THE I erRonlaim (iittorilaz
PAGE FOUR
Aloscow's Jewish Theater S
By HUNTLY CARTER
tlialogue and environment of painted
scenery. and he plays on a flat stage.
In Moscow the Jewish actor expresses
himself by means of gesture and
movement at all heights.
Experiments are always being
During my post-revolution visits to their goloshes, which are deposited in made at this theater to find the form
c h arge of best suited to express the Jewish
Soviet Russia as press representative, the cloak-room a t a
I have been much interested in the 000 roubles per pair. Mounting a spirit of the play produced. Anyone
you come to the who was present at the production of
stair,
ne by the broad flight o f
exceptionally wool work d o
Jewish theaters in that country, espe- director's offices. There is an outer "Oriel Acosta" recently would have
dally in Moscow and Petrograd. one. bare except for a table or two, seen a novel idea applied by Nathan
These theaters are enjoying an tin- and a small inner one more comfort- Altman, a well-known artist who has
and popularity, which ably furnished, where the director re - made decorations for this theater and
success
usual
I think is due to a change in attitude ceives you in state. Beyond this there !for the Ilabima. "Uriel Acosta" is
of the Russian people towards the is a small room containing models of by the German writer, Karl Kutzkow.
Jews in Russia. At any rate I do not the play in course of production. i The plot of the tragedy deals with the
remember observing the same toter- If you have no business with the ; struggle b etween Acosta and the
the time of the Spanish In-
once before the war. Certainly there director you make your way to the Church at
was no decree in force, as there is to- auditorium, which is divided from thequisition. Acosta and his parents
. Jews who
day, f o rbidding the performance of offices by a passage. You will find were among the Spanish
plays designed to laugh at the Jews. yourself in a large chamber, which were compelled to become Christians,
The effect of the present tolerance has the look of having been at one but eventually managed to escape
time a spacious fashionable ball-room. from Spanish persecution. Many of
has been to encourage the directors
of the Jewish theaters to develop Jew- It is a type of auditorium very coin- these Jews went to New York, then
ish characteristics in the theaters as on in Moscow. Since the revolu- New Amsterdam, at the time when
far as possible, and to concentrate on tion many palaces, large mansions and Peter Stuyvesant was governor.
Jewish nationalism, and in these and clubs have been converted into popu- Among them were Acosta and his
0 other ways to exercise their own un- or theaters. Thus the Moscow Prolet- parents. At New Amsterdam Acosta
organizing cult Theater was once the Palace Mo- was able to reassert his Judaism.
doubted ;treat a bility i n
Here in the play we see him turning
the theaters and companies for the rossov, the Moscow hamerny Theater
heretic, publishing an heretical book,
performance of plays specially chosen was a palatial club on Tverskoi. The
and coming into conflict with the
to express the truth of Jewish life large ball-rooms in these comman-
othodox church. To complicate mat-
and labor, memories and aspirations. deered houses have been converted
ters, he falls in love with his pupil,
So from beginning to end the work into auditoriums with a seating ca-
the daughter of a rich Dutchman who
of these theaters is of the deepest im- pacity of between 250 and 300, and
without galleries. Sometimes the au- will not con-sent to the marriage un-
portance and most illuminating.
less Acosta repudiates his book. The
dience
fits
the
interior.
If
you
go
to
Two theaters are particularly note-
church, too, orders Acosta to recant.
worthy. They are the Moscow Cen- the Central Jewish Theater on a first The tragedy of the play is concerned
night
you
will
find
yourself
among
„.,••
tral Jewish Theater, known as the
with Acosta trying to overcome these
Jewish Kamerny, and the Ilabima, or the pick of the Jewish intelligentsia two obstacles to his happines with the
.40,1(k1C
Old Jewish Theater. There is a third —poets, painters, sculptors, mu- woman he loves and who loves and
so on, and the
theater, whose company has been on sicians, actors, and
believes in him. In the end the wom-
a European tour, which is sometimes wealthiest of the new commercial so- an takes poison, and Acosta shoots
, YO,• ,
ciety.
spoken of as a Jewish theater. It is
himself.
The director of the theater is
called the Moscow Kamerny Theater.
The decorator, Altman, has con-
"Kamerny" means chamber, and as Alexis M. Granovsky. Ile has been ceived the idea of draping the stage
there are several chamber theaters mainly responsible for making it the in black and putting some simple
Clere are several "Kamerny" thea- center frequented by the best among solid forms in the center of the stage,
ters. In my own experience of this the Jewish population. To him I am which he believes concentrates and
theater and its work there is nothing indebted for information on its ideas aids the acting. The different heights
distinctly Jewish about either. and work, and for opportunities to of
are attained by the dif-
tragedy
Whether the director, Alexander Tai- study the performances. Front what , ox
ferent levels provided by steps and
roe, is a Jew I am unable to say. Ile he told me I gathered that the the- platforms. The cosutmes were
is of recent origin. It began as signed in harmony with this scenery
has the Jewish mentality. His con- step is
ception of the theater, its organiza- a school of acting in 1919, and was and with the tragic spirit of the play.
