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THE THREE GIFTS1,
by Isaac Leib Peretz
(Yiddish:
Der dray matones)
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"The
Three Gifts" is a play in two parts
and twelve scenes. The play was
dramatized by Melach Ravitch and
Maurice Schwartz. I
t opened on 1
October 1945 at the Yiddish Art
Theatre (formerly Public Theatre),
2nd Avenue at 4th Street in New York
City. The music was
composed by Joseph Rumshinsky, and
the play was staged by Maurice
Schwartz.
The action
takes place in the eastern part of
Europe in the second half of the
last century.
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photo: Maurice Schwartz, in "The
Three Gifts".
Courtesy of the New York Public
Library. |
Along
with Maurice Schwartz, the cast included:
Abraham Lax, Michael Goldstein, Gustave
Berger, Yudel Dubinsky, Luba Kadison, Berta
Gerstin, Sam Levine, Charles Cohan, Isidore
Elgard, Lena Marcus, Abraham Teitelbaum,
Celia Lipzin, Liza Silbert, Abraham
Teitelbaum, Leon Gold, Menachem Rubin,
Victor Bergman, Morris Bielawsky, Max
Tanenbaum, Jacob Brandis, Max Rosen, Rebecca
Weintraub, Izidore Casher, Morris Strassberg,
Celia Pearson, Isaac Arco, Herman Serotsky,
Leib Kenigsberg, Jenny Casher, Boris
Auerbach, Charlotte Goldstein, Misha
Fishzon, Solomon Krause, Meyer Scherr, Paul
Steiner, Solomon Krause and Muriel Gruber.
Dancers: Nina Caiserman, Beatrice Weiseman,
Marion Levine and Lillian Zanor.
photo: Scene from "The Three Gifts",
1945. Courtesy of the New York Public Library.
So, here is the
synopsis of Peretz's "The Three Gifts". The
name of the actor who portrayed the particular
role is in parentheses:
SYNOPSIS
Once upon a time
there was a fiddler named Joel (Maurice
Schwartz), and he lived in the town of Samosc in
Poland. He was a great and restless soul and a
musician of true genius. He had it in his power
to gain world renown as a virtuoso. Instead he
chose to head the town band in order to bring
solace and joy to the poor and the suffering.
Joel had a wife,
Mirel (Berta Gerstin), who had borne him eight
sons, all of whom were musicians playing in his
band, but the family lived in poverty because of
his selfless devotion to his calling.
Women found it
easy to worship him and the ready responsiveness
of his artistic nature caused him to fall deeply
in love many times, his profound affection for
his wife Mirel notwithstanding. Unending
conflicts with Mirel made his heart give way,
but he continued to play with even greater
feeling.
Lt. to rt.: Luba
Kadison, Maurice Schwartz and Berta Gerstin, in
"The Three Gifts", Oct. 1945.
Photo courtesy of the Museum of the City of New
York.
During
the final year of his life he fell desperately
in love with a dark and mysterious young woman,
Pesha (Luba Kadison). No one knew who she was
and whence she came. She called him King David
and began appearing suddenly at weddings dancing
rapturously to his music. At the last wedding at
which he played, Pesha is revealed as the bride.
She implores Joel to strike up flaming dance
music. To se her in the bridal gown with the
bridegroom at her side is more than his heart can
stand, and he dies under the strains of the
music.
Before he died he
had willed his place as the head of the band to
his long lost twin brother, Jechiel, if Jechiel
should be found.
In heaven, Joel's
good deeds are weighed against his sins, and the
scales are evenly balanced. Hence his soul can
be sent neither to Paradise, nor to the Inferno.
He must wander the earth again until he gathers
in three Gifts of Pure Virtue to tip the
heavenly scales in his favor.
And Joel is
returned to wander the earth again in the
incarnation of his long lost identical twin
brother.
He arrives in
Constanisa, Romania. There, at the inn, bandits
are robbing a Jew, who is readily giving up all
of his belongings, excepting one. The bandits
kill the Jew for it, only to discover that it
was a little sack filled with soil from the Holy
Land. (According to Orthodox tradition, great
virtue is accrued upon death if one is buried
with as much as a handful of the holy soil.)
Joel picks up the little sack -- the first Gift
of Pure Virtue to bring to heaven.
Joel continues on
his quest for other Gifts. His longing for his
family, as well as for Pesha, brings him to his
own home town of Samosc. He arrives at the house
of his family for the first Passover night. His
wife and his sons are frightened by his return
from the dead, but Joel calms them by presenting
himself as his long lost identical twin brother
Jechiel. Meanwhile the house is raided the the
Czarist police. Joel's son Joseph is suspected
of being a revolutionary because of his
friendship with the rabbi's son who is reputed
to be a revolutionary leader. The old rabbi
(Abraham Teitelbaum) himself is brought in for
questioning. The police chief (Misha Fishzon)
orders the rabbi to remove his hat out of
respect for the law. The rabbi remains in his
skull cap because the Orthodox faith forbids him
to go bareheaded, but the cap is knocked off his
head. The old rabbi runs for his cap. He is
being jeered and beaten, and he dies of heart
failure.
Joel picks up the
skull cap -- the second Gift of Pure Virtue.
On his further
wanderings he reaches Brandenburg in Germany,
where a young Jewish girl had just been found
guilty of desecrating an exalted Germanic
procession in her presence. She is to be
punished by having her tied to the tail of a
horse and dragged through the street until she
is dead. Before her execution, the girl asks for
some pins. She sticks the pins into her flesh,
fastening the hem of her dress, so that her body
may not be exposed while she is dragged through
the streets.
Joel picks up a
blood-covered pin of the martyred maiden -- the
third Gift of Pure Virtue.
He returns to
heaven where he now finds his wife Mirel who
could no longer live without him.
The three gifts
gathered in by him tilt the heavenly scales in
his favor, and the gates of Paradise are opened
to him and his wife. But he does not wish to
abandon himself to heavenly bliss while there is
so much misery on earth. He wishes to play the
violin accompanied by the heavenly orchestra and
have the earth's inhabitants hear the divine
music.
The merciful God
grants him his wish, and the celestial airs fill
heaven and earth.
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