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THE DETROIT JEWISH 'CHRONICLE
PAGE TWO
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ICopsTiglit, 1920, by the American Jewish World).
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A
COMPLETE survey of the Jew in
" the drama would take us from
Mir:am with drum in hand singing the
.11I1serance of Israel to Elmer E. Rice,
coca ged in producing melodramic plays
.,td Cannel Myers posing for the screen.
Of course. such •a task could In em-
bodied in nothing short of half a dozen
man-sized volumes.
With so much space at his command
the writer could review adequately the
place of the Jew in the ancient drama,
I oth in Hebrew and in alien tongues,
could pass the inactive dark centuries
after the fall of Rome. and could pause
to give a few chapters /0 the Tenteli-
Hebrew drama, when the more enlight-
ened European peoples began to busy
themselves seriously with the stage.
He could devote the adequate space the
subject merits, to the dramatic efforts
of such men and women of the last
century as Heinrich Ileine, Jachel Julius,
Leopold Klein, Max Nordan Theodor
Herd, and many others.
But limited to a few magazine pages,
the best one may hope to accomplish is
to give a glimpse of the Jews of our
own day who are in the front ranks of
the world's dramatic activities, showing
them as playwrites, actors, and pro-
ducers both on the "legitimate" stage
and in the movies. Incidentally a few
names of those in the middle ranks or
even at the rear may find their way
into this article.
Adequate space, however, is not the
only difficulty. The stage, more per-
haps than any other field of human
endeavor, has a tendency to efface all
prominent racial differences. Richard
Mansfield was a perfect Anglo-Saxon,
and yet he is said to have had Jewish
blood in his veins. D'Antitinzio, the
great Italian poet-dramatist, "is a perfect
Latin—and some say that he has that
blood in him which flowed in the veins
of King David and Spinoza," assures us
Benjamin De Casseres in the New York
Times.
For Gentlewomen
I
232
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HARRY WEISS'
European Jewish Playwrights
RESTAURANT
now located at
64 BROADWAY
ft-
New Detroit Opera House
MR. LEON KRIM
presents
THE DISTINGUISHED YIDDISH ACTRESS
Mme Malvina Loebel
With an All Star Cast of Selected Players
SUNDAY, Matinee and Evening, SEPTEMBER 26
I n A Great Comedy Drama
"THE UNWELCOME WIFE"
JOSEFF BROS.
KOSHER
Restaurant and Delicatessen
292 Woodward, Cor. Elizabeth
Cadillac 681
The Place Where You Will Meet the People You Know
At the Josef( Bros. Restaurant and to the splendid deliciousness of
good, pure food wholesomely prepared Is added the pleasures of a
friendly chat with the people you Ilke to meet and talk with.
In the English-speaking world Israel
Zangwill is perhaps the best known of
all the Jewish playwrights. From the
first presentation on the stage of his
"Children of the Ghetto" to his last
drama which came to my attention,
"The Next Religion," Zangsvill shows
himself the big, powerful son of Israel
that he is, sneaking in the voice of a
mighty prophet. Ills message is always
bold, fearless, often aggressive, making
for the pulsating life and hope that
comes from looking courageously into
the future. Ile possesses many of the
faults of the artist with whom the
matter and not the manner is of supreme
importance. When he takes the atti-
tude of attack, and the ardor of the
elemental man makes itself felt. then
only his fine, broad humor saves his
work from the tedium and unpleasant-
ness such dramas often inspire in the
hands of lesser men. lie is perhaps
at hk best when lie shows himself the
dreamer, the philosopher, brooding with
puzzled brow over the secrets of life
and death. But he is always a Jew of
the Jews — social justice and broad
humanitarianism holding his keenest
Now and then his soul seems diffused
as it were among all the peoples of the
earth, and soars away to worlds far,
far beyond our own little cosmos. Now
he gives us a pathetic scene of a child
in the London Ghetto standing in the
bread line conducted by the great ones
of the earth for their own edification.
Now he shows us the pathos of hunger
frusteratrd at the very point of satis-
faction; when the child with a pitcher
full of soup that is to form the only
meal of the day for a whole brood, falls,
breaks the vessel and spills the contents
Now he shows us a minister of an
emasculated religion struggling with its
mountains of absurdities which are
manipulated by grasping, soulless ;sten
to puff up their own importance and to
bolster up_ hank accounts. Now he
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Fashionable garments that lend
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Coats
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Suits
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Building before the 29th
of September,
A dramatist in England of equal
wealth, of talent and even greater art-
istry, is Sir Arthur Wins; Piller° (born
in 1855). l'inero k the son of a newish
solicitor of Portugese descent. While
Zangwill is a its of the Jews, Pinero
is an Englishman of the English. His
whole life is a direct contrast to that
of the author of "The \felting Pot."
