During the Turco-Russian War, in 1876 and 1877, the city of Bukarest in Roumania presented a lively spectacle. It was the seat of the Russian staff, and all the news from the field of war was carried there, and all the contracts for the commissariat were let there. The city swarmed with Jews from Russia and Galicia, who had come there to find, in one way or another, some means to earn a fortune. Bukarest became a Mecca of all those who did not succeed at home. And, indeed, as long as the war lasted most of them managed to fill their pockets. With the easily gotten gains there came also a desire to be amused, and coffee-houses were crowded by Jews who came to them to listen to the songs of some local ballad singer. It was also not uncommon for such singers to give performances of their art in private houses to assembled guests. Goldfaden had also come there in the hope of bettering his condition. It occurred to him that he might widen the activity of the balladists by uniting several of them into a company for the sake of theatrical performances. This he did at once. Bearing in mind the fact that Jews had not been used to the regular drama, but that they were fond of music, he wrote hurriedly half a dozen light burlesques, mostly imitations of French originals, in which the songs written and set to music by him were the most important thing. There is no other merit whatsoever in the plays, as their Jewish setting is merely such in name, and as otherwise the plot is too trivial.[117] But the songs have survived in the form of popular ballads. It is interesting to note that this first Roumanian troupe consisted exclusively of men, who had also to take the women's parts.
After the conclusion of the war, in 1878, Goldfaden returned to Odessa, where he established a regular Jewish theatre.[118] Women were added to the personnel, and a number of writers began to write plays specially adapted for the stage. Katzenellenbogen, Lerner, Schaikewitsch, Lilienblum, and the founder of the theatre were busy increasing the repertoire. Of these, Katzenellenbogen was the most original and most literary. It does not appear that his dramas have been printed, but the songs taken out of several of them and issued by him in a volume of his poetry attest a high merit in them. Lerner was satisfied with reproducing some of the best German plays in a Jewish garb. Of these he later published, 'Uncle Moses Mendelssohn,' a one-act drama; a translation of Gutzkow's 'Uriel Acosta'; a rearrangement of Scribe's 'The Jewess'; and a historical drama, 'Chanuka,' of which the original is not mentioned by him. The dramas of the other two are quite weak, but they do not yet indicate that degree of platitude which they have reached later in America. The success of the theatre was complete. The original company divided in two, and one part began to play independently under the leadership of Lerner, while the other started on a tour through the Jewish cities of Russia, visiting Kharkov, Minsk, and even Moscow and St. Petersburg. In many towns they were received with open hands, in others the intelligent classes saw in the formation of a specifically Jewish theatre a menace to the higher intelligence which was trying to emancipate itself from the Judeo-German language and all its traditions. They went so far as to get the police's prohibition against the performances of Goldfaden's troupe.
This procedure was only just in so far as it affected the character of the plays, for there was nothing in them to recommend them as means of elevating or educating the masses. They had had their origin at a time when amusement was the only watchword, and they had had no time to evolve new phases. Seeing that in order to succeed he would have to furnish something more substantial than his farces, Goldfaden produced in succession three historical dramas: 'Doctor Almosado,' 'Sulamith,' and 'Bar-Kochba,' to which at a later time were added 'Rabbi Joselmann, or the Persecution in Alsace,' 'King Ahasuerus, or Queen Esther,' and 'The Sacrifice of Isaac,' and a fantastic opera, 'The Tenth Commandment.' None of these are, properly speaking, dramas, but operas or melodramas. They have at least the merit of being placed on a historical or Biblical basis and of following good German models. Their popularity has been very great, and the many songs which they contain, especially those from 'Sulamith' and 'Bar-Kochba,' rank among the author's best and most widely known. The latter two operas were translated into Polish, and given in a theatre in Warsaw. Just as the Jewish theatre was entering on its new course of the historical drama, the Government, by a rescript of September, 1883, closed them in Russia, and this was followed later by another prohibition of Jewish performances at Warsaw, where the first law had been obviated by giving them in the so-called German theatre.
About that time two young men, Tomaschewski and Golubok, of New York, started a theatre in New York. The troupe consisted of actors who had just arrived from London, where they found it too difficult to establish themselves. The first performance was given in the Fourth Street Turner Hall. As formerly in Russia, the Reformed Jews of the city used their utmost efforts to prevent the playing of a Jewish comedy, but in vain. It was given in spite of all remonstrances and threats. After that the theatre was permanently established in the Bowery Garden, under the name of the Oriental Theatre, which soon passed under the directorship of J. Lateiner. In 1886 another theatre, The Roumania Opera House, was opened in the old National Theatre, at 104-106 Bowery. It would not be profitable to enter into the further vicissitudes of the companies, their jealousies and ridiculous pretensions at equalling the best American troupes. Unfortunately, the authors upon whom they had to depend for their repertoires were Lateiner, Hurwitz, and other worthy followers of Schaikewitsch, who by rapid steps brought the Jewish stage down to the lowest degrees of insipidity. Not satisfied with producing dramas from a sphere they knew something about, they began to imitate, or rather corrupt, existing foreign plays, to give foolish versions of 'Mary Stuart,' 'Don Carlos,' 'Trilby,' and similar popular dramas. There were, indeed, some men who might have saved the stage from its frightful degeneration, but the theatre managers would not listen to them, preferring to pander to the low taste of the masses by giving them worthless productions that bore some distant resemblance to the performances in the lower grades of American theatres.
