Jewish theater
Jewish theater is a performance of spoken and musical theater designed by Jewish artists. It covers the whole spectrum from drama , revues, cabaret, cabaret to operetta and singspiel.
As a specifically Yiddish theater, Jewish theater experienced a high point between the late 19th century and the Second World War, when Yiddish theaters and theater troupes were active in large parts of East and East Central Europe and increasingly also in Western Europe and America.
Origins
Neither biblical nor talmudic literature contains anything that can be understood as theater or drama in the modern sense. Dramatic rudiments, d. H. a combination of singing and dancing are indeed in the Song of Moses ( Exodus 15) and the Song of Songs included, and the Book of Job adheres to general principles dramatic: it contains dialogues, descriptions of characters and dramatic incidents. However, some stage performances of this biblical book have shown that it was by no means written for performance purposes.
Post-Biblical Period
The only dramatic Jewish author of the post-Biblical period is Ezekiel of Alexandria , who lived in the first century BC and wrote a play called the Exagoge , which describes the Exodus from Egypt (Exodus). Almost 300 iambic verses have survived from this piece . The rabbis were generally hostile to the theaters, amphitheaters, and circuses of the surrounding Hellenistic-Roman world. Initially, this attitude was not generally shared; Herod had theaters, amphitheaters and hippodromes built in some cities of Palestine, including Jerusalem . But after tragedies were increasingly replaced by crude comedies in the second century AD, in which Jews and their customs became victims of mockery, the rabbis finally forbade even participating in the construction of a stadium or amphitheater. ( Avoda sara 16a).
In Rome there were Jews on the Roman stage as well as in the audience during the reign of Emperor Nero . A Jewish actor named "Aliturus" or "Alityros" is described by Flavius Josephus as an imperial favorite.
Purim Games and Haskala
Yiddish theater, that is, theatrical performances in the Yiddish language, developed from Purim plays , which were created similar to the Christian passion plays in the Middle Ages.
Contact with the Christian mystery play came about in Italy at the time of the early Renaissance . In the 16th century, Mantua was famous for its courtly splendor and became the center of new Italian drama. The Jewish community there numbered about 2,000 people and was largely involved in furnishing and paying for performances for the entertainment of the ruling dukes. In 1489, the Jewish community of Pesaro performed the story of Judith and Holofernes at its own expense , in celebration of the wedding of Giovanni Sforza to Maddalena Gonzaga, daughter of the Duke of Mantua .
The reforms of Moses Mendelssohn in the 18th century, which brought a new spiritual orientation and enlightenment ( Haskala ) , were an essential prerequisite for the development of the Jewish theater . Restrictions such as disguise and acting bans (with the exception of Purim) as well as the ban on images were thereby relaxed or, in modern Judaism, abolished.
For example, the comic tradition of Badchen was continued from the Purim play , and Jewish folk singers also played a certain pioneering role , of whom the Broder Singer were best known. These singers, who entertained people in inns with partly played songs and monologues, were especially widespread in Eastern Europe.
Yiddish theater
Beginnings
The first recorded performance of a Yiddish theater piece, Serkele of Solomon Ettinger , found in 1862 in the rabbinical seminary in Zhitomir in Volyn held in the former Russian Empire (now Ukraine).
Abraham Goldfaden is regarded as the father of modern Yiddish theater . He himself had been a student in Shitomir and wrote Yiddish dramas and poetry with which he had a decisive influence on Yiddish theater for decades.
In 1876 he founded the first Yiddish professional theater in Iași , Bukowina . The first Yiddish performance also took place in Bucharest in 1876. Traveling theater was created by Jizchok Leib Perez , Israel Grodner , Jacob Adler in Austria-Hungary and Abraham Kamiński in the Russian Empire, among others . Pieces by Goldfaden, Perez, Scholem Alejchem and numerous others were performed.
Spread to Western Europe and the USA
After the Russian government banned theater performances in Yiddish in 1883, numerous Jewish actors emigrated to the West and founded Yiddish theaters in Paris, London, the USA ( New York ) and South America ( Buenos Aires , 1901). Jakob Gordin has written many plays since the 1870s, including numerous Yiddish adaptations of works from world literature such as Goethe's Faust, Shakespeare's King Lear , Molière's The Imaginary Sick, Tolstoy's Cruiser Sonata and others. a.
In 1896, the Herrnfeld brothers founded a Jewish dialect theater in Berlin . In 1908, the first Jewish stage was created in Vienna by Hugo Zuckermann and Oskar Rosenfeld (see Jewish Theater in Vienna ).