The only thing Jewish noticeable in
Pittero is that particular quaint humor,
the effervescence of a sad life, that is
so current among Jews. Outside of
this. all the dramas of his that I
have read could have been written by
any other highly gifted and prodigiously
toiling Englishman.
For Pinero knew Jewish life very
little. He started as a ham actor in
Scotland. Then he took to writing and
wrote enough dramas whose titles would
fill a couple of pages. For a number of
years his work was of little significance.
Indeed, he had written about five years
before he WWII recognition even among
his friends. "The Money Spinners,"
written in 1880. won him approval from
appreciative friends and enough pecun-
iary returns to make it possible for him
to go on with his work. But like a
huge bird at the beginning of its flight,
he took a long time flapping his wings
and running along the ground. But
once he had risen he was soon far above
the clouds reaching higher and higher
till he had attained to the uppermost
regions.
1,Vith the production of "The Second
Mrs, Tanquerary,". in I893 his fame
spread over the whole civilized world.
It is an epoch-making drama and marks
the turning point not only of English
dramatic literature but of the whole of
Europe and of America. Its author
immediately took hum place among the
world's greatest dramatists—Henrik Ib-
sen, Sudermann, Hatipmann. Bjornson,
Strindberg. Andreyev. The drama
struck a new note. which gave a potent
stimulus to playwrights and producers.
For the life of the stage, especially in
England. had been throttled Ice an accu-
mulation of outworn artificialities and
soulless formulas. \\int the production
of this play the author has swept them
all out of existence as if by a magic
brush, and has shown how an honest
and subtle technique coupled with a real
message were more valuable than all
the lilatherings of the critics, whose
training prejudices them against all that
is new.. ".1n electric thrill was com-
municated to the whole theatrical life
of Europe." is the way the Encyclo-
paedia Britanica puts it.
ORM4L'AMITENEEMEIMEATEMINCREVRE:in,
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"Meet Friedberg :$ 4 N
Wear Diamonds" N N :
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$ lit;
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and
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d'sicarti'
tsls one
of e i chshurarnod the thous-
daily existence. Sometimes they are
the vehicles of sheer beauty as such.
Sometimes they give form to the ex-
pressions of a soul in rebellion against
the powers that be, hurling defiance at
its oppressors and making mock at a 1
spurious eta ilization.
: i21
To say that in the United States liter-
ature is thoroughly commercialized is
to make the least damaging accusation
against it. It is more. It is monopol-
ized by a clique to whose vanities and
senselessness you must pander or crawl
into a corner and die. Talent, genesis,
which means originality and excellence,
have absolutely no place in it. If they
ever creep into the works of established
dramatists they are ruthlessly effaced by
bands of hired assassins whose sole
business is the maintaining of our
popular superstitions, our popular ideals
and popular stupidities, often against
the protests of the public itself. These
sinister powers have made life so bitter
for the greatest genuinely American
genuises, l'oe, Whitmanand Mark
Twain, that the first could find no way
out of tie misery than by poisoning sz
himself with drink in his prime; and the
second had to spend his old age begging
from door to door. Today one of the
"marked men" in America is Theodor
Dreiser-merely because he had once
happened to write a coved that dis-
pleased the Puritanic prudery of the
wife of one of America's biggest pub.
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208-210 GRISWOLD ST.
lumemp,:conniamo ummiumenit,i
The result is that the born literary
man in America writes "ads," and the
born "ail" Wtiter Writes novels and
dramas. When the average American
literary man finds he can make more
money packing pork lie quits writing.
lu European countries the man who
spends his life on 0 certain art is the
man whose voice makes itself felt in
that field. In America the Irian who has
made a couple of million in selling hog
livers or in smuggling whisks across
the ladder thereby considers himself fit
to pass judgment on the lyric qualities
of a Shakespearian sonnet or on a
bravura passage in a l.alo symphony--
and his voice is the voice heeded.
