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The
Yiddish theatre that once, at its zenith, was rich and vibrant and flourished throughout Europe, the United States,
Argentina and in other parts of the world, is no more. The devastation
of the Second World War and Holocaust brought the Yiddish theatre in
Europe ,as we once knew it, to a crashing halt.
Though
Yiddish theatre existed in the United States well after the war,
attendance gradually declined. The reasons are multifold. The number of
Yiddish-speaking immigrants that was necessary to subsidize the
production of a steady stream of Yiddish plays had decreasing
dramatically, as did the number of immigrants themselves, starting as far back as the mid 1920s.
It
is also true that many
immigrant children whose parents spoke Yiddish at home, as
well as first-generation Jews, preferred speaking English and seeing
English language shows and films, often shunning Yiddish language
productions. This decline in attendance at the Yiddish theatre sadly mirrored
a diminishing interest in the Yiddish language
itself, as it too struggles to this day for its own survival. The
Yiddish theatre has often struggled in the post-war years to find its
own audience.
photo:
Maurice Schwartz, esteemed Yiddish actor and director of the Yiddish
Art Theatre. |
