In the beginning of the eighteenth century two plays written in
Judeo-German appeared in print, 'The Sale of Joseph' and the
'Ahasuerus-play.'[111] They were intended for scenic representation on
the feast of Purim, which even before that time had been given to mimic
performances. These mysteries, together with another written at about
the same time, 'David and Goliath,' have held uninterrupted sway up to
our own time wherever the Jargon has been spoken. Schudt has left us in
his 'Jüdische Merkwürdigkeiten'[112] a detailed account of the
popularity of one of these plays from the start, of the manner of its
performance at the house of the Rabbi of Mannheim, of the formation of
the first travelling company for the execution of the drama at other
towns, and many other interesting facts connected with it. These
mysteries differ little from the coarse comedies and burlesques current
at the time among the Gentiles, from whom, no doubt, many of the details
were borrowed. Soon many imitations of the original 'Ahasuerus-play'[113]
and 'The Sale of Joseph' came to rival the older plays in popularity.
Of the first a form is known to me in which the Leckerläufer is
substituted for the original Pickleherring, the grotesque harlequin,
while of the second I possess at least two widely different versions,
not to speak of Zunser's large drama of the same subject. Altogether,
this matter has not, as far as I know, been properly investigated, so
that little can be said with certainty about the relations that they
bear to each other. 'The Sale of Joseph,' or 'The Greatness of Joseph,'
as it is frequently called, was translated at the end of the last or the
beginning of this century into Judeo-German by Elieser Pawier from the
original Hebrew under the title 'Milchomo be-Scholom.' It is a much more
serious production than the older work, and this, rather than the one
printed in 1710, has lain at the foundation of future adaptations. At
least one, the versified drama under the name of 'Geschichte vun
Mechiras Jōssef u-Gdulas Jōssef,' published in 1876 in Jusefov,
distinctly claims to be a translation from the same Hebrew source. How
many such plays have been actually performed it is not possible to
determine now without a more careful inquiry among older men in various
parts of Russia. There have just come to light a number of mysteries
once popular in the Government of Kowno, while some have been printed
within our own days. Such, for example, is 'The Book of the Wisdom of
Solomon,' which is based on the Biblical story of Solomon's life, but
which contains also Talmudical commentaries on certain facts connected
with his reign. The latest, and by far the best, drama on the 'Sale of
Joseph' comes from the pen of Zunser, who not only has given it a
literary finish, but has perused all the sources that throw any light on
several difficult points connected with the play, and has furnished in
some perplexing problems solutions of his own, so as to make the whole
uniform and historically correct. In his introduction he mentions a few
important facts about the popularity of the subject, and the manner of
its performance, or recitation. He says: "No other story from our Holy
Scripture has made such an impression or has become so known to the
masses of the Jews as the 'Sale of Joseph.' ... As far back as we can
remember it has been played among us by beggar-students, or by the
old-fashioned badchens at weddings."
It is not uncommon to see a performance of this play given at the
present time in some small town. The actors are generally the
beggar-students who have to play both the male and female parts, as no
women are allowed to perform together with the men. Some large
unoccupied room is furnished with benches on which the sexes are
generally seated separately. The stage is of the most primitive
character, without decorations of any kind; and the actors like to
parade in fantastic clothes which have nothing in common with the
historical truth. Either the whole of the play, or at least certain
passages are sung according to traditional tunes. In the 'Sale of
Joseph' it is always the monologue of Joseph before his mother's grave
upon which the greatest care is bestowed, as it is the most pathetic
part of the drama. It is probably the prototype of M. Gordon's ballad of
'The Stepmother' and similar popular versions, for in them, as in
Gordon's version, Joseph's mother sends up her consoling words to her
son from her grave. An excellent description of such a performance is
given in Dienesohn's 'Herschele,'[114] where the hero of the novel plays
the part of Joseph.