tion and methods, are new, and they organized a.s a theater in 1921. Its
Another revolutionary idea appears
spring out of a discontent with the original aim was to express Jewish .n i the production of "The Sorceress."
conventional form of the theater and nationalism, historical and contem- The story is that of a sorceress who
porai'y to reveal the truth of Jewish
its methods of work. Ile seeks a new idealism;
and to combine language, aids a cruel step-mother to get rid
species of play, a new type of actor,
o the latter's step-daughter whose
gesticulation, movement, sound and of
a new form of stage, and a new style
-money she wants,. - This plot, like an
of scenery. Since 1514 he has built color to exPresS the Jewish' spirit of ingenious comic-opera plot, carries
Personal Attention Given.
up a new form of abstract representa- each play produced. In short, the the scene from place to place, and so
tion and interpretation with the three theater and its work were intended introduces us to a very interesting va-
latter, the meaning of which has ex- to produce in the spectator a knowl- riety of Jewish crowds of different
ceedingly puzzled the critics of Eu- edge of and respect for and a sym- "nationalities," so to speak, with dif-
rope. His methods of production and pathy with the Jewish people and ferent garbs (some very picturesque),
acting are so much like those in use their cause. It should be said that different peculiarities and different
at the Central Jewish Theater that at the language used at the Central attitudes. We are also introduced to
first I thought they were the same. Jewish Theater is the modern Yid- a wide range of Jewish expression, in
But on close examination I found dish, whereas that used at the Ha- singing and dancing, gesticulation
that the latter had an individuality bima is the old Hebrew, a highly dig- and movement which fully testify to
of their own which expressed the best nified language, though not easily un- the severe training of the actor and
derstood except by Hebrew scholars. the sternly organized character of the
' of Jewish talent and intelligence.
This difficulty is, however, overcome
A few doors off the Nitiskaja
performance.
by long descriptions in the programs.
Special scenery has been invented to
boulevard is the Central Jewish The-
The economic organization is not give full expression to the psychology
ater. The front of it is an ordinary
house front. It is exceedingly dirty a complicated one. The theater is and the frenzied movement of this
and dilapidated. Large pieces of supported partly by government sub- play. It consists solely of a struc-
stucco have peeled off, leaving holes. sidy (it is one of four remaining ture composed of a number of dif-
In this and other ways it takes its academic theaters subsidized by the ferent levels and some ladders con-
place with the houses on either side. government) and partly by the sale of neeting the levels and reaching from
Together they form a rather dismal tickets. The latter, however, does not floor to flies. The scenery is adapt-
picture of post-revolution architec- amount to much, for in return for able, like a child's mechanical toy.
tural conditions. At my first visit I subsidy it has to give away a certain For instance, it is the environment of
passed and repassed the house several number of tickets. Another thing is a small community of Jews. But by
NO DOUBT THERE IS ONE IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
times before I discovered it was the that it is unable to give continuous introducing some screens and a chair
il it is made to appear to belong to one
preva-
theater I was looking for. The only performances. Owing to the
..
...
man. The ladders have a peculiar
sign of identification was the small mg bad economic conditions,
actors
have
to
supplement
their
use. Among the community are a
poster frame hung on one of the door
monger incomes in all sorts of ways, number of do-nothings. They toil
posts.
But
this
was
empty,
because
0=101
14:11:10 11
611
one
of
them
being
playing
at
different
not, neither do they spin, and they
at that time there were no posters to
put in it. If you happened to be in theaters. Hence they are not always make a handsome living without so
available
for
performances
at
one
much
as taking their hands out of
Moscow during the autumn of 1923
you would have noticed everywhere theater. The Jewish theaters usually their pockets, after the manner of
a Stock Exchange speculators. These
give
two
or
three
performances
O practically the same conditions. Al-
though buildings all over Moscow week, sometimes less, sometimes play their parts half-way up the lad-
der, and go through more gesticula-
were undergoing renovation, the the- more.
The methods followed by the Cen- tions in five minutes than a real do-
aters were still waiting their turn.
You enter a very dark but spacious tral Jewish Theater are similar in
(Continued on next page.)
vestibule. It is divided off at one end some respects to those of other acade-
to form a cloak-room. This nowa- mic theaters. Acting comes first, and
every
actor
is
expected
to
undergo
a
days is usually empty, for there are
Chanukah Greetings
few spare
. are clot hes to be deposited long course of training which com-
very
•
0 here. In the summer the new work- pletely puts him in control of his
voice and all his movements. He is
ing-class
population
wear
as
little
as
0
0 possible. In the winter they keep as strictly trained as an athlete, a
everything on for warmth except ballet dancer or a first-class singer.'
O
As a result he is able to control his
voice, his emotions and his move-
ments in a manner that is rarely
found outside Russia. No one who
WET WASH FLAT WORK
has not seen the body-and-brain-dis-
Chanukah Greetings
ROUGH DRY
ciplined Jewish actor in Moscow and
Petrograd can imagine the truly
Call
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