65, 66 Film shown in theatre, 193–195 Filon, Augustin, 134, 141 Fischer-Lichte, Erika, 129 Flacks, Diane, 235 Fliess, Wilhelm, 261 Floating Light Bulb, The [ Woody Allen], 213 Flora (di gest), 52–53, 57 Florinda (Lo Schiavetto), 102, 105, 106, 107 Focus [ Miller], 225, 227 Folk drama, 15 Folk plays in Poland, 71 Folk theatre, 1 Ford, Joshua, 211 Found environment, 19 Foundation for Jewish Culture, 6 Francoise (Who Will Carry the Word?), 250–251 Frank, Anne, 209, 210 Frank, Leo, 204 Frank, Otto, 209 Franzl (Von Sechistow bis Amerika), 188

index Frau Breier aus Gaya (Mrs. Breier From Gaya), 184, 193, 194 Freedman, Deborah, 7 Freud, Sigmund, 260, 261–262 Freytag, Gustav, 157 Fridgot, Mordkhe (Von Schistow bis Amerika), 189–190 Friedlander, Celia (Di Kreyster Sonata, Gordin), 34–36, 38, 42–44 Friedlander, Ettie (Di Kreyster Sonata, Gordin), 33–36, 38–42, 45 money as measure of her existence, 43 Friedlander, Raphael (Di Kreyster Sonata, Gordin), 33–35, 36, 38, 43–44, 45 obsessive concern for money, 43 Friedman, Philip, 247 Friedmann, Armin, 184, 185, 194 Friend of Kafka, A [Bashevis Singer], 53 Frishman, Dovid, 49 Fulgenzio (Lo Schiavetto), 101–102, 110, 111 Garden theatres in Poland, 68–69 Gardner, Herb, 204 Gay Fantasia on National Themes, A [Kushner], 233 Generational shifts in American Jewish theatre, 215–236 Gens, Jacob, 246–247, 250, 254 German anti-Semitism in the theatre, 156–172 German-Jewish comedies, 178–179, 181–193 German-Jewish theatrical ensembles, 83–84 German Jews nationalism during World War I, 161 self-presentation on the stage, 153–172 German plays as allegories (metaphors), 166–170 German theatre post-1918 idealism, 162 during Weimar Republic, 164–166 Gerron, Kurt, 248 Geschefter (Piekło), 76–77 Geschlecht und Charakter (Sex and Character) [Weininger], 257, 262, 280 Geshikhte fun yidishn teater [Zayfert], 94 Ghetto, 242 Ghetto [Sobol], 242, 246, 258 Ghosts [Ibsen], 137, 278

index Gilman, Sander, 124, 148, 221 Gina ( Who Will Carry the Word?), 250–251 Ginsburg, Sol (Success Story), 207 Girl Under Grain [ Hartman], 211 Glass Menagerie, The [ Tennessee Williams], 223 Glassman, Sarah (Success Story), 207 Glengary Glen Ross [ Mamet], 212 God of Vengeance [Asch], 206, 212 God’s Donkey [A Traveling Jewish Theatre], 212 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 26 Goldberg Street [ Mamet], 204 Goldenberg, Daniel, 115 Goldfaden, Abraham (Avrom), 70, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85–87, 89, 90, 96, 155, 177 translations of plays into Polish, 94–95 Goldfarb, Daniel, 201, 205 Goldford, Daniel, 235 Golem, The [ Leivick], 212 Goodman, Henry, 127 Goodrich, Frances, 209 Gordin, Jacob, 25–26 admiration for Tolstoy, 27–28, 30–31 condemnation of pretense, 43 differences with Tolstoy, 33 “Drama” (essay), 38 early career, 28 filial duty, 44–45 head of Spiritual-Biblical Brotherhood (Dukhovno-bibleiske Bratstvo), 27 and music, 31, 38 performance as a means for redemption, 45–46 playwright described in musical terms, 38 views toward agrarian labor, 28, 34, 45 and women emancipation, 26 Gordon, Mel, 5, 8 Gorelik, Shemarya, 268 Gould, Bobby (This Disappearance of the Jews), 230 Great Whore of Babylon, The [ Levin], 258, 262 Greatest of These, The [Grundy], 135 Greenberg, Richard, 201, 211 Greenblatt, Richard, 235 Greidiger, Aron (Shosha), 53, 58 “Grey Zone, The” (Primo Levi), 246

273

Griswold, Sarah, 207 Grodner, Israel, 83, 84 Grojseszyk, Józio (character in Schober plays), 72, 74–78 popularity of, 65–66 Grundy, Sydney, 133 defending his work against criticism, 143–144 early career of, 135 frustrations with London theatre, 137 photo of, 136 popularity of, 134 portrayal of Jews, 145, 147–149 Guardian, The, 9 Habima Theatre, 170–171, 258, 259 Hackett, Albert, 209 Haim, Victor, 5 Halpern, Richard, 120 Haman (Purim story), 15, 19, 21, 22, 23 Hanak, Werner, 182, 183, 186, 194 Hannahan, James, 128 Hansberry, Lorraine, 223, 224 Ha’patriyot (The Patriot) [Levin], 258 Hapgood, Hutchins, 30 Harby, Isaac, 199 Hare, John, 137, 138 portrayal of Julius Sterne, 140–141 Harlem Renaissance, 5 Harris, E., 3–4 Hartman, Karen, 201, 211 Hasenclever, Walter, 162, 163 Hassan, the 16th-century Arab, 116 Havis, Allan, 211 Haybäck, Eva Maria, 182 Ha’zona Ha’gedola Mi’bavel (The Great Whore of Babylon) [Levin], 258 Hebrew-language theatre, 3, 170–171 Hecht, Ben, 206 Heijermans, Herman, 3 Heine, Heinrich, 126 Hell (Piekło), 66 Hellman, Lillian, 209 Herman, Judi, 8–9 Hersh (Von Sechistow bis Amerika), 188, 191–193 Herzl, Theodor, 260 Herzog, Wilhelm, 166–167 Hilberg, Raul, 254 Hirsch, Mira, 7 His Wife’s Husband (Zayn vaybs man) in (Love and Exile), 51, 60 Hoffman, Aaron, 201–202, 203, 204, 210

274 Holocaust dramatization of, 241–254 represented on American stage, 208–210 Home as theatrical space on Purim, 20–24 Home of the Brave [ Laurents], 203–204, 207 Homicide [ Mamet], 231 Homoerotic elements in Israeli plays, 263–264 Homosexual identity reflected in American theatre, 233 Hoppla! wir leben (Hey! We’re Alive) [ Toller], 165 Horowitz, Moyshe, 83 Hotsa’a La’horeg (Execution) [ Levin], 258 Howe, Irving, 206 Hulda Pessl in Venedig (Hulda Pessel in Venice) [ Deutsch-German and Friedmann], 184, 185 Human soul, gendered aspects of, 261–262 Hwang, David Henry, 222 Hymn of Hate against England (Haßgesang gegen England) [ Lissauer], 161 “I Fedeli” (“The Loyal Subjects”) (theatrical company), 108 Ibsen, Henrik, 26, 134, 135 “In Memoriam” [ Miller], 217 In My Father’s Court [ Bashevis-Singer], 59 Incident at Vichy [ Miller], 209, 216 Intermarriage, 33 Ironson, Louis (Angels in America), 233 Ironson, Sarah (Angels in America), 233–234 Irving, Henry, 116, 122, 145, 149 Israel, state of, 266 Israeli theatre, 4 Israeli and Jewish identities in, 258–259 Job (biblical character) in, 257–268 Jaákobs Traum [ Beer-Hofmann], 176 Jacobs, Monty, 167 Janowski, Czes aw, 92 Jargon operetta, 83, 84, 90, 95 Jehu [ Evron], 259 Jessner, Leopold, 155, 162 Jew of Malta, The [ Marlowe], 9, 114 Jew, The [Cumberland], 137–139

index Jewish Antiquities [ Josephus], 121 Jewish characters in Lo schiavetto, 101–112 Jewish drama linguistic definition of, 3–4 in Vienna, 175–195 “Jewish Drama” (Oxford Companion to the Theatre), 3 Jewish Enlightenment, 153 Jewish ethnicity Absence in Death of a Salesman, 216–227 prevalence in American theatre, 200–206, 210–213, 228–236 Jewish immigrant experience, 26–27 Jewish natural affinity for theatre, 154 Jewish operettas, 84 Jewish playwrights, 3 Canadian, 235–236 Jewish question, 156, 158, 160, 161, 172 Jewish Religious Community, 189, 191 Jewish roles in the German theatre, 157 Jewish sources in the Israeli theatre, 257 Jewish speech patterns, 230–232 [ Jewish] “Theater” (Encyclopeida Judaica), 4 Jewish theatre concept of, 1–2 encyclopedic definitions of, 3–5 in Hebrew, 170–171 within Israeli culture, 9 in Jewish and non-Jewish languages, 2, 4 Jewish Theatre Association’s definition of, 6–7 “Jewish Theatre” (The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance), 4 “Jewish Theatre” (The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies), 4 Perspectives’ definition of, 5 in Poland, 81, 83–84 in Polish, 81–95 Jewish Theatre Association ( JTA), 6–7 Jewish theatre, Conferences and Festivals AJT 2005 (New York), 7 First International Conference and Festival of Jewish Theatre, Tel-Aviv University 1982, 7–8

index International Conference at Institute of Jewish Studies, University College, London 2002, 1 International Festival of Jewish Theatre, Vienna 2007, 7 Jewish Theatre Festival, New York, 1980, 6 Jewish theatre groups, 155 “Jewish Theatre” Issue, The Drama Review, 5 Jewish tradition in American theatre, 211–212 Jewish Writers’ Club (“A Peephole in the Gate”), 52 Jews absence from early American theatre, 199–200 acting in Polish theatres, 70 attending Polish theatre, 69–70 as characters in Polish theatre, 70–71 exoticization of, 149 portrayals of in late 19th century, 133 representation in The Merchant of Venice, 113–130 in the war zones reflected in plays, 180–181 Jews on the German Stage, 170 Job (biblical character) in Israeli theatre, 257–268 torments portrayed in plays, 263–268 Joey ( The Old Neighborhood), 230, 231, 232, 233 Jolly [ Mamet], 230 Jones, Henry Arthur, 134 Joselovitz, Ernest, 212 Joyce, James, 222 Jud Süss (the Jew Suess) [ Kornfeld], 166 Judaizing non-Jewish literature, 26 Judenrat, 243 Jüdische Bühne (Vienna), 179–181 Jüdische Künstlerspiele (Vienna), 188 Jüdische Rundschau (newspaper), 169, 170, 171 Jüdisches Künstlerkabarett ( Vienna), 188 Julius Sterne [Grundy], 137 Kabarett Simplicissimus (Vienna), 182 Kabbalah, 109 Kaddish (prayer), 55, 123 Kafka, Franz, 54 Kalich, Bertha, photo of, 37 Kaminski, Ester Rokhl, 49 Kammerspiele, 175–176