These mysteries are not the only form of histrionic art. On the Purim,
many masqueraders may be seen passing from house to house, followed by a
curious crowd of children, anxious to catch a glimpse of the strange
mummery of men and impossible animals. In some places the children and
even grown persons manage to enter the house either by sheer force, or
under the proverbial pretext that they are the "bear's brother." The
actors begin in a chanting way: "Good evening, my good people, do you
know what Purim means?" after which they proceed with the explanation
and the performance of some grotesque scene. Each group has its own
Purim play, which is generally some unrecognizable fragment of the
'Ahasuerus-play,' but frequently also some original production which is
jealously guarded from being imitated by rival boy performers. There is
no merit in them, but an investigation even of this form of the Purim
play might bring out some interesting points or bits of antiquity. The
length of the burlesque is graded according to the expectation of the
final monetary reward, to which they allude with the stereotyped phrase:
"The play is out, give us a coin, and throw us out of doors!"[115]
The possibility is not excluded that in addition to this semi-religious
form of the drama, there may also have been given performances of
profane plays at an early date in Russia. It is not known whether any of
the dramas written by Aksenfeld, Gottlober, or Ettinger have been played
by amateur actors, but we have at least one well-attested case of a
performance of that kind in 1855,--twenty years before the
establishment of the Judeo-German theatre by Goldfaden. In that year
the students of the Zhitomir Rabbinical school celebrated the coronation
of Emperor Alexander II. by a play in which the life of the Jewish
soldier and the kahal were depicted. This drama is said to have been
written by one Kamrasch, but never to have been printed. It is also
asserted that it served as the first impulse to Goldfaden to create a
Jewish theatre, which, however, he realized only much later.
There existed a dramatic literature long before Goldfaden. We have had
occasion to mention the works of Ettinger, Aksenfeld, Gottlober,
Abramowitsch, Falkowitsch, Levinsohn, Epstein. After the popular poetry
a semi-dramatic style was better calculated to impress the people with
the new culture than simple prose, which at that time had not been well
worked out. Nearly all of the prose style of the early days is more or
less affected by the drama, and even Abramowitsch has not entirely got
away from it. Nearly all of his stories are introduced by the
stereotyped words: "Says Mendele Mōcher Sforim," and there are other
similar dramatic effects scattered through them. This, which is an
imitation of Hebrew originals, has also been the usual way of
introduction with other Judeo-German writers of the early days. The
drama of Ettinger is entirely constructed after the manner of a German
play, has five acts, and the laws of dramaturgy are carefully carried
out. It really looks as though he had intended it for the stage. In
Aksenfeld the adaptation to the stage is less apparent, while the others
do not seem to have had the performance of their plays in mind at all.
What is surprising is that Aksenfeld and Gottlober should have
introduced in their dramas a number of couplets and songs which have no
meaning unless they were meant to be sung by the actors. Possibly they
followed the precedent of familiar German plays even in this particular,
without any other purpose before them; or it may be that they foresaw
the possibility of their future representation and thought it best to
imitate the Purim plays, which had always some songs intermingled with
the spoken dialogue of the actors.
In 1872 Goldfaden published two of his comedies.[116] The first, 'The
Two Neighbors,' is a splendid farce, in which two women are discussing
the prospective marriage of their two babies playing on the floor. The
children get to fighting, and one of them is hurt. This changes the tone
of their mothers, and they heap curses on each other in the vilest
manner. The other, 'Aunt Sosie,' is the best he has ever written. We do
not find in it the rant of his later dramas, and the subject is taken
strictly from Jewish life. Aunt Sosie is a woman of the type of Serkele.
She is anxious to get her sister married, and maltreats her husband's
niece. Her husband is under her thumb. By the aid of his friend Ispanski
he manages to cheat his wife and to get his niece married to his wife's
brother. Sosie is about to marry her sister to a Lithuanian Jew, a
cloak-maker, who is already married to another woman. His lawful wife
comes in time to prevent the bigamy of her husband. It is easy to see
that the whole is a close imitation of Ettinger's comedy.
During the Turco-Russian War, in 1876 and 1877, the city of Bukarest in
Roumania presented a lively spectacle. It was the seat of the Russian
staff, and all the news from the field of war was carried there, and all
the contracts for the commissariat were let there. The city swarmed with
Jews from Russia and Galicia, who had come there to find, in one way or
another, some means to earn a fortune. Bukarest became a Mecca of all
those who did not succeed at home. And, indeed, as long as the war
lasted most of them managed to fill their pockets. With the easily
gotten gains there came also a desire to be amused, and coffee-houses
were crowded by Jews who came to them to listen to the songs of some
local ballad singer. It was also not uncommon for such singers to give
performances of their art in private houses to assembled guests.