Only during a short period of time, early in the nineties, it looked as though things were going to be improved, for the managers accepted a number of adaptations and original plays by J. Gordin. Gordin belonged to that class of educated men who, though they had been carried across the ocean with one of the waves that bore the Jewish masses from Russia to the shores of the United States, had never stood in any relation whatsoever to their fellow-emigrants. He had been a Russian journalist, and in America he was confronted with the alternative of devoting himself to Judeo-German literature or starving. He naturally chose the first. Although he had had a good literary training, he had never before written a word in the vernacular of his people. At first he tried himself in the composition of short sketches from the life of the Russian Jews, and finding that his articles found a ready acceptance with the Judeo-German press, he attempted dramatic compositions. He has translated, adapted, or composed in all more than thirty plays, of which, however, only one has been printed. As his large variety of dramas give a good idea of the condition of the stage during its best period, they will be shortly mentioned here. Among the translations we find Ibsen's 'Nora'; among the adaptations we have Victor Hugo's 'Ruy Blas,' 'Hernani'; Lessing's 'Nathan the Wise'; Schiller's 'Kabale und Liebe,' under the name of 'Rōsele'; 'The Parnes-chōdesch,' from Gogol's 'The Inspector'; 'Elischewa' and 'Dworele,' imitations of two of Ostrovski's comedies; Grillparzer's 'Medea'; and 'Meir Esofowitsch,' on a subject taken from Mrs. Orzeszko's novel of the same name. Several of his plays display more original creative power. Of these it will suffice to mention: 'The Wild Man,' treating of the degeneration among the Jews; 'The Jewish Priest,' illustrating the struggle between the progressive Jews and the old orthodox factions; 'The Russian Jew in America,' dealing with the condition of the Russian Jews in New York; 'The Pogrom,' in which the late riots against the Jews in Russia are depicted.
Gordin and a few other men, such as Rosenfeld, Korbin, Winchevsky, might have introduced new blood and life into the Jewish drama, but the managers and the silly actors who in their pride permit their names to go down on the billboards as second Salvinis and Booths have willed otherwise. But then they are following in this the common course pursued by all dying literatures, and they are not, after all, to be blamed more than the public that permits such things, and the public in its turn is merely succumbing rapidly to the influence of American institutions, which before long will overwhelm peaceably, but none the less surely, the Jewish theatre and the Judeo-German language. Before the inevitable shall happen, they have attempted to cling to their old traditions; but it is only a very faint glimpse of their old life they are getting now, and in the very weak performances that one may still see on the Jewish stage there is already a great deal more of the reflex of their new home than the glow of their old. It is very doubtful whether the Jewish theatre can subsist in America another ten years.
Of late the theatre has been revived in Galicia and Roumania; if I am not mistaken, there exists also a Jewish theatre in Warsaw. The plays performed there are mainly the productions of Goldfaden, Lerner, and a few other writers of the older period. Occasionally a play is given there that has previously been played in New York. If the theatre is to survive in Europe, it will naturally develop quite independently from the American stage. It must remain more national if it is at all to be Jewish. And such we really find it to be. In addition to the several dramas mentioned throughout the book there might be added David Sahik's 'A Rose between Thorns' and Sanwill Frumkis's 'A Faithful Love,' which are among the best comedies produced in Judeo-German.
Excepting the peculiar development of the theatre in America, the Judeo-German drama has remained more or less a popular form of poetry. In the form of Goldfaden's farces we may see an evolution of the farcical Purim plays, while his historical dramas stand in very much the same relation to our time that the mysteries occupied two centuries ago. Similarly the theatre, even at its best, has remained of a primitive nature.
XVI. OTHER ASPECTS OF LITERATURE
IN spite of the brilliant evolution of Judeo-German literature in the last fifty years, the older ethical works of the preceding period continue in power and are reprinted from time to time, mostly in the printing offices at Warsaw and Lublin. Among these we find a large number of biographies of famous Rabbis, testamentary instructions of wise men, essays on charity, faith, and other virtues, and an endless mass of commentaries on the Bible and other religious books. Most of these are translations from the Hebrew. Of late there have also begun to appear treatises on moral subjects written specially in the vernacular. We have had occasion to mention the works of Zweifel. There have also been written sermons of a more pretentious character in Judeo-German, and even the missionaries have used the dialect for the purpose of making propaganda among them: the first to attempt this were the English missionaries, the last have been emissaries from the Greek Church. Of course these have had no influence of any kind on the minds of the people. One of the most fruitful branches of the liturgical literature has been the Tchines, or Prayers. They are intended for women, and there is a vast variety of them for every occasion in life. Some of the older ones are quite poetical, being translations or imitations of good models. But many of the newer ones have been manufactured without rhyme or reason by young scholars in the Rabbinical seminaries of Wilna and Zhitomir. These were frequently in sore straits for a living, and knowing the proneness of women to purchase new, tearful prayers, have composed them to their tastes. They have hardly any merit, except as they form a sad chapter in the sad lives of Russian Jewish women. The old story-books and the prayers have been almost the only consolation they have had in their lives fraught with woe.