275

Kane, Leslie, 229, 230 Kanin, Garson, 209, 210 Karenina, Anna [Tolstoy], 39 Kean, Edmund, 113 Keats, John, 113 Kerr, Alfred, 167 Kesselman, Wendy, 228 Khassye di yesoyme (Khassye the Orphan) (in “A Peephole in the Gate”), 51 Khava (Di Kreytser sonata, Gordin), 44 Khinke pinke, Dos pintele yid (The Spark of Jewishness) (in “Der shrayber klub”), 51 Kiesler, Friedrich, 194 Kift, Roy, 247–248, 249 Kingsley, Charles, 149 Kirby, Michael, 17–18, 22 Kisielnicki, Maurycy, 92, 93, 95 Kittel (Ghetto), 246–247 Klein, Abraham Moses, 115 Klein, Charles, 200 Klotz, Volker, 183 Knaker, Shloyme (Von Sechistow bis Amerika), 189 Kohn, Bernard, 83 Kohn, Jacques (in A Friend of Kafka), 53, 54 Konderli, L., 83 Korespondent Płocki (newspaper), 89 Kornfeld, Paul, 166 Kotik, Yasha (in Shadows on the Hudson), 54–55 Kotzebue, August von, 141 Kramer, Larry, 211 Kreutzer Sonata, The (Di Kreytser sonata, Gordin) condemnation of performance and pretense of characters, 42 marriage in, 32, 34, 42, 44 money, 43–44 obsessive concern for, 43 music in, 32, 34–35, 42, 45 numbers as recurring motif, 43 significance of title, 26 suggesting dangerous powers of fiction, 26 Kreutzer Sonata, The (Kreitserova Sonata, Tolstoy), 25–26 exploitation of women, 31 male chastity, 40–41 marriage in, 31–32, 41–42 role of music in, 26, 32–33, 42 sexuality, 32 in Yiddish translations, 29

276

index

Kreutzer Sonata, The (Kreutzer Sonata, Beethoven), 31, 34 Krieg und Liebe (Love and War) [ Markowitsch], 180 Kristallnacht, 216 Kron-Korn, Maurice (Frau Breier aus Gaya), 184 Kruk (Ghetto), 246 Kuler, Mendl (Von Sechistow bis Amerika), 188–190 Kunegunda (Podróz po Warszawie), 71–72 Kushner, Tony, 201, 211, 212, 213, 228, 229, 233–234 La Camaraderie ou la courte Echelle ( The Clique, or the Helping Hand) [Scribe], 141 La Centaura (The Female Centaur) [Andreini], 102 La Ferza [Andreini], 103 La Maddalena lasciva e penitente (Lewd and Repentant Magdalen) [Andreini], 102–103 La Turca (The Turkish Woman) [Andreini], 102, 105 L’Adamo (Adam) [Andreini], 102 Ladino, 3 Landa, M[yer] J[ack], 142 Lapine, James, 213 Last Days of Shylock, The [ Lewisohn], 115 Last Night of Ballyhoo, The [ Uhry], 204 Last of the Just, The [Schwarz-Bart], 254 Lateiner, Joseph, 83 Laufer (crier, in Purimspiel), 19–20 Laurents, Arthur, 203, 207 Lawson, John Howard, 204, 207 Le grand rôle [Goldenberg], 115 Leavitt, David, 205 Lebanon, invasion of by Israel, 266 Lebensbilder (portraits of life), 180 Lebow, Barbara, 201, 209 Lee, Arthur, 200 Leiren-Young, Mark, 116 Leivick, H., 178, 212 Leksikon fun yidishn teater [ Zylbercweig], 86 Lelio bandito (Lelio Bandished) [Andreini], 102 Lelio (Lo Schiavetto), 107 Leopoldstadt (Vienna), 179, 181, 182, 186 Leopoldstädter Jüdische Lokalpossen, 178, 179, 181–186, 193, 194

Les Affaires sont les Affaires [Mirbeau], 135 Les Petits Oiseax [Labiche and Delacour], 135 Levenson, Alan, 133 Levi, Primo, 246, 249, 251, 254 Levi, Yitskhok Jacques, 54 Levin, Hanoch, 257–260, 265–267 Levin, Meyer, 209 Lewis, Reb (Disappearance of the Jews), 232 Lewisohn, Ludwig, 115 Lieberman, Edith and Harold, 208, 243, 247 Life in Refusal [Roth], 212 Lila (Die jüdische Heldin oder Herz und Hand fürs Vaterland), 180 Liminoid performance (Purim), 19–21, 24 Lipkin, Lisa, 209 Lissauer, Ernst, 161 literatn farayn (Association of Jewish Writers and Journalists, Warsaw), 49 Little Change, A [Grundy], 135 Living Corpse, A (Zhivoi trup) [Tolstoy], 29 Lo schiavetto (The Little Slave) [Andreini] Jewish characters in, 101–102, 108–112 use of Jewish speech, 110–111 use of varied languages, 110–111 visual impact of, 103, 105 Lo Specchio [Andreini], 103 Lodz ghetto, 208, 243–246 Löhner, Fritz, 178, 179 Loman Family Picnic, The [Margulies], 229, 235 Loman, Willy (Death of a Salesman) Jewish identity, 208, 216–218, 222–227 London, theatrical culture in 1890s, 133–134 Lopez, Roderigo, 120 Love and Exile [Bashevis Singer], 57, 60 Lueger, Karl, 160, 260 Macklin, Charles, 121, 125 Malachi, A.R., 94 Malamud, Bernard, 222 Malke, Khaverte (Von Sechistow bis Amerika), 189–191 Mamet, David, 201, 204, 211, 212, 219, 228–233, 235 “Mamet talk,” 230–232 Manhattan Ensemble Theatre, 212

index Mania (“The Impresario”), 52 Mann, Emily, 228 Mantua ghetto, 107–108 Marek, Andrzej, 65 Margolis (“Der shrayber klub”), 55–56 Margolis, Tina, 6 Margulies, Donald, 201, 205–206, 228, 229, 235 Markish, Peretz, 57 Markowitsch, 180 Marlowe, Christopher, 9, 114 Marsza kowska Street (Ulica Marszałkowska) [Schober], 66 Marx, Groucho, 206 Masse Mensch (Man and the Masses) [ Toller], 165 Mayer-Modena, Maria Luisa, 110–111 McCarthy, Mary, 218 Megillah (Purim), 19 Mehring, Walter, 166, 168, 169 Meisels, Abisch, 178, 179, 180, 181, 187, 188, 191, 195 Melzer, Annabelle Henkin, 7 Merchant of Venice, The (Reinhardt adaptation), 129–130 Merchant of Venice, The [Shakespeare], 8–9 as anti-Semitic work, 114 authenticity of characters, 122–125 Globe Theatre 2007 production, 8 Jewish interest in, 9 relationship between Jew and Christian, 113–114 revisions (adaptations) of, 115–117 rhetoric of dissociation, 125–126 Miklat [film], 211 Milkhamot Ha’yehudim (The War of the Jews) [Sobol], 258 Miller, Arthur, 201, 208, 209, 212, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219–220, 221–226, 227, 229, 234, 235, 277 Miller, Jonathan, 116 Mirele Efros (Mirele efros) (in Love and Exile), 51 Mizlansky, Zilinsky, or Schmucks [ Baitz], 211 Modern Orthodox [Goldfarb], 205 Monjoye [ Feuillet], 135 Monroe, William, 251 Moor of Venice, The, 113 Moore, Colleen, 207 Morally compromised characters in Holocaust drama, 243–254 Moraly, Yehuda, 5

277

Mordechai (Purim story), 15, 19, 22 Morozowicz, Henryk, 93, 95 Moscow State Yiddish Theatre (GOSET), 155 Motzkin, Liza (“Der shrayber klub”), 52 Mühsam, Erich, 165 Muniu (Die jüdische Heldin oder Herz und Hand fürs Vaterland), 180 Myth and history in Jewish/Israeli theatre, 258–261 Narzymski, Józef, 90 Natasha (Di Kreytser sonata, Gordin), 44 Nathansen, Henry, 3 National Theatre for the Deaf, 212 Nazi and theatre politics, 156–157 “Negro” theatre, 6 Nerz, Ludwig, 185 Nestroy, Johann Nepomuk, 182 Neugröschl, Mr. (Die Würstelbraut), 186 New Woman, The [Grundy], 135 New York, American Jews in theatre of, 200 Nichols, Mike, 234 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 154 No Villain [Miller], 216 Noah, Mordecai Manuel, 199 None Too Many [Sherman], 236 Normal Heart, The [Kramer], 211 Notes on Akiva [Kushner], 234 Nottola, Prince (Lo Schiavetto), 102, 105 Nunn, Trevor, 123, 127 Odets, Clifford, 201, 203, 204, 210 Ogilvie, G. Stuart, 149 Okri, Ben, 130 Old Neighborhood, The [Mamet], 211, 230, 233–234 Oleanna [ Mamet], 230 Olivier, Laurence, 116, 123, 124 Omer, Ranen, 231 Onkl sem (Uncle Sam) (in “Yarme un Keyle”), 51 Operation Shylock [Philip Roth], 117 Orazio (Lo schiaveto), 101–102, 110, 111 Orgel, Stephen, 120 Osmolska, Maria, 94 Ost und West ( journal), 154 Othello, analogous with Shylock, 113, 116, 121–126, 127, 129, 130 Othello [Shakespeare], 116, 125 Other People’s Money [Sterner], 211, 212 Oxford Companion to the Theatre, 3

