Shakespeare on the American Yiddish stage.
Item
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Title
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Shakespeare on the American Yiddish stage.
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Identifier
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AAI9521249
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identifier
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9521249
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Creator
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Berkowitz, Joel Baruch.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Marvin Carlson
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Date
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1995
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Theater | History, United States | Literature, English
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Abstract
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Just over a decade after the first known professional Yiddish theatre performances in the United States in 1881, the American Yiddish theatre developed what one critic called "Classic Influenza;" theatres rushed to perform translations of works by Goethe, Schiller, and especially Shakespeare. Some of these versions did not outlive their premieres, but many became staples of the Yiddish repertoire. This dissertation examines the professional premieres of Yiddish translations of Shakespeare's plays in the United States as a means of measuring developments in the audience expectations, theatrical conditions, aesthetics, and ideologies of the American Yiddish theatre.;After an introduction explaining parameters and methodology, the study proceeds roughly chronologically. Shakespeare was incorporated into the American Yiddish theatre largely through the efforts of a number of central personalities, around whom this study is organized. Chapter 1 summarizes major developments in the Yiddish theatre before Shakespeare's introduction to the culture and analyzes the first instances of Shakespearean adaptation in the American Yiddish theatre. Chapter 2 examines playwright Jacob Gordin's two adaptations of King Lear, placing them in the context of Gordin's aesthetics and ideology. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on translations and adaptations featuring actor/director Boris Thomashefsky, Chapter 3 dealing with translations that retain Shakespeare's character and settings, Chapter 4 with adaptations that transplant the plays to a specifically Jewish idiom. Chapter 5 explores the cultural significance of a 1901 New York production of Hamlet starring Bertha Kalish in the title role. Chapter 6 examines three prominent Shylocks: Jacob Adler, Rudolph Schildkraut, and Maurice Schwartz. Chapter 7 features a production of Othello produced by Maurice Schwartz and his Yiddish Art Theatre in 1929, as well as other self-consciously "high-art" American Yiddish manifestations of the Shakespeare phenomenon, such as scholarly studies and published translations. The conclusion attempts to synthesize what Shakespeare has meant to Yiddish theatre in the United States.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
