|
YOSHE KALB
premiered at the
Yiddish Art Theatre
October 1932
|
"I direct myself. The actor in
me taught the director in me. The director gives me only parts that
I can do well. The play always comes first; the cast comes next. In
'Yoshe Kalb' I gave myself a role that only appeared in four scenes.
I am as disciplined to the director as I am to myself. I'm a fanatic
about the theatre." -- Maurice Schwartz |
|
Music by Leo
Kutzen, settings by Alexander Chertov, and dances by Lillian Shapiro
Adapted by Maurice Schwartz from the Novel by I. J. Singer |
|
From the New York
Times, October 3, 1932:
"Portrayed in twenty-eight rapidly moving vignettes,
“Yoshe Kalb” encompasses many moods and colors. There is an old
woman’s dance in celebration of the wedding full of serene dignity;
a scene in a poor man’s synagogue racy and earthy; a scene in which
the old rabbi is rejected conveys genuine pathos. The large cast is
uniformly capable and thoroughly immerses itself in the material and
spirit of the play. Maurice Schwartz as the old rabbi gives one of
the best performances he has rendered in several seasons. Anna Appel,
ritual bath attendant and ‘barber’—she shaves the heads of the
brides—is a powerful figure of earth. Helen Zelinska as an idiot
reveals a vigor hitherto dormant in her. Michael Rosenberg is a
rambunctious fellow vital to his toes, and Isadore Casher and Lazar
Freed acquit themselves more than creditably.” |
|
Actors and their
Roles
from "Yoshe Kalb" |
|
|
 |
 |
The Nieshever Rabbi
portrayed by
Maurice Schwartz |
Nechumsche ("Yoshe Kalb")
portrayed by
Lazar Freed |
| |
Left to right:
The Dayen of Bialygorer (Gustav Shacht?), Mechele Hivnever
(Noah Nachbush),
The Redheaded Beggar (Pinchas Sherman), and The Dinenberger
Rabbi (Anatole Winogradoff.)
|
Left to right:
Serele (Judith Abarbanel) and Gitel, the wife of the Nyeveshe
Rabbi (Anna Appel.)
|
Left
to right: Konon (Isadore Cashier) and Konon's daughter
Zivyah (Helen Zelinska.)
|
Top row, left to right:
Two poor men (Uri Kaner? and Isaac Sverdloff), Israel Avigdor
(Morris Silberkasten), Nyeveshe Rabbi (Maurice Schwartz),
Motye Godol (Wolf Goldfaden), and the three Young Men (Joseph
Schwartzberg, Eli Mintz, and Saul Fruchter.
Bottom row, left to right: The Nyeveshe Chasid
(Michael Rosenberg), The Katerinchik? (Michael Gibson),
The Krakow Rabbi (Isaac Rothblum), ...(Louis Weisberg), and
the Lizshaner Rabbi (Morris Strassberg.)
|
|
Scenes from Yoshe Kalb... |
Sketches by
Shimen Ruskin.
Courtesy of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts,
Billy Rose Theatre Division
|
|