278

index

Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance, 4 Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies, The, 4–5 Oz, Avraham, 121 Pair of Spectacles, A [Grundy], 135 Palka, Sam (“Sam Palka and David Vishkover”), 56 Parade [ Uhry], 204 Passover reflected in American theatre, 234 Patience [Sherman], 236 Patriotism to Vienna by Jews reflected in plays, 181 Paula Pelikans Pleite (Paula Pelikan’s Bankruptcy) [ Deutsch-German and Friedmann], 184, 185 Peasant Emigration (Emigracja chlopska) [Anczyc], 71 “Peephole in the Gate, A” [ Bashevis Singer], 56 Pelikan, Paula (Paula Pelikans Pleite), 185 Pemberton, Thomas Edgar, 140–141 Penitent, The [ Bashevis Singer], 56 Pepoli, Ercole Count, 101 Perestroika [ Kushner], 233 Peretz, Yitskhok Leybush, 49, 72, 178 Perspectives, Jewish Theatre issue, 2003, 5 Pessel, Mrs. (Hulda Pessl in Venedig), 185 Pettle, Adam, 235 Pfoser, Alfred, 177 Phillips, Jonas P., 199 Philosemitism on stage, 133–152 Piatiorsky, Anton, 235 Piekło (Hell ) [Schober], 66, 76 Pinero, Arthur Wing, 134 Pinski, David, 178 Pinthus, Kurt, 155, 171 Piscator, Erwin, 168, 169, 194, 195 Play of the Future, The [Grundy], 137 Poale Zion party, 189 Podróż po Warszawie (A Journey Through Warsaw) (Schrober), 65, 66, 71–78 language confusion in, 75–76 Pol, Tadeusz, 92 Polish-Jewish relations reflected in Polish theatre, 66–78 Polish national identity, 71 Polish theatre in late nineteenth-early and twentieth centuries, 81–96 in the nineteenth century, 68–78 Political satire in Israeli theatre, 258, 266–267

Polonized Jewish plays, 81 Pope, Alexander, 121 Popkin, Henry, 200, 206 Porlitzer, Mali, 186 Posnick, Michael, 212 Power of Darkness, The (Vlast’ t’my), [Tolstoy] variant Yiddish titles—Di Makht fun finsternish and Di finsternish in rusland, 29 Pozdnyshev (Kreitserova sonata) [Tolstoy], 30–31, 35, 40–42, 45 view towards male chastity, 41 view towards marriage, 31–32 view towards music, 42 view towards sexuality, 32 Praterstrasse, 179, 181, 186, 188 Price, The [Miller], 216 Prince Chardash (Prints chardash) (in “Yarme un Keyle”), 51 Producers, The [Brooks], 210–211 Professor Bernhardi (Professor Bernhardi), 159–160 Professor Bernhardi [Schnitzler], 159–161, 176 Prologo in dialogo fra Momo e la verità (Prologue for a Dialogue between Momo and the Truth) [Andreini], 102 Propagandist war plays, 180–181 Proteophobia, 117, 120 Protests against plays presented by Jews, 177 Prudenza (Lo Schiavetto), 102 Prussak, Maria, 86 Prussian State Theatre, 162 Przeglad Tygodniowy (newspaper), 87–88 Punch Me in the Stomach [Filler], 209 Purim, 15, 19, 22 meal, 19–20, 23–24 story, analogous to Jewish condition, 21 Purim (opera), 178 Purim players, 16 as “found actors,” 22–23 movement from streets and homes, 18–19 reintegration into community, 24 use of household objects, 21 Purimspiel, 15, 17, 19–24. See also Liminoid performance conclusion of, 23–24 use of public and private spaces, 17 Puritan community represented in The Merchant of Venice, 120

index Queen Esther (Purim story), 15 Races of Britain [ Beddoe], 124 Raisin in the Sun, A [ Hansberry], 223, 224 Raker, Naftali Meir, 189 Rathenau, Walther, 168 Rebellious idealists in German theatre, 162–164 Recki, Jan, 92, 95 Reform Judaism, 228 Regional farce in Viennese theatre, 182–186 Rehfisch, Hans José, 165, 166–167 Reigen [Schnitzler], 176, 177 Reinberg, Benedykt, 93 Reinberg, Feliks, 93 Reinhardt, Max, 129, 155, 162, 176 Religious and secular sources in Jewish/ Israeli theatre, 258–259 Resort [ Wincelberg], 209 Resurrection (Voskresenie) [ Tolstoy], 29 Retreat, The [Sherman], 236 Revue (in Viennese theatre), 183, 188–193 Rice, Elmer, 201, 203, 204, 210 Roads to Extinction [ Friedman], 247 Rolandbühne, 179, 181, 183, 186, 194 Rosen, Sybil, 213 Ross, Eddie (Conversations With My Father), 204 Ross, George, 224 Roth, Ari, 201, 212 Roth, Joseph, 171 Roth, Philip, 117, 222–223 Rotshayn, Adolf, 87 Rotshayn, Yeshaya, 86–87 Rovina, Hannah, 171 Rozenfeld, A., 84 “Rożinkes mit mandlen” (“Raisins and Almonds”) (Goldfaden), 85 Rudolf II, emperor, 105 Rumkowski, Mordechai Chaim, 208, 243–247 Sack, Leeny, 209 Sadat, Anwar, 266 Saint Joan [G.B. Shaw], 176 Sala, Augustus, 142 Salvini,Tommaso, 122 Sandauer, Artur, 117 Sandrow, Nahma, 85 Sartre, Jean Paul, 215 Scemoel (Lo schiavetto), 106, 109

279

Schach, Fabius, 154–155 Schechner, Richard, 17 Scheindl (Von Sechistow bis Amerika), 191–193 Schenkar, Joan, 228 Schiavetto-Florinda (Lo schiavetto), 102, 105 Schiavetto (Lo schiavetto), 102, 105, 106 Schiff, Ellen, 215, 216, 226 Schiller, Friedrich, 157 Schiller, Leon, 66, 78 Schnitzler, Arthur, 3, 155, 159, 160, 161, 176, 177 Schober, Feliks, 65–66 Schoenzeit, Alfred (“In Memoriam”), 217 Schorr, Malke, 189 Schwart-Bart, Andre, 254 Schwartz, Delmore (Collected Stories), 205–206 Schwartz, Maurice, 58, 115 Schwartz, Nathan, 84 Scott, Clement, 135–136, 142 Scribe, Eugène, 141 Scum [ Bashevis Singer], 57, 58 Segalovitch, Clara, 52 Self-parody of Jews, 182, 183 Self-presentation of German Jews on the stage, 153–172 Sellars, Peter, 128 Sensale (Lo schiavetto), 101, 106–107, 110 Shadows on the Hudson [Bashevis Singer], 54 Shakespeare, William, 9, 26 anti-Semitism in his works, 114–115 Shapiro, Yoysef (The Penitent), 56 Shaw, G[eorge] B[ernard], 134, 135, 137, 141, 176 Shaykewitz, Shomer [Nachum Meir], 83, 84 Shayna Maidel, A [Lebow], 209 Shekhter, Fayvele (“Di Gest”), 54, 55 Sherman, Jason, 235, 236 Shmeruk, Chone, 85–86 Shosha [ Bashevis Singer], 53, 56, 58 Shostak, Debra, 117 Shpindler, Maks (Di Gest), 58 Shulamis, Daughter of Jerusalem [Goldfaden], 84, 85 popularity of, 86–88, 95–96 staged in Polish theatres, 87–92 touring productions of, 89–94 Shulamis (in “Di Gest”), 51

280

index

Shulamis (Shulamis, Daughter of Jerusalem), 85 Shulman, Herman, 209 Shund, 56 Shushan, 22 Shylock (Armstrong), 115–116 Shylock (Leiren-Young), 116 Shylock (Pantakin), 118–119 Shylock (The Merchant of Venice) analogous with Othello, 113, 116, 121–126, 130 authenticity of portrayal, 122–125 as form of anti-Semitism, 114–115 non-allosemitic representation of, 121–122 various interpretations of, 115–117, 120–122, 127–130 various models of Jewishness, 127–128 Shylock un zayn tokhter (Shylock and His daughter) [ Ibn-Zahav and Schwartz], 115 Shylock (Wesker), 115 “Shylock’s Return,” 116 Siegel, Richard, 6 Sienkiewicz, Henryk, 69, 70 Sight Unseen [ Margulies], 205 Simek, Ursula, 177 Simon, George (Counsellor-at-Law), 203 Simon, Neil, 207 Sims, G.R., 134 Singer, Hinde-Ester, 57 Singer, Isaac Bashevis childhood, 50 describing Jewish literary scene in Warsaw, 50 hostility towards Yiddish theatre, 51–59 opinion of actress characters, 52–53 opinion of Jewish women, 51–52 opinion of male actors, 53–56 Singer, Israel Joshua, 50, 58 Singer, Mendl, 189 Sirota, Ethel (“A Peephole in the Gate”), 52 Sketch, The, 141, 143 Slater, John (An Old Jew), 139 Slonim, Betty (Shosha), 53, 55, 58 Snir, Hanan, 259 Sobol, Yehoshua ( Joshua), 246–247, 257–258, 260–261, 263–264 Social and political themes in German theatre, 165–166 Sokolow, Nakhum, 49