Entertainment theaters such as revues, cabaret and vaudeville played a predominant role.
Development since 1914
Several new theaters have been founded in Russia since 1916, such as the Vilnius Troupe or the Habima Theater in Moscow. These played dramas, often derived from contemporary and classical European literature, and developed their own aesthetic in the process. The newly formed nation states in eastern Central Europe after the First World War, such as Poland , Czechoslovakia and Romania , also offered new opportunities for the development of Yiddish theater.
Soviet Union
The history of Yiddish theater in the Soviet Union is inextricably linked with the name of Alexander Granovsky . In 1919 he founded a studio in what was then Petrograd , which went to Moscow a year later and played an important role there under the name of the State Jewish Theater until its closure in 1949. The Habimah Theater from Moscow, on the other hand, went on a tour to Western Europe, from which it never returned. The state Habimah Theater in Tel Aviv emerged from him in 1951.
The Moscow State Jewish Theater and Granovsky were charged in 1928 with “right-wing deviantism”. In the same year they went on a successful tour through Germany, Austria and France. Granovsky never returned to the Soviet Union. Another important figure in Yiddish theater in the Soviet Union is Solomon Michailowitsch Michoels , who died in a car accident in Minsk in 1948 in a way that is still not fully understood.
There were several Jewish theaters in the Soviet Union, such as in Lviv , Tashkent , Birobidzhan and Frunze .
East Central Europe
In Poland and Romania, numerous theaters were built in areas with large Jewish populations, including Warsaw and Bucharest. These also provided important impulses for the development of the developing young Jewish film.
United States
In New York, Yiddish theater experienced its “golden era” in the first decades of the 20th century with the dramas by Jacob Gordin . From the 1930s onwards, the Jewish theater scene increasingly concentrated on New York , where Yiddish film also experienced its heyday. The Folksbiene ("Volksbühne"), founded in 1915, still plays today.
Israel
After 1948, only Hebrew-language theaters such as the Habimah National Theater in Tel Aviv were built in Israel . Interest in Yiddish theater only arose here in the 1970s. YidiSphil in Tel-Aviv has offered sophisticated theater since then .
present
There are Jewish and Yiddish theaters worldwide in Israel (Tel Aviv), North America (New York, Montréal), South America and Europe (Vienna, Berlin, Bucharest, Paris, Strasbourg and others).
The following Jewish theaters exist or existed in Germany:
Theater of the Jewish Cultural Association in Berlin
Michoels Theater in Cologne
In Germany the “Association for the Promotion of Jewish Culture and for the Establishment of the First Jewish Culture and Theater House in Germany” was founded. V. ”opened the first Jewish theater and culture house in Germany of the post-war period in Cologne, the“ Theater Michoels ”. In productions such as “Die Juden” or “Mit a bissel Massel” the motto “Laugh until the rabbi comes” applies. Weaknesses and neuroses, but also the usual prejudices, are poked fun at with a wink.
The foundation stone was laid in 2000. A year later, the Michoels Theater moved into the interim domicile in the Kunsthaus Rhenania in Cologne's Rheinauhafen. After that, the theater had a rehearsal stage in the Intercultural Center in Annostrasse in the south of Cologne and performed throughout Germany. In 2014 this stage was expanded and our own venue was completed. The theater's activities include the successful cultural series “Jewish Impressions” and the educational theater educational project for schoolchildren and young people “BeWahren für die Zukunft”.
Theater Mechaje in Rostock
In early 1997 the Jewish theater "Mechaje" was officially founded in Rostock by its director and artistic director Michail Beitman-Korchagin. In its comedic, serious and artistic-musical productions, the theater shows excerpts from Jewish culture, traditions and ways of life. In the first few years the “Mechaje” was housed in the Rostock Jewish community and made guest appearances at the Rostock Volkstheater . In 2007, “Mechaje” was honored with the culture award of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for its commitment to the Jewish-German dialogue . In 2010 it opened a music theater salon, in which it has performed its own productions as well as inviting guest artists. In addition to his regular appearances in Rostock, “Mechaje” is often on tour touring. It made guest appearances in more than 60 cities in Germany and Europe. Although often entertaining with humor, “Mechaje” generated its greatest attention in Germany so far with his drama “Splitter der Kristallnacht”, in which the events around the pogrom night are dealt with. The theater's creative field also includes the children's circus “Wölkchen”, which has existed since 1996 and was the winner of the nationwide competition “Strengthening Young People” in Berlin in 2013.
