• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

"ethnically" dark, tough-guy looks,
Mr. Kener grew up in Brooklyn,
hostile to Jewish authority and
culture. When his father sent him
to yeshiva, he fought back by
becoming a fresh-mouthed cut-up
who drove the teachers crazy and
played hookey as much as possible.
He emerged with a halting know-
ledge of Yiddish, mostly punch-
lines, and so angry at all Jewish
institutions that the first time he
was offered a Yiddish role, he
wheeled at the last minute and ac-
tually bolted.
"Those old guys, that whole at-
mosphere — I couldn't take it."
It took the personal prestige of
Joseph Papp, who produced Songs
of Paradise at the Public Theatre,
to lure him back, years later.
(In fact, the casting call for
Songs of Paradise for actors "who
speak Yiddish or have access to
the language" drew four hundred
auditioners.)
And though Mr. Kener still
seems jittery and poised for a
break, the Yiddish theater has
allowed him reconciliation without
defeat. He is still hungry for main-
stream success but astonished to
find himself also working on his
Yiddish articulation and marrying
a Jewish girl.

Natural Link

or Bruce Adler, on the other

r hand, a show business career

and Yiddish theater are linked
naturally, for he was born to both,
and he is one of the last to be able
to say that he learned them "by
osmosis."
He made his debut on the Yid-
dish stage at the age of three (he's
close to 40 now), when he was first
taken to see his parents perform
their popular vaudeville act. When
they invited the audience to sing
along, his piping soprano rose
above the rest, so they naturally
invited him up onstage to take a
bow. By the age of six, Little
Brucie had speaking roles and was
doing his homework in the dress-
ing room. "I took my curtain calls,
and then I went home for milk and
cookies. And in the morning I was
in the schoolyard. We did two or
three new shows a week. That was
an education:'
When Mr. Adler sings the old
show-stopper "Rumania, Rumania,"
he sings it as he learned it on the
knee of Aaron Lebedev, the star
who popularized it. Compact and
springy on his feet, buoyant with
controlled energy, he is one of the

few entertainers of the younger
generation who can ease with zest-
ful authority into oldtime softshoe
routines and pratfalls. And though
he works mostly in English now,
he relishes opportunities to per-
form in Yiddish.
"I don't turn my back on my
heritage. When I do Yiddish
theater, I do it well. I feel I'm pay-
ing a little bit of homage, through
my body, to my family and their
world:'

Search For Roots

R

ichard Carlow represents the
current youth movement
toward cultural revival. Like his
contemporaries who are collecting
Yiddish books and learning to read
them, listening to Yiddish folk
tunes and learning to fiddle them,
Mr. Carlow came searching for Yid-
dishkeit and discovered Yiddish
theater.
"I always meant to learn Yid-
dish. My parents spoke it to my
grandparents, but I didn't under-
stand. Five years ago I finally got
around to signing up for a begin-
ners' course at the Workmen's
Circle."
A full semester passed before his
teacher happened to mention that
such a thing'as Yiddish theater ex-
isted, and by coincidence the semi-
professional Folksbiene Theatre
was holding auditions.
He took a chance, tried out, and
got the part. Since then he has
kept studying the language and

bow
producing Yiddish
*ay is language.
oishe Rosenfeld
grapples with Yiddish itself, the
theater's heart and also its
tache.
If a show mixes in too much
English, it is Yiddish theater no
longer. It becomes "Jewish"
'theater, i.e., a show which is in
some way of Jewish interest, or a
show based on Yiddish original
aterial.
On the other hand, if the actors
speak only Yiddish, many poten-
ticket-buyers will stay away.
ow even older audiences have
u Pally grown up speaking Eng-
- fish and continually whisper
translations from row to row. So

bQ "

)

now feels comfortable speaking it
onstage.
His living comes part from ac-
ting and part from other kinds of
jobs, but Yiddish theater is where
he has found his roots, as well as
the satisfaction of helping to pre-
serve those roots for the
community.
While it is true that for some
professional actors who appear in
Yiddish theater, gluing on side-
curls to dance in a chorus of
Chasidim remains just another gig,
many come to feel some personal
connection, which they express in
a variety of ways. Diane Cypkin
wrote her New York University
Master's thesis on Yiddish theater
while portraying fresh-faced
heroines. Now she is curator of the
Yiddish Theatre Collection of the
Museum of the City of New York.
Raquel Yossipon, trained for the
serious avant garde, lent glamor to
leading Yiddish roles with her deep
voice and exotic Israeli accent.
Now she returns home summers to
teach a course in Yiddish theater
at the University of lel Aviv. And
ever since professional secular Yid-
dish theater began, just over a
hundred years ago, cantors have
eased back and forth between the
stage and the synagogue, and to
this day almost every season
brings a cantor to the Yiddish
stage.
Adrienne Cooper, who pursued
doctoral studies in Yiddish
literature at the University of
Chicago, observes that "people in

Yiddish theater are quick to feel
anger and affection for each other.
Intimacy is part of the culture." It
creates a bond that holds them in
orbit around the institution.

producers avoid the more literary
repertoire and often try English
synopses in the playbills, or nar-
rators who come out in front of
the curtain between scenes to ex-
plain what's going on
Sometimes bits of dialogue in
English are woven in to make
sure everyone is following.
("What do you mean, why am I
crying too?') 'Technology helps:
subtitles projected against the
wall beside the stage, or simul-
taneous translations through
headphone&
Meanwhile, very few of the
young actors really know fluent
Yiddish. Some know no Yiddish
at all and must memorize their
lines phonetically. Sandy Levitt,
who began with a better Yiddish

background than many and has
made progress since, explains
how it still feels to him: "You're
trying to approach your role as
an actor, and here you are
burdened with this language."
Even Bruce Adler, for whom
"Yiddish is not a foreign
language, it's my second
language," is thinking in English
while he's speaking and singing
in Yiddish. The actors' difficulties
in turn further limit the pro-
ducers' choice of repertory. And
while people do create new adap-
tations of old plays, new
dramatizations of old Yiddish
novels, and new Yiddish transla-
tions of Israeli comedies, it has
been many years since a young
playwright wrote a new play.

The Last Pro?

oishe Rosenfeld may well be
the last person actually to set
out to make a professional career
in Yiddish theater. His commit-
ment began in childhood and he
had a serious Yiddishist education
at home and school, with classes
in Yiddish as well as Hebrew,
English, and — because this was
Montreal — French. Twenty years
ago, when Mr. Rosenfeld was a
long-haired idealistic college kid,
he determined to be a Yiddish
actor.
Invited to be a member of a
large national tour with the legen-
dary Polish Yiddish star Ida
Kaminska, he jumped at the
chance, though he was virtually
broke.
After the tour, Mr. Rosenfeld
took on a job as Yiddish news-
caster at Radio WEVD, the Sta-
tion That Speaks Your Language,
and made Yiddish theater his
home. He worked with the older
actors. He watched them from the
wings. He sat in their dressing
rooms and listened to their stories
of trouping on six continents. They
were his glamorous, witty, deman-
ding, brave, temperamental zeydes
and bubbes; he was their gentle

M

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

25