Goldfaden had also come there in the hope of bettering his condition. It
occurred to him that he might widen the activity of the balladists by
uniting several of them into a company for the sake of theatrical
performances. This he did at once. Bearing in mind the fact that Jews
had not been used to the regular drama, but that they were fond of
music, he wrote hurriedly half a dozen light burlesques, mostly
imitations of French originals, in which the songs written and set to
music by him were the most important thing. There is no other merit
whatsoever in the plays, as their Jewish setting is merely such in name,
and as otherwise the plot is too trivial.[117] But the songs have
survived in the form of popular ballads. It is interesting to note that
this first Roumanian troupe consisted exclusively of men, who had also
to take the women's parts.
After the conclusion of the war, in 1878, Goldfaden returned to Odessa,
where he established a regular Jewish theatre.[118] Women were added to
the personnel, and a number of writers began to write plays specially
adapted for the stage. Katzenellenbogen, Lerner, Schaikewitsch,
Lilienblum, and the founder of the theatre were busy increasing the
repertoire. Of these, Katzenellenbogen was the most original and most
literary. It does not appear that his dramas have been printed, but the
songs taken out of several of them and issued by him in a volume of his
poetry attest a high merit in them. Lerner was satisfied with
reproducing some of the best German plays in a Jewish garb. Of these he
later published, 'Uncle Moses Mendelssohn,' a one-act drama; a
translation of Gutzkow's 'Uriel Acosta'; a rearrangement of Scribe's
'The Jewess'; and a historical drama, 'Chanuka,' of which the original
is not mentioned by him. The dramas of the other two are quite weak, but
they do not yet indicate that degree of platitude which they have
reached later in America. The success of the theatre was complete. The
original company divided in two, and one part began to play
independently under the leadership of Lerner, while the other started on
a tour through the Jewish cities of Russia, visiting Kharkov, Minsk, and
even Moscow and St. Petersburg. In many towns they were received with
open hands, in others the intelligent classes saw in the formation of a
specifically Jewish theatre a menace to the higher intelligence which
was trying to emancipate itself from the Judeo-German language and all
its traditions. They went so far as to get the police's prohibition
against the performances of Goldfaden's troupe.
This procedure was only just in so far as it affected the character of
the plays, for there was nothing in them to recommend them as means of
elevating or educating the masses. They had had their origin at a time
when amusement was the only watchword, and they had had no time to
evolve new phases. Seeing that in order to succeed he would have to
furnish something more substantial than his farces, Goldfaden produced
in succession three historical dramas: 'Doctor Almosado,' 'Sulamith,'
and 'Bar-Kochba,' to which at a later time were added 'Rabbi Joselmann,
or the Persecution in Alsace,' 'King Ahasuerus, or Queen Esther,' and
'The Sacrifice of Isaac,' and a fantastic opera, 'The Tenth
Commandment.' None of these are, properly speaking, dramas, but operas
or melodramas. They have at least the merit of being placed on a
historical or Biblical basis and of following good German models. Their
popularity has been very great, and the many songs which they contain,
especially those from 'Sulamith' and 'Bar-Kochba,' rank among the
author's best and most widely known. The latter two operas were
translated into Polish, and given in a theatre in Warsaw. Just as the
Jewish theatre was entering on its new course of the historical drama,
the Government, by a rescript of September, 1883, closed them in Russia,
and this was followed later by another prohibition of Jewish
performances at Warsaw, where the first law had been obviated by giving
them in the so-called German theatre.
About that time two young men, Tomaschewski and Golubok, of New York,
started a theatre in New York. The troupe consisted of actors who had
just arrived from London, where they found it too difficult to establish
themselves. The first performance was given in the Fourth Street Turner
Hall. As formerly in Russia, the Reformed Jews of the city used their
utmost efforts to prevent the playing of a Jewish comedy, but in vain.
It was given in spite of all remonstrances and threats. After that the
theatre was permanently established in the Bowery Garden, under the name
of the Oriental Theatre, which soon passed under the directorship of J.