Solomon, Alisa, 233 Solomon, Isidor (Welcome Stranger), 201–203 Solski, Ludwik, 66, 67 Son of Israel, A [Grundy], 151 Sonnenfeld, Adolf, 72–73 Soul of a Jew [Sobol], 258 Sowing the Wind [Grundy], 135 Spender, Stephen, 205 Spiritual-Biblical Brotherhood (Dukhovno-bibleiskoe Bratstvo). See Gordin Spiwankowski, Jacob, 83 Stage Jew, 70–71, 133, 143, 145, 151 Staging the Jew: The Performance of an American Ethnicity, 1860-1920 [Erdman], 199, 226 State Theatre (Poland), 6, 68 Steinlauf, Michael, 81, 83 Stempler, Lena (“One Night in Brazil”), 52 Sterne, Julius (An Old Jew), 140, 147–149 Sterner, Jerry, 211, 212 Stewie (The Loman Family Picnic), 229 Stranger, The [Kotzebue], 141 Success Story [Lawson], 207 Survival in Auschwitz [Levi], 251 Survivor and the Translator, The [Sack], 209 Sweet, Jeffrey, 201, 212 Szliferstein, Adolf, 92–93 Szmuł (Podróz po Warszawie), 73, 76 Szwajcarska, Dolina, 72 Szymborski, Jan, 87, 89, 90, 93, 95 Table Settings [Lapine], 213 Tabori, George, 251–253 Tagger, Theodor, 165 Tantsman, Abraham Isaac, 84 Taytelman, M. Ch., 87 Teatro celeste, 103 Teatrzyki ogródkowe, 68 Teksel, Jozef, 90, 91 Tempest, The [Shakespeare], 117 Tenth Man, The [Chayefsky], 212 Thalia Theatre (New York), 25 The Rich Uncle from America (Der Goldonkel aus Amerika), 83 The Spark of Jewishness (Dos pintele yid) (in “Der shrayber klub”), 51 The Turkish Wedding (Di terkishe khasene) (in “The Briefcase”), 51 “The Wild Cat and Well” (Khulda u’ve’er) [Werbel], 85

index Theatre complexity of term, 1 and Jewish nature, 154–155 and self-presentation of German Jews, 153–172 Theatre in der Josefstadt, 175–176 Theatre of Jewish Interest, 8–9 Theatrical space, 15–24 Thereisenstadt concentration camp, 247–248 They Too Arise: Incident at Vichy [ Miller], 216 Throne of Straw [ Lieberman], 208, 242, 243–246 Timebends [ Miller], 224 Toller, Ernst, 155, 161, 163–164, 165 Tolstoy, Lev, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32 as symbol of resistance, 30 use of literary fiction, 39–40 views toward agrarian labor, 28, 35, 45 views toward sexuality, 32 Toyt fun a Salesman (Death of a Salesman) [ Miller], 224 Traveling Jewish Theatre, 212 Trilby [ Du Maurier], 145 Troper, Harold, 236 Trukhachevsky (Kreitserova sonata) [ Tolstoy], 32, 35, 42 Tshentshiner, Khayimke (Shosha), 56 Turgenev, Ivan, 26 Turkow-Grundberg, Zygmunt, 86 Turner, Victor, 15 Two-dimensional crushing of personality, 110 Two Kunni-Lemls (Tzvey kunni leml) (“Di gest”), 51 Tzeytlin, Hilel, 49 Tzirele (Scum), 57 Tzvey kunni leml (Two Kunni-Lemls) (in “Di gest”), 51 Uhry, Alfred, 204–205 Ukraine, 27 Ulica Marszałkowska (Marsza kowska Street) [Shober], 66 Uncle Sam (Onkl sem) (“Yarme un Keyle”), 51 Uncle Vanya [Chekhov], 265 Varshe, dos vigele fun yidishn teater ( Warsaw, Cradle of Yiddish Theater) [ Turkow-Grundberg], 86 Vaykhert, Mikhael, 50

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Venables, Mr. (character), 139 Vienna, Jewish drama in, 175–195 View from the Bridge, A [Miller], 222 Vilna Troupe The (Vilner Trupe), 49, 155 Vilna’s Got a Golem [ Joselovitz], 212 Vincenzo I Gonzaga, 105 Volksbühne, Freie Jüdische, 178 Von Sechistow bis Amerika ( fun sechisstow bis amerika; From Sechistow to America) [ Meisels], 188, 193 Voskresenie (Resurrection) [Tolstoy], 29 Vow of Silence [Havis], 211 Walkley, Arthur Dingham, 142 Walter, Prior (Angels in America), 234 Walton, Dawn, 9–10 Wandering Jew, 148–149, 282 War and Peace [Tolstoy], 40 Warfield, David, 199–200 Warsaw as a Jewish theatrical center, 49–51, 83 Warsaw’s Association of Jewish Writers and Journalits (literatn farayn), 49 Wasserstein, Wendy, 201 Wearing, J.P., 134 Weasels and Wisemen: Ethics and Ethnicity in the Work of David Mamet, 229 Weinacht, Susan, 6 Weininger, Otto, 257, 260–266 Weinstock, Joseph, 83 Weissberg, Leon, 180 Welcome Stranger [Hoffman], 201–202 Werbel, Eliyohu, 85 Werbezirk, Gisela, 183–184, 193–194 Wesker, Arnold, 115 What is Art? (Chto takoe iskusstov?) [ Tolstoy], 33, 35 What Mother Never Told Me: Reminscences of a Child of a Holocaust Survivor [Lipkin], 209 White, Hayden, 123 Who Will Carry the Word? [Delbol], 242, 249–250 Widows and Children First [Fierstein], 211 Wien gib acht! (Look Out Vienna!), 188 Wilde, Oscar, 134 Williams, Tennessee, 223 Wincelberg, Shimon, 208 Windows of Heaven [Wincelberg], 208–209 Witch, The (Di kishefmakherin) [Goldfaden], 84, 94–95 Wolf, Friedrich, 165 Wolfenstein, Alfred, 165

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Wolfskehl, Karl, 171 Women stereotyped in Israeli plays, 261–263 Woodbine Colony, N.J., 28 Woyzeck [ Büchner], 157 “Wrestling with Shylock,” 128 Yakhne, Bobe (The Witch), 94 Yankele (Throne of Straw), 245–246 “Yarme un Keyle” [ Bashevis Singer], 58 Yerushalmi, Rina, 259 Yiddish, 1–3, 29–30 Yiddish art theatres, 50 Yiddish Dramatic School (Yiddishe dramatishe shul), 50 Yiddish plays in American theatre, 212 in Polish, 81, 83–84 in Vienna, 177–178, 188 Yiddish playwrights, 25–27 Yiddish Theater Studio (Yiddishe teater studye), 50 Yiddish theatre, 2, 3, 4, 9, 25, 26, 28, 38 in America, 55–56 attendance by the public, 56–58 interchangeable with “Jewish theatre,” 2

literary quality of, 155 in 19th century Warsaw, 49–51 in Vienna, 178–181 Yiddishe dramatishe shul (Yiddish Dramatic School), 50 Yiddishe teater studye (Yiddish Theater Studio), 50 Yiddishland, 2 Yisurey Iyov (The Torments of Jews) [Levin], 257, 259–268 Yoshe Kalb (“My brother and I”), 58 Yzraeli, Yossi, 128 Zangwill, Israel, 3, 133, 147, 149 photo of, 146 reviewing An Old Jew, 144–145 Zayfert, Moyshe, 94 Zayn vaybs man (His Wife’s Husband) (in Love and Exile), 51 Ziegler, Hans-Severus, 157 Zionism, 2, 158, 179 in German theatre, 169–171 in Israeli theatre, 258, 260–261 Zola, Emile, 167 Zurück vom Krieg (Back From the War) [Markowitsch], 180 Zweig, Arnold, 155, 170 Zylbercweig, Zalmen, 27, 86

APPENDIX

ABRAHAM’S SCENE Introduction In the Bible and in the sacred texts linked to it—true precepts of Western culture—there is an unquestionable theatricality, not only for what will come out of their stories thanks to the revival made by great paintings, visual material for the rebirth of the stage and of the Medieval and Renaissance drama, but also for other reasons. If every theatrical act consists of giving space to the words, if the theatre is among all the arts the closest to religion, considered as a favourable place where the dead can speak, then every mythical character that occurs the Bible achieves a route into drama and can rise again as an archetype in new incarnations. Here I concentrate on Abraham, the prophet who establishes the anthropological unity of the Israelite people. Abraham’s Biography We know almost nothing of Abraham’s childhood. We know him as an adult; only his genealogy is told: he is a descendent of Shem, one of Noah’s sons (Genesis 11). His father’s name was Terah. He had no childhood because, in reality, he remained a child; or, rather, he behaves like God’s child. In fact, in his entire story, the relationship between Abraham and God is based on a continuous exercise of subjection, a show of totally dogmatic passivity. Their bond is one between a masterfather and a slave-son, and the climax of this Hegelian dialectic is exalted by the test of his capacity for obedience. “You shall not have other gods besides me” is the theme of all the episodes. Only one God, only one Son, in almost symmetric corollaries. When He reveals Himself to His Son and his descendants, God introduces Himself as Abraham’s God, and in exchange He asks them to recognise Him as such (see Genesis 28). Typical of a patriarchal and monotheistic culture, especially one in competition with the contemporary polytheisms and pagan idols, a young and invisible God rejects the cult of images, in that He reserves the space of cult and devotion for Himself. In a word, He asserts the concept of monotheism, and His uniqueness, which is a mirror to that of the Chosen People.

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He is a God who is searching for Himself and He finds a perfect complicity in Abraham (originally known as Abram), in a relationship that is both affectionate and violent: a God who creates the character of His son by continuously uprooting him from land and family, a sort of bildungsroman, in order to train him in total submission. Here is the unceasing motion of wanderings, the constant uprooting, the destiny of Diaspora; from Ur of the Chaldeans to the land of Canaan, the movement begun by his biological father Terah, as written in Genesis 12: “Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.” On the other hand, to compensate for all the anguish and uncertainties, Abraham does indeed find land, and prosperity worthy of the founder of a nation that has God as its shield (Genesis 15). In practice, this is a testamentary act and the award of a dowry seasoned with hyperboles, like the prospect of progeny as countless as dust particles, or as innumerable as the stars in the sky or the sand on the shores of the sea; all this goes into the balance against the next request for a human sacrifice. And every time he settles in a new place, the Lord’s protégé builds an altar to Him. After the famine, Abraham is forced into a third exodus, to Egypt this time, where the Pharaoh is struck by the beauty of his wife Sarai (Sarah), and Abraham has to pretend to be her brother in order to survive. The return to Canaan is yet another new move, and, perhaps to assure him of all he will have in that region, God demands of his son the sacrifice of animals. Here Abraham falls asleep and has a prophetic dream in which God talks to him, and announces four hundreds years of exile for his people and the final return to the promised Land. This sanctioned agreement confirms the official assignation of the land, a true notarial deed. Nevertheless, Abraham dares to approach his Father with his natural confidences and desires: he reveals his torment, the lack of fatherhood. This is followed by the insemination of the Egyptian servant Hagar (Genesis 16), and here it is Sarai who takes the initiative and lets her husband go with the servant, who, once pregnant, becomes too self-confident and is chased away. Then it is the Lord’s angel who promises numerous descendents to the fleeing Hagar, and suggests to her that she should go back and submit. So Abraham becomes a father, at the age of eighty-six, of Ishmael (may God listen in Hebrew). Thirteen years go by, and this time God appears to the prophet as he is lying on the ground face downwards in an act of total subordination, and orders him: “Walk in my presence and be blameless” (Genesis

