The Maccabaean

Jews and the Stage.

AMONGST the tombs of ancient Rome there were found, a few years ago, evidence that even in the days of Nero—if our memory serves us right—Jewesses were amongst the dancing women. This fact does not add to the reputation of a more than crumbled memory. Every succeeding age, no doubt, had its Jewish mime and mimic and the international attribute of worthlessness went with it. Acting was an art, but not of repute, and with an abiding love for purity, Jewish literature knew nothing of dramatizing except for undramatic and harmless Purim plays. And such Jews and Jewesses who gave themselves over to the footlights generally were, and are, assimilated. On the other hand the stage representation of the Jew was generally unfavorable to the Jew. Lessing sought to right this wrong a century ago, and Henry Irving, recently deceased, made his reputation by his sympathetic rendering of Mathias in "The Bells." Between all these things it is not to be wondered at that even sixty years ago a Jewish member was fined for merely being part of the audience at an operatic performance.

Modern Drama.

All this has been changed within our own times. About thirty years ago Goldfaden wrote his first Yiddish play, and between Roumania and the United States the Jewish drama, the Jewish actor and the Jewish actress have become an institution. The earlier history of this Jewish stage is

full of humorous and tragic incidents so that the distich, attributed to Goldfaden, was appropriate: "Shakespeare in hatred of the Jews put Shylock on the stage; the Jews in revenge staged Shakespeare." And already the Yiddish stage seems to have reached its high-water mark. At first it was Jewish of the Jews, an education in history given behind the footlights. The dramatization of modern life followed, and more recently the problems have been adapted to Jewish phrases. No doubt the audience as it becomes Americanized becomes less frequent in its visits to the Jewish play house. But the more curious note is that the Yiddish actor and the Yiddish actress are beginning to desert their mame loshen, their own own locutions and their own homes and seek fame and reputation in the greater world. Last year Jacob Adler set the example, showing non-Jewish audiences how a Yiddish actor interprets Shylock. Now the "press agent" has boomed Madame Kalich in "Monna Vanna:" whilst a large group of Russian Jews have staked their dramatic interest in a Russian company. All this bespeaks a vast unrest, and, shall we say it, the doom of the Yiddish stage.

The courage of Adler and Kalich is admirable. But at the same time it is foolhardy. And the Yiddish stage has committed the same follies. At best it is difficult to realize in the flesh the characters of four and five hundred years ago, and the difficulty becomes greater when we are to see these figures through the brains of Shakespeare