Bimah Jewish Theater in Berlin
In 2001, the Israeli director and actor Dan Lahav founded the “Jewish Theater Bimah” in Berlin . After its beginnings at Hohenzollerndamm and stints in the former " Filmbühne am Steinplatz " and in Neukölln Jonasstraße, the theater had its venue from autumn 2011 to spring 2014 in Berlin's Admiralspalast. There were mainly contemporary pieces by Israeli, English-speaking, American and German-Jewish authors on the program. So z. B. "Bent" by Martin Sherman , "Das Zimmer" by Harold Pinter or pieces like "The Pianist's Secret in the 5th Drawer" - with strongly autobiographical features of the artistic director Dan Lahav and his Hamburg-Jewish family history. “Esther Glick” is the fictional story of the first Jewish female detective who gets the inspiration to solve her cases while cooking. The production “An Incredible Encounter in the Romanisches Café”, in which a fictional encounter between Lotte Lenya , Else Lasker-Schüler , Kurt Tucholsky and Friedrich Hollaender, is staged on stage one day before their emigration from Nazi Germany caused a stir . In the production “Shabat Shalom” the audience experiences a Friday evening in a Jewish family. Evenings with Kurt Tucholsky and Ephraim Kishon complete the program. The theater also feels committed to political and socio-political educational work, for example by supporting training and further education measures for migrants or the police . In March 2014 the “Jewish Theater Bimah” closed its doors on Friedrichstrasse, and on April 15, 2014 the Charlottenburg District Court opened insolvency proceedings.
However, the German-Jewish stage Bimah celebrated its reopening in summer 2015 at Meinikestraße 24 on Kurfürstendamm as “Theater megalomania”. The new name is not only an expression of self-irony, but rather a tongue-in-cheek homage to the legendary “cabaret megalomania”, which in the 1920s was a center of Berlin's intellectual life just a stone's throw away at today's Kranzler-Eck in the former “Café des Westens” depicted. The theater feels obliged to this tradition and gives astute satire with Jewish wit the largest part of the program. In addition, ambitious intercultural bridge building projects also play an important role. In the project “Shalom - Salam, where?”, Young people with Jewish, Muslim and Christian influences meet to discuss the problem of new anti-Semitism and anti-Islamism against the background of a love story.
Theater Schachar in Hamburg
From 1998 to 2004 there was the Theater Schachar in Hamburg .
literature
- Zalmen Zylbercwaig : Leksikon fun Yidishn Teater (subtitle: Lexicon of the Yiddish Theater, first two volumes together with Jacob Mestel), Hebrew Actors' Union of America (Ed.), Volumes 1–4, New York 1931–1963, Volumes 5– 6, Mexico City 1965-67.
- Nahma Sandrow: Vagabond Stars. A World History of Yiddish Theater. Harper & Row, New York 1977; 2nd ed. Applause Books, 1985; 3rd ed. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse 1996.
- Peter Sprengel : Scheunenviertel Theater. Jewish drama troops and Yiddish drama in Berlin (1900–1918). Fannei & Walz, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-927574-31-7 .
- Peter Sprengel: Popular Jewish theater in Berlin from 1877 to 1933. Haude and Spener, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-7759-0411-5 .
- Brigitte Dalinger: extinct stars. History of the Jewish Theater in Vienna. Picus, Vienna 1998, ISBN 978-3-85452-420-5 .
- Jeanette R. Malkin, Freddie Rokem (editor): Jews and the Making of Modern German Theater. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 2010, ISBN 978-1-58729-868-4 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Brigitte Dalinger: Extinct stars. History of the Jewish Theater in Vienna. Picus Verlag, Vienna 1998, p. 21
- ↑ Dalinger, 1998, p. 25
- ↑ a b Dalinger, 1998, p. 11
- ↑ Michoels Theater
- ^ Theater "Mechaje"
- ↑ Circus Wölkchen ( Memento of the original from May 18, 2015 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.
Web links
- Di Eybike Mame - The Eternal Mother. Women in Yiddish Theater and Popular Song 1905–1929 (PDF file; 335 kB)
- Brigitte Dalinger, “Tragedy with song and dance”. On the aesthetics and dramaturgy of Jewish theater texts .
See also
- List of Jewish theaters
- From the Jewish Theater , prose fragment by Franz Kafka (1917)