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17), assuring him he will become “the father of a host of nations (…) kings shall stem from you”, He changes his name to Abraham with the prefix ab that in Hebrew refers to fatherhood, and in the same way He changes the name of Sarai to Sarah, meaning princess. In return, the new agreement is sealed by the official command to circumcise all males, slaves included, a ritual known as the milah; this can be classified as a rite of passage, in this case to puberty. A widespread corruption of the ritual, current among previous and contemporary cultures, has moved it to eight days after birth, instead of from the age of initiation to manhood, access to adolescent sexual maturity and nuptial age. Traces of this original ritual can be found in the Hebrew bar mitzvah, because now the whole life must be devoted to God. The removal of prepuce is a euphemism for sacrifice, a new proof of sublimation of bloody practices, of spiritual and moral purification. Anyone who is not circumcised will be sent away from his people. What’s more, this gift makes Abraham perfect, because this rite sums up all the rules written in the Torah. To the solemn news of the birth of a son, Abraham—still face downwards—laughs to himself, puzzled about his procreative ability and the possibility of Sarah’s being impregnated at the age of ninety. Nevertheless, Abraham fulfills the terms of the agreement, circumcising himself, his son Ishmael (who is thirteen and so is included in the age of the old practice) and all the males of his tribe. Genesis 18 tells of a new apparition of God at Mamre’s oak-wood, with two other men. Sarah is behind the tent preparing the meal, and when she hears the prophecy of the return of the “vital moment” laughs to herself, because she feels withered, and her menstruation had ceased for some time: “Now that I am so withered and my husband is so old, am I still to have sexual pleasure?” Her reaction is much more physiological than his husband’s, to such a degree that God scolds him because of his wife, and boasts, “Is anything too marvellous for God to do?” He almost quarrels with the woman who refuses to admit that she laughed, and He reproaches her. Soon after comes Sodom’s turn; the Lord goes there and involves Abraham in the expedition, conferring with him as a man who practises “law and justice”. Abraham here intercedes as a merciful lawyer, very skillful in legal chicaneries, saying that there might be fifty just men there who would die with the guilty. And gradually, though they seem like “dust and ashes”, he reduces the number to ten, always beginning

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with a respectful phrase such as “Please, let not my Lord grow angry if I speak up this last time.” The two Angels visit Lot, who gives a banquet for them, and the crowd of Sodomites surrounds the house in order to abuse them sexually. D’Annunzio’s La figlia di Jorio [The daughter of Jorio] introduces this scene in 1904. After an incestuous episode, driven by wine, between Lot and his daughters, who fear the extinction of their family, Abraham moves towards the region of Negeb, and then to Gerar where he again pretends to be his wife’s brother when Abimelek, king of Gerar, wants to take her as his concubine. The incongruity of the story is that Sarah is ninety, she feels barren and laughs when God prophesies her future pregnancy, yet she is still desirable. But the Lord appears to the king in a dream at night, an unusual step for God, who rarely appears to non-Hebrews, as Giulio Busi notes in his 1999 book Simboli del pensiero ebraico: Lessico ragionato in settanta voci (Symbols of the Jewish Thought: Lexicon explained in seventy entries). God threatens him, even though the king says he didn’t have sexual intercourse with the woman. Then the king castigates Abraham because of the lie, and the syllogistic captiousness with which the prophet justifies himself is noteworthy, giving as his excuse the fact that Sarah is the daughter of his father. And on this there is agreement between God and Abraham: because Abraham is wandering in accordance with God’s will, he prefers to pass Sarah off as his sister in order to stay alive. The same thing happens with Isaac, the beautiful Rebecca, and Abimelek. In Genesis 21, Sarah is visited by the Lord and gives birth to Isaac, whose name refers to the word for laughing. Then in Genesis 22 there is the famous test, which is announced at the very beginning of the episode: “God put Abraham to the test”, and He ordered him: “Take your son Isaac, the only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a high place that I will point out to you.” And Abraham obeys. He gets up early in the morning, he takes a donkey and two boys, he chops the wood for the sacrifice, and he finally walks towards the designated place. On the third day, he leaves the donkey and the two boys far behind, for the intimacy of the sacrifice, and he takes with him his son to “worship”, as he tells his servants. He hoists the wood on the boy’s shoulders and takes with him the kindling and the knife. They set off together. Isaac calls his father and he answers “Yes, son”, the same refrain that Abraham uses with God, because in this episode God treats Abraham as Abraham treats Isaac. The boy asks where the lamb is, and Abraham says that God will “provide” the animal. When they reach the place Abraham

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builds the altar, ties up his son and puts him on the wood pile. At the very moment of sacrifice, the angel of God calls Abraham from the heavens and tells him not to kill his “only-begotten”, because “I know now how devoted you are to God”—a traumatic test of submission, which ends with the two setting off together towards home. After all, everything happens in Abraham’s mind, in his angry soul, because it is the same voice that demands first the death of his son, then grants him life. God shows His compassionate face, promising him again numerous descendants and future triumphs, and turning His wrath towards a ram with its horns entangled in a bush, perhaps a symbol of brutal male sexuality, as Judith Riemer and Gustav Dreifuss suggest in their essay Abraham: The Man and the Symbol (1993). The Jungian interpretation sees the episode as the ego’s loss of control over the psychic condition, a regression both to the paganism of human sacrifices and to oneself, to the unconscious forces with the meaning of coincidentia oppositorum (the coincidence of opposites), without ethical judgment or a distinction between good and evil. Thanks to this test, passing through what Rudolf Otto calls fear of God (that is, the experience of the sacred), Abraham reaches personal maturity, because in the end he spares Isaac, recognising his autonomy, and also departing from brutish nature. That is not the last of Abraham. He lives on through other, rather less amazing, events. Genesis 23 talks about Sarah’s death at the age of 127, and Abraham’s long negotiations with Efron for the purchase of land in Hebron. Then in Genesis 24, Abraham, in his old age and very satisfied because the Lord has blessed him in everything, makes his reliable servant swear (hand under the hip) that he will go to Mesopotamia, Abraham’s native land, to the city of Nahor, his brother, in order to find a wife for Isaac. He doesn’t want a Canaanite as his daughter-in-law, but would like a woman who belongs to his lineage, a relative. And she will be Rebecca, his brother’s niece, blessed by her relatives who wish her, according to the prophecy, to become the mother of “thousands of myriads,” who will “gain possession of the gates of their enemies”. Genesis 25 describes how Abraham marries Ketura, who gives birth to six sons—again new descendants. He is one hundred seventy-five when he dies “in ripe old age.” When Abraham appears in other books of the Bible, he bears the epithets of prophet and founder of the family, while the episode with Isaac is absorbed and forgotten. In Psalm 47, for example, the people Israel is called “The people of the God of Abraham,” and in Psalm 105 “seed of Abraham”. In Psalm 105 it’s written “For he remembered

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his Holy Lord, and Abraham, his servant”. And in Daniel 3, in the hymn to God, Abraham is defined as “your beloved”, and the central part of the promise is proposed again: “You promised to multiply their offspring like the stars of heaven, or the sand on the shore of the sea.” In the Jewish liturgical tradition, God is often called “The shield of Abraham”. In Christian texts as well, Abraham’s goodness is reaffirmed, while the topic of infanticide is forgotten. In the Gospel according to Luke 16, the phrase “bosom of Abraham” is used to talk about a place in Heaven that receives the Just. The Judeans declared themselves many times as “descendants of Abraham” (see John 8), while in the Pauline Epistles to the Romans 4, Abraham is named “our ancestor in the flesh who believed in God, and it was credited to his as righteousness”, and he is exalted as “father of all of us”, who had faith even when, at the age of one hundred and in face of Sarah’s “dead womb”, he told of his future fatherhood. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the apostle reminds us that “called by God . . . he went out, not knowing where he was to go”. And because of his faith, he accepts the command to sacrifice his son, many times announced as his future, and he is ready to immolate him “in his capacity as a symbol”; that is, in belief of the resurrection of the dead. So in all these episodes we are faced with stories of shepherds, deserts, marauders, tents, camps, fences, quarrels for wells and livestock, women handed over as passive objects, prosperity in foreign countries for Abraham, foreshadowing future stereotypes of the Semitic merchant. Above all, this is a story of ceaseless migrations typical of nomadic societies, of wandering and changing destinies through Mesopotamia, Palestine and Egypt. On the Mystery Let’s consider again the horrible menace that hangs over the human and familiar morality. In the first instance, and to all appearances, the ancient sacrificial rites continue, including the akedah (which lives on in the symbolic tying of baby boys onto the altar following circumcision). As the end of the episode shows, the Bible seems to be placed culturally in the period of human pharmakos (scapegoating), a trend we can also find in Homeric epos, starting with Agamemnon and Iphigenia, and condemned by Lucretius’s enlightenment. Moreover, Arnaldo

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Momigliano, in the chapter on “Hebrews and Greeks” in his Pagine ebraiche [ Jewish Pages] (1987), affirms the hypothesis, already supported by Theophrastus alluding to Isaac, that the Hebrews were the first nation to abolish human sacrifices. According to René Girard in his famous essay on Sacrifice (2002), the necessity of pharmakos in order to save the world, and periodically diminish its need of violence, is cancelled only in the Gospel, where the responsibility of the sacrifice itself doesn’t rest on a victim who is considered at the same time both malefactor and benefactor, but rather on the persecutors: in this way the untruth of the act is demonstrated, not minimized or hidden under other forms, and civilisation is freed from such a toll (or replaces it with violent performances). The incongruity of this position is a connection between the two episodes, even an analogue: Abraham’s ascent of Mount Moriah and Christ’s ascent of Golgotha to be crucified, the latter considered as a metamorphosis of the first story. On the contrary, the Biblical episode is more transparent in removing the obligation for the sacrifice. Attempted infanticide—as Harold Fish explains in A Remembered Future: A Study in Literary Mythology (1984)—often occurs in modern theatre, in particular in the bourgeois imagination at the end of the second millennium C.E. A long-lasting memory may be camouflaged in other histories or in other characters, from the Ibsenian Brand (1866) to All My Sons (1947) by Arthur Miller, but, without the cathartic solution, the happy ending of the Bible, that is, the liberation of the victim, with reconciliation and the restoration of the breach. Often the anti-Semitism (or rather the rhetorical archives, to use a term dear to Michael Foucault), following Voltaire and Blake, seems to ignore the final result of the episode, to stress the power of devotion to God. However, the Jewish tradition of midrash often interprets the akedah, comparing it with the myth of Kronos, the cruel god who eats his own creatures (who also comes to personify the meaning of Time, identified with his name). In Western culture, the theme of infanticide is interconnected with parricide, as in the cultural complex of Oedipus, in dialectics under the label of a murderous family. How many times are parents threatened by their children and vice versa? How many times do these children feel the intolerable oppression of parental authority hanging over them—a real generational clash, almost a substitute for the economic class struggle! In this sense, War itself could be considered as the collective action of a Father-Herod who immolates his sons by sending them to the front, as Pier Paolo Pasolini supposes in Affabulazione [Story] (1967).

