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12 THE SOUTHERN 1SR A E L 1 I E Jewish Art In Russia How Stalin Revolutionized The Yiddish Sta 3 e By JOSEPH ROTH It had been fifteen years since I had seen a Yiddish theatre for the first time. It had come to Leopoldstadt from Vilna. I still remember the posters. They were different from the announcements of the other houses, because of their glaring sim plicity and their improvised crudity. There was about them a primitive uncouthness. The text was set up haphazardly, obviously on a handpress. Printed in a cheap and tasteless yellow without a border, pasted indiscriminately on walls and not on the official bill boards, hung up in corners which smelled badly, they nevertheless had a more powerful appeal than the more sedate placards. They were composed in a language which could often be heard in the small coffee houses in the Jewish neigh borhoods, but which seemed to con sist of sounds rather than of words that lent themselves to writing. On these posters the Yiddish was writ ten with Latin Letter. It was a gro tesque German. It was coarse and sensitive at the same time. Many of the words were German but had Slavic diminutive endings. If one spoke them rapidly, they had a rather pleasant tone. In the evening, on the stage, the language was spoken quickly. An operetta was being performed, one of those productions out of the in fancy of the Yiddish theatre, which used to be called “a tragedy, with song and dance." I never found that phrase absurd. It never seem ed to me to be a paradox, espe cially when I recalled the ancient tragedies. It was enough just to think of the Jewish routine, which is a sort of tragedy, with song and dance. These operettas, of which I saw more later, were by turns gay and tearful, but always true. The methods of solving the problem— for each of these productions sym bolized a problem—were crude; the direction fortuitous; the persons only faintly resembled the types they were supposed to represent; the situation seem ed to have been created only to provide a place for the songs. But it was these songs which gave artistic meaning to the Yid dish theatre. It was these songs (folk-tunes mostly, with oriental and Slavic melodies, sung by untrained voices, with the heart rather than with the voice, and repeated at the end of each performance) which justified the existence of the Yiddish the atre. The ballads which sprinkled the text gave dramatic unity to the proceedings, which had been played rather aimlessly! Beneath the theme, not as part of it, rang the melody, whose words portrayed the events. Behind th music there stretched far beyond it, opaque and nebulous, another world, which, one sensed, contained the One of the moat penetrating dramatic critics of Germany took a trip to Russia to study Jewish art, with particular attention to the theatre. In this article he illumi nates a phase of the New Jewish culture in Sovietland which most observers are not aware of. illlllllllllllllllllllllllMlllllllillllllllllllllMIlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIMIIIIIIHI tragedy, to whose accompaniment the song and dance had been sent from the wings, but which had not yet revealed itself. What stood behind the primitive Yiddish stage was high, tragic Art and the vindication of Drama. Later, in the course of the years, I had an opportunity to observe three or four different Y iddish repertory groups in va rious cities of the West. I deplored the Europeanization which the Yiddish the atre seemed to be undergoing. I was snrrv to note that it had begun to yield to the European trend of the so-called dramatic currents, that it had acquired the ambition to produce pure Tragedy,” and that it sought to imitate the Western theatre- without having the Western tradition . j 6 i ac that Shalom Asch could be produced on the German stage without anv changes and without adaptation seemed to !T 6 J- n 6 Jhe clearest indication of the ° f Yiddish theatre, rather than of its advance, as is commonly as sumed. I have never ceased to regard om Asch as the Jewish brother of Suder- man. But it seemed to me to be the height of absurdity that a Western-civilized, shal low, diluted group of emancipated Jewry could find its European ambitions satisfied merely to see a “modern" Jewish, drama turgy that had been constructed according to the rules of Western playwriting. I could not understand this point of view, which called itself national, but which was merely environmentally imita tive. Why not “a tragedy with song and dance?" Why not the crude, yellow posters set up on a hand press, which looked poor but nevertheless attractive? Why not an unpunctual beginning; why not the wraps and babes in the audito rium; why not the long intermis sions? Why, all of a sudden, this staid European assurance, these police hours, this prohibition against wearing a hat in the the atre, and against smoking and eating oranges? Only once again—and that in the Jewish quarter in Paris—did I see an eastern, unregulated the atre. It only gave several per formances. It was a poor wander ing trope. They sang the songs that I had heard fifteen years be fore in Leopoldstadt. They pre sented tragedies with song and dance; the audience interrupted the actors in the middle of their speeches; one performer strode forward, pushed the actors aside, delivered a little speech, and the play resumed. The seats in the house weren’t marked; baby car- 'riages stood in the aisles; suckling children filled the auditorium with their wailing. * * * Several weeks later the Habimo. came to Paris. I did not see this Hebrew troupe. When out of fif teen million Jews only a limited number can understand Hebrew, and those few are scattered throughout the world, I cannot understand the existence of a Hebrew the atre. Quite a number of experts were lav ish in their praise of Habima. I can undei* stand how one might admire it from the point of view of a luxury. It migh' tnen have a cultural value. But, as I see it. only the necessary is artistic. * * * And then I visited the Yiddish t heat it in Moscow. After the first act, Granowsk} (the director) asked me to tea. (Thu in termissions in the Russian play houses aie. fortunately, so long that one gets a cl to drink tea) I was at that time inca • J of formulating my impression. If Cl had permited me to be frank, rather forced me to indulge in pleasanti would have said the following: I am deeply (Please turn to pag ! >7)