Lateiner. In 1886 another theatre, The Roumania Opera House, was opened
in the old National Theatre, at 104-106 Bowery. It would not be
profitable to enter into the further vicissitudes of the companies,
their jealousies and ridiculous pretensions at equalling the best
American troupes. Unfortunately, the authors upon whom they had to
depend for their repertoires were Lateiner, Hurwitz, and other worthy
followers of Schaikewitsch, who by rapid steps brought the Jewish stage
down to the lowest degrees of insipidity. Not satisfied with producing
dramas from a sphere they knew something about, they began to imitate,
or rather corrupt, existing foreign plays, to give foolish versions of
'Mary Stuart,' 'Don Carlos,' 'Trilby,' and similar popular dramas. There
were, indeed, some men who might have saved the stage from its frightful
degeneration, but the theatre managers would not listen to them,
preferring to pander to the low taste of the masses by giving them
worthless productions that bore some distant resemblance to the
performances in the lower grades of American theatres.
Only during a short period of time, early in the nineties, it looked as
though things were going to be improved, for the managers accepted a
number of adaptations and original plays by J. Gordin. Gordin belonged
to that class of educated men who, though they had been carried across
the ocean with one of the waves that bore the Jewish masses from Russia
to the shores of the United States, had never stood in any relation
whatsoever to their fellow-emigrants. He had been a Russian journalist,
and in America he was confronted with the alternative of devoting
himself to Judeo-German literature or starving. He naturally chose the
first. Although he had had a good literary training, he had never before
written a word in the vernacular of his people. At first he tried
himself in the composition of short sketches from the life of the
Russian Jews, and finding that his articles found a ready acceptance
with the Judeo-German press, he attempted dramatic compositions. He has
translated, adapted, or composed in all more than thirty plays, of
which, however, only one has been printed. As his large variety of
dramas give a good idea of the condition of the stage during its best
period, they will be shortly mentioned here. Among the translations we
find Ibsen's 'Nora'; among the adaptations we have Victor Hugo's 'Ruy
Blas,' 'Hernani'; Lessing's 'Nathan the Wise'; Schiller's 'Kabale und
Liebe,' under the name of 'Rōsele'; 'The Parnes-chōdesch,' from Gogol's
'The Inspector'; 'Elischewa' and 'Dworele,' imitations of two of
Ostrovski's comedies; Grillparzer's 'Medea'; and 'Meir Esofowitsch,' on
a subject taken from Mrs. Orzeszko's novel of the same name. Several of
his plays display more original creative power. Of these it will
suffice to mention: 'The Wild Man,' treating of the degeneration among
the Jews; 'The Jewish Priest,' illustrating the struggle between the
progressive Jews and the old orthodox factions; 'The Russian Jew in
America,' dealing with the condition of the Russian Jews in New York;
'The Pogrom,' in which the late riots against the Jews in Russia are
depicted.
Gordin and a few other men, such as Rosenfeld, Korbin, Winchevsky, might
have introduced new blood and life into the Jewish drama, but the
managers and the silly actors who in their pride permit their names to
go down on the billboards as second Salvinis and Booths have willed
otherwise. But then they are following in this the common course pursued
by all dying literatures, and they are not, after all, to be blamed more
than the public that permits such things, and the public in its turn is
merely succumbing rapidly to the influence of American institutions,
which before long will overwhelm peaceably, but none the less surely,
the Jewish theatre and the Judeo-German language. Before the inevitable
shall happen, they have attempted to cling to their old traditions; but
it is only a very faint glimpse of their old life they are getting now,
and in the very weak performances that one may still see on the Jewish
stage there is already a great deal more of the reflex of their new home
than the glow of their old. It is very doubtful whether the Jewish
theatre can subsist in America another ten years.
Of late the theatre has been revived in Galicia and Roumania; if I am
not mistaken, there exists also a Jewish theatre in Warsaw. The plays
performed there are mainly the productions of Goldfaden, Lerner, and a
few other writers of the older period. Occasionally a play is given
there that has previously been played in New York. If the theatre is to
survive in Europe, it will naturally develop quite independently from
the American stage. It must remain more national if it is at all to be
Jewish. And such we really find it to be. In addition to the several
dramas mentioned throughout the book there might be added David Sahik's
'A Rose between Thorns' and Sanwill Frumkis's 'A Faithful Love,' which
are among the best comedies produced in Judeo-German.
Excepting the peculiar development of the theatre in America, the
Judeo-German drama has remained more or less a popular form of poetry.
In the form of Goldfaden's farces we may see an evolution of the
farcical Purim plays, while his historical dramas stand in very much the
same relation to our time that the mysteries occupied two centuries ago.
Similarly the theatre, even at its best, has remained of a primitive
nature.