Now I trust it will be possible to
appreciate what our Jewish dramatists
could contribute to .ktnericati dramatic
art. The words "good" or 'had" as
applied to American and European lit-
eratures signify different things. "The
Life of Man," by Andreyev, is a great
drama. Its two American imitations,
"Youth" and "Everywoman," are also
great dramas. But the first is a world
tragedy. The others are comparatively
cheap imitations, diluted and sweetened
to make them digestable by an audience
of adults with the literary- stomachs of
Sunday School children.
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Invite Her to Carlton's
UNIVERSITY
OF DETROIT
350 Jefferson Avenue, East
LAW SCHOOL
American Jewish Dramatists.
Among America's big dramatists
Charles Klein, born in London, England,
in 1867, holds a front seat. Ile is a
Noah in his generation, Ile served his
apprenticeship as a "reader" under -
Charles Froliman; his life has been
spent in the immediate vicinity of the
theater and---the lux-office up to the
end, about five years ago. A few of the
titles of his dramas will give, I hope, a
fair idea of their contents. "A Paltry
Nfillion," "By Proxy," "A Royal Rouge,"
"A alile a Minute," etc. In his "Music
Master," however, he rises • to extra-
ordinarily fine dramatic powers. This
play lifts him out from the sphere of
the usual clever stage carpentry which
is the only thing at bottom of most of
our dramas. Had he performed this
miracle with an American character he
would have written the American play.
This drama did for the American stage
what Pinenes "The Second Mrs. Tan-
quray," had done for the world stage.
It has shown that the theater may be
The Jew at the front ranks among made interesting without resorting to the
the French playwrites today is Henri craft of the steeplechaser, the high-
IDA
Bernstein. Ile is a Roumanian by birth, jumper, the spell-binder—to the antics
naturalized in France. Ever since the of a Charlie Chaplin leaping from roof
production of his play, "Le Marche," to roof with a dog wagging his tail from
in 1901, he has been recognized among a hole in his "pants," or to the childish
the masters of the land. But he had fun of watching Charlie bolt hot mince-
to contend against fearful odds—French pie at the rate of two hundred bites to
clericalism, which though dead since the the minute. "The Music Master" is a
days of the Dreyfus episode, is not yet
I continued On Page S.)
buried. When his "Apses Mai" was
produced in 1912 at the Comedic Fran-
IIIMIEREEIRESERsumfarm-
caise he wets ed national recognition.
amsmamIEMEIMEMEIREIMMEEITOIIEIRII
Then the clericals got busy in all
earnestness. Led by Leon Datilset, they
trumped up charges accusing him of
evading the military service. In court
he rose in his own defense and con-
cluded: "It is true that I was born in
Roumania. It is also true that I Was
naturalized too late to serve in the
National Army. But on the day France
is attacked I shall be among the first
to offer myself in her defense."
Two years Liter France found herself
engaged in the Great NVar and Bern-
stein was among the first to join. While
lie lay wounded in a hospital he con-
ceived his latest drama. "L'Elevation,"
which won extraordinary appreciation in
France and which was recently brought
to the United States by Grace George.
Bernstein's work proclaims him the
Frenchman, which means an extraord-
arily painstaking individual in literature,
an unusual and often unduly polished
artist, the soul of whose product is
form. He is a Latin—with a keen eye
for beauty—beauty first and last and all
the time.
One store European Jewish play-
wright and we shall turn to the United
States: Arthur Schnitzler. Schnitzler
is the on of a Viennese Jewish throat
specialist, born in 1862. Ile is a scien-
tist-artist, being a practicing physician.
His productions are second only to
those of 11aumnann and Sodermann
and Wolekid. Like Zangwill, he also
writes novels and short stories. And
like Chechoy, his work is full of his
medical experiences. Ilis play mod
esteemed is the one entitled "The
Lonely \Vay," but the one of most in-
terest to Jews is "Professor Bern-
hardi," which pictures the bAterness
of a Jew living amid antiSeinitic sur-
roundings.
The Freshman class in the law school began Wednes-
day, Sept. 15th, at 4:30 p. m.
Ladies and gentlemen looking for a law course should
hesitate no longer. Enroll in this course NOW.
With a staff of well known judges and lawyers, this
school offers every facility and advantage to those wish-
ing to learn law.
