The dibbuk
The dibbuk ( Russian Меж двух миров [Дибук] , trans. Mesch dwuch mirow [Dibuk] ; Yiddish : דֶער דִבּוּק - צִווִישֶן צְווַיי ווֶעלְטֶן, between two worlds - the Dibuk An-ski ) is a play by the Jewish writer . It was initially written in Russian between 1913 and 1916 and translated into Yiddish by the author . This version was premiered in 1920 by the Vilna troupe in Warsaw . A Hebrew version by Chaim Nachman Bialik was made in the Habima Theater in Moscow First performed in 1922.
The play depicts a woman's obsession with the evil spirit of her dead lover, known in Jewish folklore as a dibbuk . It is the most famous stage work by An-ski and is considered a classic of Yiddish literature.
plot
The action takes place in a Stetl called Brinitz near Miropol in Volhynia , in the Pale of Settlement at the time , towards the end of the 19th century.
In "total darkness" is heard from afar a sing-song, which ends with the words: "The decline is happening around the rising sake ..." (Yiddish: Dos traps trogt the Ojfkommen in itself ... ) Now slowly opens the curtain, and the view falls on the interior of an old wooden synagogue with black walls. Here three nameless idlers ("Batlanim"), accompanied by an equally nameless envoy ("Meschullach"), tell stories about famous Hasidic tzaddikim and their mastery of Kabbalistic practices. After Chanan, a dreamy, emaciated yeshiva student, joins them, the conversation turns to Lea, the daughter of the wealthy trader Sender. Chanan is in love with Lea, but is rejected by her father because of his poverty. When the broadcaster itself appears and announces that after a long hesitation he has promised his daughter to the applicant Menasche, Chanan falls dead to the ground. The book of Raziel falls from his hands .
Lea Menasche is supposed to get married a few months later. As is customary in the area, Lea dances with the beggars who have arrived before the actual ceremony. She tells her old nurse Frieda that the dead Chanan appeared to her in a dream. This is followed by a visit to the holy grave in the center of Brinitz. Here rest a bride and groom who were murdered under the chuppah during the 1648 pogroms , led by Bohdan Khmelnyzkyj . At the grave Leah invites the souls of her deceased ancestors to the festival. When the groom tries to lift the bride's veil during the ceremony, she pushes him back - a man's voice screams out of her. The emissary declares that she is possessed by a dibbuk .
The tzaddik Esriel of Miropol takes on the task of freeing the daughter of the rich broadcaster from her ghost at home. But the dibbuk refuses to obey the request. Esriel recognizes him, calls him Chanan, and calls a rabbinical court to ban him . The chairman of the court, Rabbi Samson, appears and explains that the ghost of Nissan, Chanan's father, appeared to him in a dream and is bringing Sender to court because he was responsible for the death of his son. The process is postponed to the next day.
The soul of Nissan appears in court and tells those present through Rabbi Samson: Nissan and Sender were good friends and had vowed that if one would become the father of a son and the other would be the father of a daughter, they should marry each other. Nissan died a year after the birth of his son Chanan, but he ended up in Brinitz and fell in love with Lea. Nissan accuses Sender of having driven Chanan into despair by his rejection, whereupon he turned to the " other side ". The court acquitted Sender of the allegation of breaking vows, since no one could dispose of an unborn creature, but ordered him to give half of his property to the poor and to pray the Kaddish daily for Nissan and Chanan.
While Saint Esriel performs a dramatic exorcism with the aid of a ram's horn and black candles, the dibbuk finally leaves Lea's body and she lies on the ground, exhausted. The wedding with Menasche is being prepared. Lea speaks to the spirit of Chanan and confesses to him that she has loved him since the first sight. Her soul leaves her body and Lea and Chanan are united in death.
Performance history
Between 1912 and 1914, Salomon Anski led an ethnographic expedition to remote villages in western Ukraine in the Jewish Pale of Settlement, financed by Vladimir Günzburg, the son of Horace Günzburg . After the dibbuk was written in Russian, he showed the play to Konstantin Stanislavski . The director of the Moscow Art Theater suggested that the author translate the Russian version into Yiddish for a more authentic effect. Anski completed the translation, but died a month before the planned premiere. In honor of the late author, the Vilna troupe developed the piece during the 30-day mourning period after his death. The premiere on December 9, 1920 in the Elyseum Theater in Warsaw and the following performances were the greatest successes of the company from Vilnius . The Yiddish version experienced another success from 1921 in the Yiddish Art Theater in New York under the direction of Maurice Schwartz . The Hebrew translation by Chaim Nachman Bialik , with Hanna Rovina in the leading role of Lea and Yevgeny Vakhtangow as director, premiered on December 9, 1922 at the Habima Theater in Moscow. It was performed 300 times in the Soviet Union by January 1926, after which the troupe embarked on an international tour and finally moved to Tel Aviv .
The piece was translated into numerous other languages and adapted several times. In 1925 the German premiere took place at the Rolandbühne in Vienna , with Friedrich Feher as the actor of Esriel and his wife Magda Sonja as Lea. In December 1925, an English version was first performed in the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. In 1928 the French translation, directed by Gaston Baty, premiered at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. In Germany, Klaus Pohl was seen as Chanan in 1979 at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg . The piece originally contains over 30 actors, plus numerous extras as Hasidim, traders, Talmudic students , wedding guests, beggars and children. However, the cast can vary greatly depending on the staging. While the figure of Lea was divided into three people in a performance at the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus in 1996 under the direction of Janusz Wisniewski, Miriam Goldschmidt and Urs Bihler shared all the roles at the Berlin Schaubühne .
In 1937, the film Der Dybbuk by director Michał Waszyński was released in Poland . In 2003 director Krzysztof Warlikowski staged a performance in Wroclaw and at the TR Warszawa Theater in Warsaw based on motifs from the play by An-Ski and a short story by Hanna Krall .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Performance Practice - Handbook of Jewish Cultural History
- ↑ Sunday news: Düsseldorf_ Der Dibbuk ( Memento of the original from March 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Dibbuk at the Schaubühne
Web links
- Dibbuk at the Schaubühne DIE ZEIT, December 4, 1981
- Performance Practice - Handbook of Jewish Cultural History Brigitte Dahlinger
- Text (Yiddish)
- German translation by Arno Nadel , Berlin 1921