The liehnish Bard

Shakespeare meets the American Yiddish theater.

Unlike today, when Shakespeare is associated with
the elite and educated — or "polite" — audiences, in
19th-century America, "speeches from his plays were
quoted by heart by working-class fans, parodied in
minstrel shows and burlesques, and mingled with an
array of entertainment forms ... for distinct audiences."
Berkowitz reminds us that theater — which today
has become a luxury — was far more central to the
life of the community.
This carried over to Jewish communities. "Because
Yiddish adaptors were far more concerned with
pleasing the masses than with appeasing the purists,"
writes Berkowitz, "their Shakespeare adaptations
vividly illuminate the character of the American
Yiddish theater culture as a whole."
Throughout the study, Berkowitz does a remark-
ably detailed job conveying the way Yiddish culture
transformed — and was transformed by — the plays
of Shakespeare.
He explains how the subject material appealed to
the immigrant community: It was the tragedies with
HEIMISH BARD on page 71

AUDREY BECKER

Special to the Jewish News

T

he shows no regret that's really
detectable.
The accidental killing of Polonius
— it should have been Claudius —
doesn't reveal in him any great corn-
of starting to take
passion. So the
revenge — in other words, becoming a
murderer himself — has corrupted
him. He ends up becoming a villain.

JN: And what about Oberon?
SB: Well, Oberon drugs Titania to get
her to go to bed with a donkey. That's
a pretty villainous thing to do. It's what
they do in Los Angeles bars, isn't it?

,

JN: The show is subtitled A Masterclass
in Evil Why did you add that?
SB: That was just to give an indication
of what it was. Between [portraying]
the villains, I discuss them.
It's not exactly a "forum," but I discuss
and analyze the origins, the genesis of the
villains: where they are, what they do,
why they did it, how they feel it, what
made them do it, what's their connec-
tion. So in that way, its a kind of class.

JN: Do you get different responses
from different audiences?
SB: American audiences tend to be
alert and come to the theater with
openness and curiosity. I suppose that
that will be intensified in a university
town.

JN: Do you find that there are differ-
ences between American and English,
or British, audiences?
SB: Well, there is quite a difference, I
must say. The English audiences are
more used to theater. Therefore,
they've possibly grown a little more
familiar with it, more stoical and
phlegmatic about what they see.
American audiences are more quick
to respond, to laugh at things. More
open, perhaps. Maybe a little less cyni-
cal. An American audience may
A TASTE FOR BLOOD on page 70

he idea of Shakespeare in Yiddish may
sound curious to many of us today,"
observes author Joel Berkowitz in his new
book, Shakespeare on the American Yiddish
Stage (University of Iowa Press).
In a meticulously researched and nuanced study,
Berkowitz — assistant professor of modern Jewish stud-
ies at the State University of New York at Albany —
chronicles and examines the fascinating intersection of
Shakespearean performance and the American Yiddish
community from the 1880s through the 1960s.
"Fartaytsht un farbesertt' Translated and
.
improved!" begins the book.
Taking its cue from both theater history and cul-
tural studies, Shakespeare on the American Yiddish
Stage captures the vibrancy of the period as it
explores both the development of American theater
and the Jewish immigrant experience.
Berkowitz introduces his project by detailing the ways
in which Shakespeare's plays were
,
"Judaicized," and also by giving read-
a .
ers a brief and efficient review of the
history of American Yiddish theater.
The 1880s and 1890s saw a notable
boom in immigration as Eastern
European Jews came to America in
the hundreds of thousands. They
brought with them a theatrical tradi-
tion whose origins reached back to
the Purim plays of the Middle Ages.
As Yiddish theater matured in the
United States, competitive companies
on the Lower East Side of Manhattan
found themselves drawing on works
from the Western dramatic repertoire
in order, as Berkowitz writes, to
"[speed] up the output of plays much
as the sewing machine accelerated the
production of pants."
The works of Shakespeare, already
familiar to Jewish intellectuals, quick-
ly became prominent in Yiddish the-
ater companies. "From the start,
some critics found this notion laugh-
able," Berkowitz writes. "Who were
... these pishers, to use the Yiddish
vernacular — to try on the roles cre-
ated by the most esteemed playwright • 411FAK
rC.-N 4'd°
in the English language? How could
they expect to succeed?"
Its*C"1 - 0C 1"...""rbM

31, .3.11.3t nr,

Clockwise from -
top right:

'st:3 3.7",

litt

Famed actor Jacob Adler
as Shylock.

Advertisement for
Morris Morrison's
"Hamlet" and
"Othello" at the
Windsor Theatre.

17,31,2 i ,P, 1701 ril ,Mt .$ 1:,' Itttntrtc

Mass Appeal

The Yiddish troupes' interest in
Shakespeare was part of a larger
popular enjoyment of the Bard.

trn,11Z-34:`,,,rj!!!:::::1 .. f.lt. , .,141.::

.1,-•.,17,•

7,111

ri:

: , C

1,-4,4r-

sl

n71 ii

:14=ttr

ctw.

',tow 41

>7.•

tot

tr;

Ye,

*tt 7:: tr.

s

Ben-Zvi Baratoff as
Othello and Celia
Adler as Desdemona
at the Yiddish Art
Theatre, 1929.

6/21
2002

69