Courses in FOREIGN TRADE, FEDERAL TAXA-
TION, and COMMERCIAL ART will open
TUESDAY, OCT. 5, 1920
For further particulars apply School of
Commerce and Finance,
//
CONCERTS
SARA
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VIOLIN
101 East Willis
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INSTRUCTION
PIANO
Glendale 3770-W
MR. SIEDLITZ RETURNS
e(AWTTER OF INTEREST)
London, England, September 2, 1920.
„, yant
255 Woodward Are.
2nd
Floor, Washington
Arcade
p
The Forest Fur Co.,
21-23 Washington Boulevard,
(Opp. Edison Electric Co.)
Detroit, Mich., U. S. A.
Dear Sirs:—
mail their checks to Mr. Fred M.
Butzel, 1012 Union Trust
gives us a picture of a powerful war
god stirs ived from antiquity before
whose cruel visage the priesthood of
all the earth is pouring out mighty liba-
tions in the form It( their own ink and
oratory and of the heart's blood of the
human race. In all this terrible serious-
ness Zangwill is always humorous,. in
spite of the fact that since his birth
(18441 he has been surrounded by a
lifethat rarely lent itself to laughter- -
unless it was the laughter that is meant
to hide a tear. His early childhood days
in Bristol; Plymouth, and after his ninth
year in the notorious Spitalfields of
Loudon, had brought him into contact
with the raw, ugly phases of existence.
and cut his artistic sensitive hello with
a razor-edge keenness.
And yet, in justice to him, one should
not disregard his limitati ons.He is
primarily a writer of prose. His prose
sentences are charged with a sonority
and articulation which in places attain
a sheer beauty that almost pains. 1 here
are passages in "The Children of the
Ghetto" that leave the sensitive reader
in ecstatic reveries as I I he had drunk
hashish or some other potion of an
oriental charmer. But his verse — at
least most of his verse that I have read
is wooden. It does not sing itself--
an indispensable requisite in all poetry
whether the most ancient or ultra mod-
ern. It contains the music produced on
a piano by hammering the keys on a
cracked sounding board, or of playing
on a violin with a riven body. Aside
from that he is counted among the
greatest English dramatist, of our day.
His IlaMe Is uttered
•
with the same
breath as that of Shaw, Barrie. Gals-
s w,Toirttel,ty... and of the other foremost play-
or see his work-be it the drama, the
novel, the short story, or the symphony.
To justify the deplorable attitude of
the average American toward art, the
cultured American tells you that the
European takes his play seriously and
Iris work lightly w bile the American
takes his work seriously and his day
lightly.
This is a superficial explanation. For
literature, art, music, are not merely
diversions. They are the deep-most ex-
pressions of the human soul as it loses,
hates. hopes, dreams, and gropes . its
way higher and higher toward the light.
Sometimes they partake of the spirit of
philosphic religion, giving utterance to
its awe and wonder at the inscrutable
With Schnitzler. George Hirschberg
should perhaps find a place in this
article. but alas! the sudden blaze of
his younger day, became banked all
too soon and unless it rise and show
osslf a living tlame again. he will be
molted into the background.
Before crossing over to the United
States it is necessary to take a glimpse
at the attitude toward literature in gen-
eral of the at erage American. For very
few men, no matter what their original
talents, may rise much above the particu-
lar attitude of those mho are to real
Cl
The fur market of Europe is just about cleaned out. We can
congratulate ourselves for buying the Mole, Mink and Hudson Seal,
Alaska Seal, and Russian Orman skins when we did, escaping the
tariff charge now levied. By this time you will have the skins made
up into those unique models I got from Du Bau Brothers of Paris.
They are showing with great popularity the shawl and coat
combination.
Also the smart "Throw Coat" in Mink or Orman will be an
original design that none of the other Detroit fur shops will be
showing.
By the time I arrive in Detroit, I hope you will be displaying
these fur creations and making particular note to the women in De-
troit of the amount that can be saved at the Forest Fur Co., because
of our good fortune at the markets.
A Real Hudson Seal Coat trimmed in Mink or Martin at $425
or a Mole skin, designed to order, at $450 will surely be of interest
to the community.
Being a new firm in Detroit, and unknown to many there, it is a
very wise plan to sell all our garments on the basis of l(re profit.
I will b eon Detroit by the 20th and may be of service to our cus-
tomers in explaining the different furs, their wearing qualities and
characteristics, many of which are known only by the expert.
Yours truly,
J. SIEDLITZ.
,Y6.72MMEMIEREESTIMI=EZZ=SzJcicoMireESRMEEMErargr32Zircr"
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