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Adler's Novelty
Theatre
"Di
kreytser sonata" |
SUMMARY During a train ride, Pozdnishev overhears a conversation concerning marriage, divorce and love. When a woman argues that marriage should not be arranged but based on true love, he asks "What is love?" and points out that, if understood as an exclusive preference for one person, it often passes quickly. Convention dictates that two married people stay together, and initial love can quickly turn into hatred. He then relates how he used to visit prostitutes when he was young, and complains that women's dresses are designed to arouse men's desires. He further states that women will never enjoy equal rights to men as long as men view them as objects of desire, yet describes their situation as a form of power over men, mentioning how much of society is geared towards their pleasure and well-being and how much sway they have over men's actions. After he meets and marries his wife, periods of passionate love and vicious fights alternate. She bears five children, and then receives contraceptives: "The last excuse for our swinish life – children – was then taken away, and life became viler than ever." His wife takes a liking to a violinist, Truchatchevsky, and the two perform Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata (Sonata No. 9 in A Major for piano and violin, Op. 47) together. Pozdnishev complains that some music is powerful enough to change one's internal state to a foreign one. He hides his raging jealousy and goes on a trip, returns early, finds Truchatchevsky and his wife together and kills his wife with a dagger. The violinist escapes: "I wanted to run after him, but remembered that it is ridiculous to run after one's wife's lover in one's socks; and I did not wish to be ridiculous but terrible." Later acquitted of murder in light of his wife's apparent adultery, Pozdnishev rides the trains seeking forgiveness from fellow passengers.1 ----------------
The cast of "Kreutzer Sonata" included: Sarah
Adler, Sam Blum, Tsila and Leibush Gold, Samuel and Susie Kasten,
Peppy Lavitz, Hyman Meisel, Charles and Ida Nathanson, Rudolph
Schildkraut, Bernard Schoengold, Saltsche Schorr and Bessie
Weissman. |
In her autobiography, "Celia Adler Recalls," the actress Celia Adler recalls this episode from an August 1912 production of "Kreutzer Sonata":
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It should be said that Sarah Adler's bid to turn Williamsburg's newest Yiddish theatre in to a long-term success in the community, lasted approximately one-and-a-half years. They put on some fine productions, but its success was not to be. Its run ended unusually and abruptly. Here is an article that appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper of Friday, March 7, 1913:
JEWISH
ACTORS CONVICTED Six men and a woman, all of the Hebrew faith, were tried in the Court of Special Sessions today on a charge of violating the Sunday law by giving a theatrical performance at the Novelty Theatre on Driggs Avenue. After the evidence had been taken, showing that a performance had been given on October 27, 1912, Judges Salmon and Collins and Chief Justice Russell found the defendants guilty, in spite of an earnest plea by lawyer Reilly. The defendants were Nathan Mintz, Max Heine, manager; Abraham Heine, ticket seller; Morris Feldstein, doorkeeper; Charles Levy, Sarah Adler, actress; and Charles Nathanson, actor. The defense was that the law had held that those of the Hebrew or any other faith, observing the Sabbath of their religion, could work or play on the Christian Sabbath, and that these people earned their living by the theatre, and thus were not violating the law. The court, however, would not sustain the argument, holding that it was a violation of the law, not to do work necessarily, but to give a theatrical performance on the Sabbath. The defendants were convicted and sentence will be pronounced next Tuesday.
[Note: No other articles of this event
can be found except the following, and nothing is known
about what sentence was pronounced on those charged.
However, the Novelty Theatre was taken over subsequently by
a non-Yiddish stock company. Read this article, which
appeared in print later that month ... NOVELTY THEATRE IN EASTERN DISTRICT OPENS MONDAY UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT. Beginning next Monday afternoon, the Novelty Theatre at Driggs Avenue and South Fourth Street, will be the home of the Novelty Stock Company, which is to present the latest dramatic and comedy successes, with occasionally an important big revival. This change in the policy of the Eastern District playhouse, which has had such a lengthy and varied existence, is brought about by the Lyric Vaudeville Company, proprietors of the Grand Opera House on Elm Place, another Brooklyn theatre now devoted to stock. For many years the Novelty Theatre housed legitimate drama. Then it became the home of vaudeville. Until a few months ago it was occupied by the Sarah Adler Players, a Yiddish stock organization. To accommodate them, $10,000 was spent in a compete renovation of the building. A new dramatic company has been engaged, headed by Louis Leon Hall. The policy at the Novelty will be the same as at the Grand Opera House in respect to prices of admission; that is, they will be 10, 20 and 30 cents. However, there will be four matinees a week, instead of daily. These will be on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. The opening play for the week of March 24 will be the romantic drama, "By Right of Sword." Mr. Hall, who for eight years was leading man at Corso Payston's Lee Avenue Theatre, will have the leading role, while the company will include a number of other players popular in Brooklyn.
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1 -- from Wikipedia.
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