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Shakespeare had already filled his works with similar fears, King Lear and Hamlet for the first thrust, Richard II and The Merchant of Venice for the second. The whole of Romanticism, and later on Expressionism, following in the footsteps of Osvald Alving in Ghosts by Ibsen (1881), could be re-read, in the specific historical context in which they develop, as rebellion of the young against the old, with tensions that usually lead to self-destruction. In Billy Budd, written by Melville in 1888 and set during the period of the French revolution, Fish underlines Billy’s inexplicable acceptance of being sacrificed through his inability to speak and defend himself by the use of language. In other cases, there is an attempt to eliminate these events by transforming them into peace-making prospects, so as to avoid the deadly impulses between fathers and sons. Thus the tragic-comic meeting, in the third and last part of the Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), between Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, both men in real or symbolic mourning for their sons and parents, is composed as a similar reconciliation. Both are drunk, and among Jewish songs of hope and medieval ballads, Bloom sees in Daedalus the shape of the future, while the latter perceives in Bloom the accretions of the past. Typologies of the Jewish Scene I’ve mentioned the Jew Bloom deliberately, because it’s in the milieu of Jewish culture that such a mechanism becomes obsessive metaphor and personal myth. This is clear enough in the comedy by Italo Svevo, La rigenerazione [The Regeneration], a parodic retelling of Goethe’s Faust, written in the years after the First World War. Here is the grandfather who would like to get rid of his grandson, a desire that is repressed in his conscience by the fear of losing him, of seeing him crushed by the wheels of a car in a futurist and hyper-motorized Trieste. And in a short story by the same author and written in the same period, Vino generoso [Generous Wine], the protagonist, after getting drunk at the marriage feast of one of his nieces, dreams of being in a cave and of being condemned to death by an obscure rite: nobody wants to take his place. As a consequence the old man doesn’t hesitate and calls out to his daughter not to let him die, indeed he cries out so loud for her that his wife (the usual unaware wife of Svevo’s works) awakens to interpret the death-screams, with paradoxical clarity, as signs of love. Here the infanticide is painted with incestuous tonalities, which cannot be confessed but can perfectly well be dreamt, maybe under the sign

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of Lot. At the end of the story, the old man feels terribly guilty for having fathered creatures that are condemned to die or to be devoured, sacrificed by their father. But Svevo seasoned these plots with continuous witz. His Jewish humour spreads grotesque sophisms which, besides denying the unequivocal truth of the words, and fluctuating between the falsehood of every confession and the authenticity of every simulation, grow of themselves into a welter of witty remarks, a firework of paradoxes and bon mots that transform the living-room in Trieste into a sophisticated comedy that recalls Wilde, and in which we can catch a glimpse of a nihilistic, medusa-like face. There is a recent painting by Lucien Freud, made around 2004–2005, with the eloquent title single The Painter is Surprised by a Naked Admirer, that illustrates Svevo’s topic of the Novella del buon vecchio e la bella fanciulla [The Good Old Man and the Beautiful Young Girl], another story illuminated by this gloomy light of desire and death. Here, among other things in the background of the painting, appears the seneh, the burning bush, so important in the story of Moses. It’s a self-portrait, a genre often used by the painter. In the middle of the atelier, in front of the easel, with a canvas that repeats the motif, old Lucien, grandson of the inventor of psychoanalysis, stands in all his private frailty while an adoring young woman lying on the ground clings to his right leg (the girl is naked and barefoot—recalling that the first words of God to Moses were an order to take off his shoes). On the wall in the background, chaotic stains seem to depict exactly the mythical bush, the shrub on fire that burns but never burns out, which speaks to the Prophet and then disappears, becoming pure voice. In the infinity of symbolic interpretations of the sign that are offered positive or negative, by the readings of the midrashin, theophany can include warped and depressing thoughts, the chaotic confusion of negative thoughts which contaminates not only the artist’s but also the human mind, and to which the flame is opposed as the strength of prayer. The young girl, a model, seems to offer her beautiful body in vain to the languor of the artist, and her sensuality is reflected in the stains of the seneh, from where the ram that took Isaac’s place, in accordance with God’s will, might appear. Here too, the comic patterns are not omitted even though the representation is very cruel. Natalia Ginzburg also offers something of Svevo’s lightness, the inclination towards minimalist understatement. Just listen to the cues of her little and slothful play, in a rhythmic sing-song voice that gives moral counterpoint in to her desperation. A black boulevard stands behind

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the apparently banal words, a complex sonata that is revealed by an impalpable score. In her debut play, Ti ho sposato per allegria [I married you for the fun of it] (1968), Ionesco’s nonsense seems to be watered down by Tchechov’s registers, so we are confronted by Pinter’s typical fear of silence, and an obsessive chatter to cover it. Besides, she is characterised by continuous fabrications. What she furiously talks about at the beginning is disavowed and denied at the end, as if it were mere imagination. She is like Zelig, the anti-character who encompasses the interlocutor, who has no structure, is mimetic of the other, and camouflaged. We might recall, perhaps, the chapter “Das Judentum” in Geschlecht und Charakter, the foolish pamphlet by Otto Weiniger, published in 1903, a short time before the young Viennese philosopher, who had converted to Protestantism, committed suicide. In his neurotic love-hate for himself, in his cultural self-denial, he managed a feminisation of the Jew that can increase this panoply of Jewish “types”. On one hand the Platonic type, which is built around the essence of the Jewish spirit, is not interested in fixed borders, and renounces a strong personality; on the other hand he exalts adaptability, assimilation to the other, in a restless movement of borders, without ideological closed systems, and a disposition towards the transcendental. On the other hand, he is locked into a sense of family with a maternal basis, inimical to any impulse to convert whoever is different, and he seems to be disposed to decentralize himself, to turn continuously towards an anxious mobility. The characters of the plays of Svevo and of Natalia Ginzburg seem to represent these stereotypes. But all Jewish modern literature, and in particular the apparently assimilated, from Kafka (for example, A Letter to His Father, Judgment, and Metamorphosis, in which the impulse to selfsacrifice in obedience to the parent is overwhelming) to Schnitzler, can be included in a tragi-comic grouping. The unequivocal judgment and clear and Manichean thought disappear. Shifting moods, a multiplicity of directions and perspective points, and a mixture of registers take their place—just think about the belch and the prayer that Peter Brook insists on seeing in Shakespeare, and in the past of the great classics. That the same concept of combination comes out again in klezmer music, and in the stories by Shalom Aleichem. Here the Yiddish idiom, used as literary language, reaffirms in the use of monologue, and also in the narrative texts, a mixture of humorous registers, thanks to the babel of slang and dialects that is precipitated in the typical linguistic syncretism of that koinè, the original language of the New Testament.

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Humour and More What has all that to do with Abraham’s scene? Humour has always had an apotropaic function; it has always exorcized the cruelest aspects of reality. In post-biblical literature, Rabbinical Judaism reduces the space for laughter, especially during the second Diaspora and after the destruction of the second Temple, because it is regarded as indecorous in times of mourning and trouble. However, sometimes in the Talmudic texts and in the midrashin, laughter and tears live together in perfect unison in the same psychic gesture. In the eighteenth century, it was the Hasidic movement in Eastern Europe that again proposed the taste for joyful apologue, in parallel with popular culture, as a means of revealing the mystic doctrine, in order to make the listener smile, as Busi states. We can ask ourselves whether the Lord is playing with Abraham when He orders him to make the sacrifice, in spite of all the promises of countless descendants He made before. Perhaps the categories of the comic-carnival determined by Michail Bakhtin—for example, the ambivalence between friendship and aversion, between leg-pull and affectivity—could be used to reinterpret the great scene of the attempted sacrifice-infanticide, almost a sublime Purimshpiel. Of course, on other occasions the biblical God can mock the haughtiness of evil, or of the enemies of Israel, producing only a cruel and pitiless derision. But Abraham is not as unlucky as Job, nor does he encounter God’s inexorable and apocalyptic hardness, which shows through in Ecclesiastes. The forms of the comic examined by Vladimir Jankélévitch in his essay The Irony (1936) are what fit best such different scenes, because irony pays homage to the temporality of life, to its precariousness, to the limitation of our destiny, “being for death” in Heidegger, the essence of being as becoming, and consciousness as a stream—irony, then, as a shivering and therapeutic school of disillusion. Among the many references to the critical literature on irony, from the Sophists to Aristotle (via Plato), from Cicero to Quintilian, from the romantic theory of Schlegel to the critique of Hegel, from the Nietzschean unmasking up to Kierkegaard and Bergson, in this essay the main figure of reference remains Socrates. In fact, the Socratic irony invites us to consider everything with detachment, reaching a sort of estrangement from the finished world while revealing for us a divine quiver. Irony overcomes desperation, it thinks about a thing and then says the contrary. It provokes laughter without the desire to laugh and

