THE JAZZ SINGER
BY
SAMSON RAPHAELSON
(Based on his story, “The Day of Atonement,” in
_Everybody’s Magazine_, January, 1922.)
NEW YORK
BRENTANO’S
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1925, by
SAMSON RAPHAELSON
All rights, including stage, motion picture, and amateur production,
are reserved. No performance or public reading may be given without the
written consent of the author, or his recognized agents. Application
should be made to the author, in care of his publishers.
_Printed in the United States of America_
To
Albert Lewis
_A gentleman from the East Side and a scholar from Broadway_
_FOREWORD_
I wish to express my gratitude to Albert Lewis, who directed and
produced “The Jazz Singer” and who, in the long hours of many days and
nights, gave values to the play and stage wisdom to me which I hope
never to forget; to Stuart Sherman, who encouraged me when my faith
lagged; and to the members of the cast, especially George Jessel and
Sam Jaffe, for the many happy touches they have contributed.
Samson Raphaelson.
_PREFACE_
American life, in this year 1925, consists essentially of surfaces.
You may point out New England communities and say here is depth, and
I will answer, true, but New England is dead so far as the America of
now is concerned. You may show me an integrity in the West where a
century ago pioneers came, and I will answer, that integrity resides
with the elders and not with the mightier young ones. He who wishes to
picture today’s America must do it kaleidoscopically; he must show you
a vivid contrast of surfaces, raucous, sentimental, egoistical, vulgar,
ineffably busy—surfaces whirling in a dance which sometimes is a dance
to Aphrodite and more frequently a dance to Jehovah.
In seeking a symbol of the vital chaos of America’s soul, I find
no more adequate one than jazz. Here you have the rhythm of frenzy
staggering against a symphonic background—a background composed of
lewdness, heart’s delight, soul-racked madness, monumental boldness,
exquisite humility, but principally prayer.
I hear jazz, and I am given a vision of cathedrals and temples
collapsing and, silhouetted against the setting sun, a solitary figure,
a lost soul, dancing grotesquely on the ruins.... Thus do I see the
jazz singer.
Jazz is prayer. It is too passionate to be anything else. It is prayer
distorted, sick, unconscious of its destination. The singer of jazz
is what Matthew Arnold said of the Jew, “lost between two worlds,
one dead, the other powerless to be born.” In this, my first play, I
have tried to crystallize the ironic truth that one of the Americas of
1925—that one which packs to overflowing our cabarets, musical revues
and dance halls—is praying with a fervor as intense as that of the
America which goes sedately to church and synagogue. The jazz American
is different from the dancing dervish, from the Zulu medicine man, from
the negro evangelist only in that he doesn’t know he is praying.
I have used a Jewish youth as my protagonist because the Jews are
determining the nature and scope of jazz more than any other race—more
than the negroes, from whom they have stolen jazz and given it a new
color and meaning. Jazz is Irving Berlin, Al Jolson, George Gershwin,
Sophie Tucker. These are Jews with their roots in the synagogue. And
these are expressing in evangelical terms the nature of our chaos today.
You find the soul of a people in the songs they sing. You find the
meaning of the songs in the souls of the minstrels who create and
interpret them. In “The Jazz Singer” I have attempted an exploration of
the soul of one of these minstrels.
Samson Raphaelson.
New York, October, 1925.
_CAST OF CHARACTERS_
Cast of characters in the first production of “The Jazz Singer,” by
Lewis and Gordon in association with Sam H. Harris at the Fulton
Theatre, New York City, Sept. 15, 1925.
CANTOR RABINOWITZ _Mr. Howard Lang_
MOEY _Mr. George Shafer_
SARA RABINOWITZ _Miss Dorothy Raymond_
YUDELSON _Mr. Sam Jaffe_
JACK ROBIN _Mr. George Jessel_
CLARENCE KAHN _Mr. Robert Russel_
GENE _Mr. Ted Athey_
EDDIE CARTER _Mr. Barney Fagan_
HARRY LEE _Mr. Arthur Stewart Hull_
MARY DALE _Miss Phoebe Foster_
RANDOLPH Dillings _Mr. Robert Hudson_
MISS GLYNN _Miss Mildred Leaf_
FRANKLYN FORBES _Mr. Paul Byron_
A STAGE DOORMAN—JIMMY _Mr. Tony Kennedy_
LEVY _Mr. Nat Freyer_
SIX CHORUS GIRLS _Misses Mildred Jay, Ruth Holden, Eleanor Ryan,
Mildred McDonough, Viola Thomas, Betty Wilton,
Rita Crane_
A SCENE SHIFTER _Mr. Jack Hill_
DOCTOR O’SHAUGHNESSY _Mr. Tony Kennedy_
THE JAZZ SINGER
_SYNOPSIS OF SCENES_
ACT I—_The home of the Cantor on the East Side. The_ 14_th of
August, afternoon._
ACT II
SCENE 1—_About a month later. Back-stage at the Fulton Theatre,
New York._