Lives in the Yiddish Theatre
SHORT BIOGRAPHIES OF THOSE INVOLVED IN THE Yiddish THEATRE
aS DESCRIBED IN zALMEN zYLBERCWEIG'S "lEKSIKON FUN YIDISHN TEATER"

1931-1969
 

Karl Gutentag

 

G. was born on 10 December 1878 in Stanislawow, Eastern Galicia, to well-off parents. He learned in cheders, and until the age of seventeen, in a kloyz (small synagogue) in Sadagora. He never was greatly influenced to learn, although he often received knocks from his father that he should learn.

Possessing a beautiful voice, he considered the theatre, and when he left the kloyz, he organized an "amateur" group, and with them staged Goldfaden's "Shulamit" and Hurwitz's "Dos poylishe yungl", in which he acted in lover roles.

At the age of nineteen he became through Charles Nathanson who  had then guest-starred in Galicia, taken onto the professional stage and thus he wandered across Austria, Hungary, Germany, France, Belgium, Rumania and England, acting in lover roles.

In England he became acquainted with the actress Berta Axelrad, whom he married, and they became engaged to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where G. established the foundation for the first stable Yiddish theatre.

For eighteen years G. was the director of Yiddish theatre in Argentina, and during that time prominent Yiddish actors guest-starred and acted with him.

 

G. was an active member in Argentina of the Worker's Organization.

Since 1922 he has been in America, where he continues to act on the Yiddish stage. In 1929 G. traveled to guest-star in Argentina.


Sh. E.

B. Gorin -- "History of Yiddish Theatre", Vol. II, pp. 198-9.


 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 1, page 472.
 

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