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coldly mocks without having fun; it is scornful but gloomy. It provokes laughter and immediately freezes it. The ironist discourages all the masks: he is anonymous, like Ulysses, for excess of synonyms; he is the eternal foreign, like the Wandering Jew. Ironic life is pure negation and relativity. Since it is sceptical, it doesn’t believe in anything; nothing is worthwhile, the world being mere vanity. However, it also has a therapeutic function: as a principle that inhibits the feelings, it frees us from disillusion; it is the antidote to all the false tragedies, putting into perspective the sorrows that are perceived to be total and eternal. It is a great comforter, a principle of moderation and balance. Can irony be compared with humour? It is customary to assign to the latter a hint of kindness and loving affability that are not allowed to the ironist. Irony is cutting, with a kind of malice and bitter perfidy that excludes indulgence, and it is sometimes disdainful and aggressive. Humour, on the contrary, doesn’t exist without pleasantness. It is the smile of reason. While misanthropic irony maintains a polemic attitude in the relationship with men, humour sympathizes with what is mocked. For this reason, the God of Abraham is a humorist while the God of Job and of the Ecclesiastes is an ironist. No Images God appears to Abraham directly or through an intermediary, an angel. But on the epiphany itself, the holy text must remain indefinite. It’s the voice that more often reveals itself. From the inside, an interior voice, sometimes like in a visionary trance, as in the episode of the agreement between the parties (Genesis 15). It’s the word in its favourite image, as written in Deuteronomy 4: “The Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire”. So Hebraism is more than ever the religion of the Book. And in this territory the word is more valuable than the image. It will be Christianity that, using the symbolic and appealing power of religious images, spreads with a violent motive beyond the Jewish particularity, beyond the pride of being the Chosen People, towards the spiritual universalism peculiar to the evangelical movement. Abraham’s Lord is a hidden God, and for this reason He has to reveal Himself through the believer’s senses, and always in the context of monotheism. In Exodus 20, the iconic prohibition is clearly articulated: “You shall not have other gods besides me. You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or

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in the waters beneath the earth”; it is reaffirmed in Deuteronomy 4 “You heard the sound of the words but you saw no form. There was only a voice”, and ends with the warning “not to degrade yourself by fashioning an idol to represent any figure”. In the beginning, the prohibition against religious images was not aesthetic, nor an explicit rejection of the figurative. But the Rabbinic literature ends by forbidding images in general. More than the image itself, it is its idolatrous cult which is forbidden, because the idol risks eclipsing the original. This God is expected to be solitary, invisible and removed from any figurative representation. Moreover in Genesis 1, God’s creative words are specific: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” In these conditions the Lord addresses Abraham and tells him to believe, in spite of everything, when he hears the terrible voice. In general, synagogues renounce ornaments, an inevitable decision after the destruction of the Temple in 70 B.C. which was the origin of that basic mourning. Probably in order to avoid this interdiction, the Jewish artist became assimilated. But such a fear is not supported only by the image of the golden calf. We should consider also the complementary examples of the Golem and The Dibbuk, both drawn from the Yiddish literature and culture of the beginning of the twentieth century, respectively by Gustav Meyrink and Anski, after passing through cabalist mysticism and occultism. In the first case, a rabbi in sixteenth-century Prague makes from clay the strange, obedient and mute creature with God’s words on its forehead, metaphor for a Messiah who has come in advance to free the Jewish people from captivity and sorrow. In this way the rabbi becomes the demiurge who solves thorny situations, ending the pogroms and the many persecutions, but in this intervention he underlines again the danger of the artist as an idol-maker. His creature in the end becomes uncontrollable, enacting the rebellion of the son against the father and the inevitable transformation into dust. Nevertheless, with the usual ambivalence of the Jewish mythical sign, the statue represents ancient expectations of the collective imagination, a mixture of the angelic and the diabolic. In the second story, the betrayed dead penetrates the girl during the matrimonial rite with another man, and, becoming her incarnation, he kills her; this represents the themes of possession, absence, and invisibility. Let us refer for the last time to an episode of Abraham’s scene that is as important as the one of the attempted infanticide, symmetric and connected to it by the subtext: the announcement of the miraculous pregnancy in Genesis 17. A centenarian Abraham and a ninety-year-

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old Sarah are laughing to themselves in the face of the unexpected gift, irritating the generous God. This scene might be compared to the Immaculate Conception which opens and inaugurates the Christian religion. In that case too there is an angel, perhaps the same that stopped the murderous and obedient arm of Abraham, who was ready to sacrifice his son. In the Christian scene, there is the horror religiosus written about by Kierkegaard in Fear and Trembling (1843), and there isn’t any humoristic note. The sublime in the Virgin who lowers her eyes, bends down and holds her lap fecundated by the Holy Spirit, soon becomes one of the many icons of devotional painting and of great pictorial art. The register used in the Jewish episode, on the contrary, is grotesque, and the name of Yishaq becomes omen, meaning “he will laugh”. In connection with this case, Busi speaks about the “submissive movement” of Abraham in response to the announcement, and of Sarah’s greater irreverence which provokes God’s angry reply, and the establishment a sort of “male complicity” between the Lord and the patriarch. The woman’s reaction is connected with the field of sexuality, conferring on laughter both a physiological and a joking meaning. It is sufficient to cite the next episode in which Hagar’s son laughs at the strange circumstances of his birth; and in the following generation the episode of Abimelek, king of the Philistines, who on looking out of a window sees Isaac and Rebecca laughing and understands that they are not brother and sister. Busi alludes also to the episode of Potiphar that describes the presumed deceptions, proving that the verb Éhq is used in the sense of mocking sexually; while Samson can entertain the Philistines with games, and David celebrating the arrival in Jerusalem of the Holy Ark lays on a big celebration before the Lord, as if enthusiasm overcomes self-control, to such a extent that Saul’s daughter Michal becomes angry, as written in Samuel 6. Conclusion by Way of Stage Direction It is commonly known that one of the basic cores of Judaism is the spasmodic contact with the Holy Scriptures, which are the object of continual interpretative re-reading. The interventions in late antiquity disagree about the set of rules, the halakhah, and the narrative developments of the most suggestive and traumatic episodes, the haggadah, contained in the Mishnah; then come together in various comments in the Talmud of Jerusalem and of Babylon, as well as in the corpus of

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debates and stories that form the rabbinic midrashin of the early Middle Ages, and show a flexibility and a narrative virtually in progress. Furthermore there is a certain vicissitude in every literary myth, especially modern ones. Here is my Abraham, then, who lives in a world marked by the death of God; an Abraham immersed in the present world, transformed into a bank employee who tells the story of an obscure and turbid attempt at infanticide, born by chance and aborted as well by chance. We see him muttering, with a hoarse voice because of the psychotropic drugs and sleepless nights, perhaps because he has been subdued with electric shocks. He is part of a therapeutic community, where confessions are given in turn according to a progression that is decided from on high. There should be something dreadful in him, but there are plenty of comic counterpoints in the over-ambitious petit bourgeois. Sartre’s words come to mind, when in Existentialism is a Humanism (1946), he connects Abraham’s deed to pathology, a motif that recalls the connection with the satanic, in the antipathy between the ethical and the religious highlighted by Kierkegaard. What kind of insanity is this? Simply a banal envy of his son’s youth. Let’s consider again the suggestive reading by the Danish philosopher where it is imagined that Abraham, a “real knight of faith”, hides God’s initiative from his son so that the boy won’t get angry with the Lord. In this way Abraham acts as a monster, a pagan who professes the cult of idols and pretends to practice Satanism, in order to hide the responsibility of the God-Master. My Abraham’s voice should turn out to be hoarse because of medication, with aggressive explosions only when he cites with disgust Sarah’s old age, the dread of Sunday afternoons, the wait in front of the W. C. He is filled with enthusiasm in particular when he recalls his favourite websites with the Russian women, and when he longs for the gymnastic and sporting hobby of being a carpenter with his son. His animosity rises again when he reconstructs, as in an expressionist drama, the conjugal querelles over different pedagogic ideas, and also when he recalls the fight with Isaac, who wouldn’t surrender, sometimes maybe with a surprising tear, a handkerchief in one hand with which he dries his eyes, not because of some sort of repentance but because of his great confusion. Then, in the moment of remembering the stroke, his body should stretch, almost to the redeeming orgasm; and so he could even mime the criminal act, closing his eyes, raising his hand slowly in the air to anticipate the release of the emotional blockage—because by killing his son Isaac, Abraham would be finally free and quit. The last cues should mark the return to the muttering and

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to the doubt as to whether it’s a dream or a real experience, because the character is in an unstable balance between waking and sleep, in a total ambiguity of conscience and senses. Works Cited Anski, S. The Dybbuk. Trans. Golda Werman. The Dybbuk and Other Writings, ed. David Roskies New York: Schocken Books, 1992. Bachtin, Michail. Rabelais and His World. Trans. by Hélène Iswolsky Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. Busi, Giulio. Simboli del pensiero ebraico: Lessico ragionato in settanta voci [Symbols of the Jewish Thought: Lexicon explained in seventy entries], Torino: Einaudi, 1999. D’Annunzio, Gabriele, La figlia di Jorio in Tragedie, Sogni e Misteri. Milan: Mondadori, 1904. Vol. I; translated as The daughter of Jorio: a pastoral tragedy, by Charlotte Porter, Pietro Isola and Alice Henry. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1968. Fish, Harold. A Remembered Future: A Study in Literary Mythology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. Girard, René. Sacrifice. Paris: Seuil, 2002. Jankélévitch, Vladimir, L’ironie [The Irony]. Paris: F. Alcan, 1936. Joyce, James. Ulysses. Ed. with an introduction by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 2004. Kafka, Franz. A Letter to His Father. Trans. Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins. New York: Schocken Books, 1966. ——. Metamorphosis. Trans. and with an introduction by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 2007. Kierkegaard, Søren. Fear and Trembling (1843). Trans. Sylvia Walsh. Eds. Stephen Evans and Sylvia Walsh. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Meyrink, Gustav. The Golem (1915). Trans. Madge Pamberton. Two German Supernatural Novels, ed. E. F. Bleier. New York: Dover Publications, 1976. Momigliano, Arnaldo. Pagine ebraiche [ Jewish Pages]. Torino: Einaudi, 1987. Natalia Ginzburg. Ti ho sposato per allegria: e altre commedie. Torino: Einaudi, 1968. Otto, Rudolf, Das Heilige (1917). The Idea of the Holy: An inquiry into the non rational factor in the idea of divine and its relations to the rational. Trans. John W. Harvey. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958. Pasolini, Pier Paolo. Affabulazione [Story, 1967]. Milano: Garzanti, 1973. Riemer, Judith and Gustav Dreifuss. Abraham: The Man and the Symbol. Trans. from Hebrew Naphtali Greenwood. Wilmett IL: Chiron Publications, 1995. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Existentialism is a Humanism (1946). Trans. Carol Macomber, with an introduction by Annie Cohen-Solal. Ed. John Kulka. New Haven Yale University Press, 2007. Svevo, Italo, La rigenerazione, in Teatro. Milano: Garzanti, 1986. ——. Vino generoso and Novella del buon vecchio e la bella fanciulla. In La novella del buon vecchio e della bella fanciulla. Milano: dall’Oglio, 1965. Translated as The Nice Old Man and the Pretty Girl and other Stories, by L. Collison-Morley, Leonard and Virginia Woolf, London 1930. Van Gennep, Arnold. Rites de passages (1909). Translated as Rites of passage by Monika B. Vizedom amd Gabrielle L. Caffee. Chicago: University Press, 1960. Weiniger, Otto, Geschlecht und Charakter (1903). Translated as Sex and Character: an investigation of fundamental principles by Ladislaus Löb. Eds. Daniel Steuer and Laura Marcus. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.

