Yiddish Drama
Unlike the situation with Yiddish poetry, Yiddish drama in America is somewhat better known, even among people who may be only slightly familiar with Yiddish. For while it lasted Yiddish theater in New York City. . . enjoyed an enviable popularity. . . When the story [of that theater] is finally told it will stress the importance of a few ingenious producers, a few able and imaginative directors, several fabulously popular actors and actresses, and a dozen leading playwrights. It is th e playwrights that I wish to dwell on briefly here.
First among them is Abraham Goldfaden (1840-1908), whose earliest attempts at drama in the town of Jassy, Rumania, in the year 1876, are generally recognized as the start of professional Yiddish theater. . . He wrote a great many [plays] - comedies about Jewish ghetto life, historical and biblical melodramas, dramas of Jewish national aspiration, and operettas - and although their literary value is questionable, Gold faden's plays, immensely popular and among the first in the repertoire of Yiddish theater, are of certain historical value
Two playwrights who succeeded in carrying the Goldfaden tradition to America and winning for it in New York even more success than it enjoyed in Europe. . . were Moshe Hurwitz (1844-1910) and Jacob Lateiner (1853-1935), whose countless me lodramas were never in favor with the intelligentsia of the Lower East Side by were so popular with the less educated among the immigrant masses that they dominated Yiddish theater during the decade of the 1890's and after
It was Jacob Gordin (1853-1909), the most celebrated of New York's Yiddish playwrights, who turned Yiddish drama away from melodrama and who is generally credi ted with reforming it. Gordin came to America from his native Russia in 1891, and in the following year his most famous play, Der Yudisher Kenig Lir ("The Jewish King Lear") was staged in New York with Jacob Adler in the lead role. It was an im mediate success, and although [it] by no means chased the melodramas of Lateiner and Hurwitz off the boards, it did initiate a new era in American Yiddish theater
Also in the Collection are the plays of Leon Kobrin (1873-1946) and Z. Libin (1872-1955) , Gordin's two most distinguished allies and playwrights who wrote in the tradition of dramatic realism newly introduced into the Yiddish theater by him. Of the playwrights who came after Gordin, six stand out. They are David Pinski (1872-1959), Peretz Hirshbein (1880-1948), Sholem Asch (1 880-1957), H. Leivick (1888-1962), Ossip Dymow (1878-1959) and Fishl Bimko (1890-1965).
Among theater critics David Pinski vies with Hirshbein as the formost playwright of the Yiddish Art Theater movement in America. A disciple of Peretz, Pinski frequently found his subject matter in the lives of the poor and underprivilege d, but he was a good enough artist to transmute his material and raise the level of the proletarian drama, of which he is considered one of the masters. . . While [H. Leivick is] celebrated chiefly as a poet, he was also respected as a dramatist, and at l east one of his plays, The Golem, has won a lasting place in Yiddish drama.
Special if only passing reference must be made to a grouping of fifty-three Yiddish plays and operettas in manuscript that [forms] a part of the Vaxer Collection. Written out in Yiddish script into bound notebooks or on separate pages, t hese may have been versions used by directors and actors in the Folksbiene, Maurice Schwartz's Yiddish Art Theater, or one of the other New York theater groups. Most are in fair condition and some carry marginal notes in Yiddish and Russian. Wh ether or not the authors of the manuscripts were in some cases the authors of the plays is unknown. In certain instances it is clear that they were not.
Yiddish Music
The Vaxer Collection includes a sizeable collection of Jewish music, over 850 pieces of piano-vocal or instrumental music. It has been added to in recent years by collections of the publications of Metro Music, and other New York Yiddish- language music publishers from the 1880s through the 1940s; today the Collection contains nearly 2,000 items. Its focus is on the Yiddish-language musical stage of the period, and includes many photographs of performers (often in costume) and composers.
Also to be noted are the Yiddish song books and song albums. . . these include collections by Michl Gelbart, Samuel Bugatch, D. Meyerowitz, and others. . . The songs of Eliakum Zunser (1840-1913), the most celebra ted of the badchonim and in his day a vastly popular Yiddish folksinger, have been obtained in various editions
Of particular importance. . . is a group of twenty-five musical scores to musical operettas by the Jewish composer, Peretz Sandler. These are all in manuscript form, i n pen or pencil notation, and have been well preserved. . . These are all well known pieces (some are classics of the Yiddish musical stage.
Sheet Music Collection
The Library's Sheet Music Collection is the repository for the Yiddish-American sheet music from the original Vaxer Collection, and added since that time from other sources. There are finding aids to the Collection available in the Librar y. In addition to the Yiddish-language music, there are related small collections of Russian-language and other Slavic-language sheet music.
Many American popular composers of the first half of the twentieth century were familiar with Yiddish-language musical theatre, and grew up steeped in the culture. Their works are present in great numbers in the Sheet Music Collection, pa rticularly in the sections of the Collection devoted to the Broadway stage.
Brandeis University Library has a Yiddish Music Collection with a finding aid on its web site.
This online exhibition
This online exhibition is a small sample of the holdiings of Yiddish sheet music at Brown University Library. Currently, the public-domain sheet music is being digitized (2002) a searchable site is on display here
Essential References
Handbook of American-Jewish literature : an analytical guide to topics, themes, and sources / Lewis Fried, editor-in-chief ; Gene Brown, Jules Chametzky, Louis Harap, advisory editors
New York : Greenwood Press, 1988
Heskes, Irene
Passport to Jewish Music. Its History, traditions and culture.
Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1985
Heskes, Irene
The resource book of Jewish music : a bibliographical and topical guide to the book and journal literature and program materials
Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1985
Heskes, Irene
Yiddish American popular songs, 1895 to 1950 : a catalog based on the Lawrence Marwick roster of copyright entries
Washington : Library of Congress, 1992
Lifson, David S.
The Yiddish theatre in America
New York, T. Yoseloff [c1965]
The New York times great songs of the Yiddish theater / arr. for voice, piano, and guitar; lyrics transliterated [and music editing by Zalmen Mlotek] ; selected by Norman H. Warembud ; foreword by Molly Picon
[New York] : Quadrangle/New York Times Book Co., [c1975]
Nulman, Macy
Concise encyclopedia of Jewish music
New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co. [1975]
Rosenfeld, Alvin H.
Yiddish poets and playwrights of America; a preliminary report on a recent addition to the Harris Collection
Providence, R.I., Brown University, 1968
Rosenfeld, Lulla
The Yiddish theatre and Jacob P. Adler. Introduction by Harold Clurman
2nd revised edition
New York, NY : Shapolsky Publishers, 1988
Sandrow, Nahma
Vagabond stars : a world history of Yiddish theater
New York : Harper & Row, [c1977]
Slobin, Mark
The music of the Yiddish theater : manuscript sources at YIVO
[New York : Yivo Insititute for Jewish Research, 1983]
Slobin, Mark
Tenement songs : the popular music of the Jewish immigrants
Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c1982
Yiddish Theatre in America. Edited by Mark Slobin.
New York: Garland Pub., 1994
The translations of the titles are from Irene Heskes' excellent book,Yiddish American Popular Songs 1895 to 1950. A catalog based on the Lawrence Marwick roster of copyright entries.(Washington: Library of Congress, 1992).
Contact :
John Hay Library . Brown University
Box A . 20 Prospect Street . Providence, Rhode Island 02912
401-863-3723 (phone) . 401-863-2093 (fax)
e-mail hay@brown.edu web : http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/
(2196)
Additional Research and Collections
|
There are currently no comments about this article
|
|
