HEIMISH BARD
from page 69
,Sluitie, in ii:w.tre
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Until
By the early 1890s, Yiddish actors
were wild about Skakespeare.
2 am In Our Lower Level
(Formerly Nifty Normans)
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their "dramas of family conflict" to
which Yiddish audiences were espe-
cially drawn.
He scrutinizes individual produc-
tions, supplementing his thorough
documentation of the era with repro-
ductions of newspaper advertisements,
cartoons and theater marquees.
In particular, the author examines
five plays, each of which is the subject
of its own chapter: King Lear, Hamlet,
Othello, Romeo and Juliet and — of
course — The Merchant of Venice.
Perhaps the most accessible chapter
is "'A True Jewish Jew': A Shylock
Quartet" in which- the author traces
the various interpretations of The
Merchant of Venice.
"Since Shylock makes for such a
problematic Jewish role model,"
Berkowitz writes, "the major inter-
preters of Shylock on the American
Yiddish stages would seek various ways
to make the character more palatable,
from softening the character to radical-
ly cutting or even rewriting the play."
However, "by 1959, the greatest liv-
ing Yiddish interpreter of the charac-
ter, [Maurice Schwartz], refused to
play the role at all" because Hitler's
Final Solution "made the character
unbearably problematic."
Berkowitz concludes his detailed
analysis by beautifully coalescing the
book's most crucial ideas. Indeed, for
those readers without the time or the
inclination to read the highly specific
chapters, the introduction and the
conclusion read together provide a
valuable and thoroughly engaging
overture to this little-known chapter in
Jewish-American theatrical history. ❑
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6/21
2002
71