ABRAHAM Paolo Puppa Translation by Joe Farrell Look, you, stop staring at me like that. Because if you don’t I’m up and off. Understand? Yessir, I’m up and off. This very minute. Doesn’t matter a damn to me. You won’t see me for dust. Think I’m joking? Because I don’t find speaking easy. Stop staring at me! Stop staring. Understand? Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. I told, you, any more of it and I’m on my way. Anyway, I don’t really understand what we’re doing in here. Is this your idea of a joke? It’s up to me to speak, isn’t it? Yes, up to me! I said ‘up to me’, not ‘up me’! What are you at now? Just look at him, what’s got into him! Turning red now, are we? Up to me, I said, up to me, not up me, okay? I meant, it’s my turn. That’s all. There’s nothing more to it. Not now. Those days are gone. Apart from anything else, I’m getting treatment. Yes, treatment. Get it? Could somebody open a window? It’s stifling in here. There’s the stench of people’s bodies. People round here don’t seem to wash very much. The funny thing is, I don’t know myself if I really did the things I am going to talk to you about or just dreamed them. You want me to start? Okay. Well then, emmmm. I’ve got a frog in my throat. Just a minute, please. Right then, every August I used to go for a month to my aunt’s house in Borca di Cadore. The poor people’s Cortina, my wife used to call it. My wife Sara. The old woman. My wife’s a tub of lard, all wrinkly, wobbly cellulite, and every year I had to go with her and the boy to that cold, sunless house. Every August. Year after year. Understand? Every single year. There was a stove, and it burned wood. My wife, the minute we arrived, before the suitcases were even opened, forced me, yessir, forced me to go out to get the provisions. Everything, a bit of everything, from Standa’s. Looked like an atomic war was coming. Might have been America. Because she always wants the fridge full to bursting. Always. Stuff for the whole month. And every time, every bloody time, I used to think, as I was filling the trolley and lifting the bags and sticking them into the boot of the car, I used to think that afterwards I would have the pleasure of taking the boy to cut wood in

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the forest nearby. Because there is a dark, dark forest just behind the house. A real forest, not one of your plastic imitations. At nights, from the window, if the moon is shining, it looks like the coat of a big bear. Yeah, that’s it, like the fur of a great big bear. I know it’s funny, but that’s the effect it had on me. So, after all that shopping, I couldn’t wait to get into the forest with the kid, as she still called him, even though he’s now twelve or thirteen. And I was dying to take him up there, on the path up to the hut, to chop wood and get the house warm and put some muscle on those little girlish shoulders of his. And every time she would scream “Go somewhere else”, or “Don’t take him up there, he’ll catch his death, you know our Isaac has asthma”. But that’s the only way he’s going to get better, I used to say, make a man of him. The fact is that the family was getting on my nerves. And on holiday I was afraid. Year after year, me and, I don’t know if I should say this, that woman, that woman and me, me, me. The thing is, I couldn’t get a hard-on any more. Thank God they’d invented the Internet, with all those great sites, and I would sit and gape and gape and then rush down to the old woman, shake her awake, give her one of my terrible stares, and she’d let me get on with it. And I don’t care if every time, at the beginning, at the first contact—is that the word?—contact, I felt like choking her. She, obviously, didn’t notice a thing. I looked everywhere, my mind all over the place, while I got on with it. I even thought about animals, anything other than those drooping buttocks of hers and that menopausal thick neck. Otherwise, I couldn’t manage. Get me? I thought about something else, anything except her, and that way I came. Know what I mean? But once I got Isaac out of there and up into the woods, I calmed down, couldn’t care less about getting it up. So I took Isaac out, even if it was cold. She started whimpering, and whining, and saying I was a monster, but I just carried on putting on his coat and scarf and boots (didn’t make any difference—clambering up the slope on those spindly little legs of his, he still slid and slithered, no matter what he was wearing). I checked the batteries and there and then I forgot all about the double bed and didn’t care any more about sweating a whole year in the bank just to fill their bellies and watch it them flush it all away down the pan. Because, back in the city, she would stay hour after hour locked up in the toilet. There was one for her and one for the boy: he’d go in there with his comics on Sundays and stay there the whole morning. I would do the work, they would

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eat and then empty their bowels and back to the table again to stuff themselves all over, like beasts. So then, here was me going off as the woodsman, going at it hammer and tongs with the axe and feeling all the better for it. Of course I used an axe. So what if my wife wanted me to take a knife, a penknife! The trees are big and hard, sure they are? We’d go back down, after back-breaking work, man’s work, sweating and worn out by the effort, and then into the shower together. I made Isaac have his shower with me. He didn’t know where to look, but I wanted to see how it was growing, and if it got really hard, with me standing next to him. If he had really got it up with me there, I don’t know what I’d have done, but I’d have done something, to punish him, obviously. Obviously! Under the shower, together, all we could hear was the splash of the water. The pair of us standing there silently, hardly moving, me passing him the shampoo and him never looking me in the eye. But I stared at him, menacingly. If he dared to get it up with me standing next to him, he’d catch it. Catch it from me, obviously. The same thing happened once during military service, years and years ago. But that’s got nothing to do with it. Afterwards, we’d get dried in a rush and put the fire on. It seemed like it was Christmas, in a real family. In the cottage in Borca, there was no Internet and only one bedroom, and one bathroom. Anyway, it must have happened about six months ago, more or less. In the city, the night before setting off for Borca, I had been surfing the whole night and had come five times at the website with those Russian women. Really come, five times. Five times, like I used to when I was twenty. I kept them, what can I say, company. I let myself go, and then I could put up with things for a bit. I made a rough calculation that those five times—I was going on for fifty now—would keep me going for about a month. Get what I mean? But, anyway, I was a bit nervous and drained. That day, after doing the shopping, I dropped Sara in front of the garage so as to avoid any bickering (yes, left her to carry all the various packets and packages and plastic bags and baskets and shopping up to the house) and dragged Isaac off towards the path, my heart in my mouth. I walked fast, teeth clenched, dragging him by the wrist. He moaned a bit, just like his mother. There was nothing but shadows all around. The tops of the pine trees tossed back and forth in the wind. It was at that moment that I realised I had to do something different, to break the unchanging cycle of dinner in front of the television

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and then me getting into more and more of a temper when I saw the bathroom occupied. And I saw my future, with that boy growing up alongside me, and maybe, with all this wood-cutting, getting bigger and bigger, stronger than me. And in the shower together, his little cock carrying on growing while mine drooped more and more, day by day, like a pencil with no point. I was bringing up an enemy in my own house, an enemy who would stand there, whispering to his mother. And I understood, I don’t know how to explain it to you, it was like a voice inside me, funny, isn’t it? I understood that if I chopped off his head, quite suddenly, with one single stroke, bang! bang! bang!, I would feel a whole lot better, much, much better. And maybe I would even like the boy more, afterwards. Pain, after all, is much more soothing than a rage, isn’t it? And I imagined to myself, I mean, I already savoured the scene of his face rolling down the pathway between the pine cones and the stones and the dust and the dog shit. And I felt the languor of remorse in my stomach, and I even found Isaac’s face gentle and noble, that foolish, ordinary pimply face, swollen up with crisps and too much television. So I started throwing him to the ground, began lifting the axe with my right hand while with the other, and with one knee, I held him down, but he wriggled about and wouldn’t stay still. He would not do what he was told, that kid. Even seemed to be rebelling against me! And I felt all his hatred for me, there’s no other word, his hatred for me, coming out. So there he was, wriggling about and baying like a dog. It was a lovely, relaxing sight. I could even feel my thing going hard as it never had before. It was great to feel it sharp, bursting out of my trousers the way it used to when I picked up a prostitute, in my younger days. But what are you doing, what are you doing, I asked him, and I was just about to bring down the axe and free myself from that heavy darkness inside me, but just then, at that very moment, a little light went on across the way in the mountain hut I thought was closed up, and the owner and his wife came out and started doing something to their car. So I picked up the boy and even dusted him down with my hand. I picked up the wood and threw it into the basket; my breath grew shorter and shorter and Isaac was whimpering and blowing his nose. We went down in silence, surrounded by the darkness, there was no moon in that August dusk. I kept on telling him over and over it was all a joke, or a kind of wrestling trick, so that if some day he was to run into some Albanians or Slavs, as Sara kept on telling him he might, he would at least know how to defend himself. On the way down, Isaac was crying, he kept on falling over

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and mumbling to himself “I’m telling Mummy, that’s what I’m going to do, I’m telling Mummy”. Meantime, I kept on turning over in my mind what I’d say to the newspapers and the bank, afterwards, if that old fool hadn’t come out of his hut. And here I am, ready to talk, but I still don’t know if I really did it or only dreamt it.

IJS Studies in Judaica Conference Proceedings of the Institute of Jewish Studies, University College London ISSN 1570-1581 1. Denman, H., Isaac Bashevis Singer: His Work and his World. 2002. ISBN 978 90 04 12564 3 2. Berkowitz, M., Nationalism, Zionism and Ethnic Mobilization of the Jews in 1900 and Beyond. 2004. ISBN 978 90 04 13184 2 3. Pomeroy, H. and Alpert, M., Proceedings of the Twelfth British Conference on Judeo-Spanish Studies, 24–26 June, 2001: Sephardic Language, Literature and History. 2004. ISBN 978 90 04 13956 5 4. Shaked, S., Officina Magica: Essays on the Practice of Magic in Antiquity. 2005. ISBN 978 90 04 14459 0 5. Geller, M.J. and Schipper, M., Imagining Creation. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15765 1 6. Jacobson, D.M. and Kokkinos, N., Herod and Augustus: Papers Presented at the IJS Conference, 21st–23rd June 2005. 2009. 978 90 04 16546 5 7. Fraenkel, C., Traditions of Maimonideanism. 2009. 978 90 04 17333 0 8. Nahshon, E., Jewish Theatre: A Global View. 2009. ISBN 978 90 04 17335 4