Kalich made her reputation in Yiddish theatre playing in A Doll's House and Fedora. She also followed in the path of Sara Bernhardt, Charlotte Cushman, and other actresses when she played the title role of Shakespeare's Hamlet.

The famed Yiddish actor Herman Yablokoff stated of her: "Madam Kalich was quite tall. She was stately, beautiful and possessed of a speaking voice that was likened to the deep, mellow tones of a cello." After performing with Bertha Kalich he realized that "the magic of Bertha Kalich was truly outstanding. Her diction in delivering monologues, her laughter, her weeping were all modulated so masterfully that it could well have been a virtuoso playing on his instrument--the cello..."