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Chapter Twenty: “Need Breaks
Iron.”
If Maurice endured the anguish of
once more being without a home to call his own, a base of operations
for the Art Theatre, it wasn’t for long. Charley Groll, through his
many contacts in the entertainment industry, and with the help of
Edwin Relkin, a hyperactive Yiddish Theatre manager, helped obtain a
capacious playhouse at 114 E. 14th Street, between Second
and Third Avenues. The City Theatre had begun life as a vaudeville
and movie house, but also presented live theatre. It was a perfect
location, above a number of intersecting subway lines, and boasted
the kind of huge stage that Maurice had fought for with Louis Jaffe,
but never got. Schwartz let his imagination run riot over what he
could do with so enormous a playing field.
For a season that was reduced from
40 weeks of a decade earlier to about 35 and often less, Schwartz
had much to consider before consenting to the terms of the lease.
Hardly more than a pauper after the previous season, at low
spiritual tide in March, his resolve returned full blown, even if
rich backers like Jaffe and Lifshitz were nowhere in sight.
“ ‘Need breaks iron’ is a Jewish
proverb. I decided to directly approach theatregoers and appeal for
their help. Why not introduce a subscription plan the way it’s done
in the Theatre Guild? Why not make sure the Art Theatre has a
membership that can become an insurance policy for its existence?”
(Schwartz 24 Mar.1945).
That old, undying pipe dream: it
had never stopped rattling around in his head like a gerbil on a
treadmill since the very inception of the Irving Place Theatre. He’d
tried it out then, in a limited way, and again on Second Avenue, but
with poor results. Back then, it would have been icing on the cake.
Now, in such a changed environment, with so much roiled water under
the bridge, public support had become an absolute necessity.
Expanding his original concept (which wasn’t original), he placed
ads in the Yiddish press, promoting a detailed and imaginative
discount plan involving subscription cards in various denominations,
from a dollar to $100. The discounts on tickets and other benefits
were proportional to the card’s value. The $100 card, for example,
entitled its owner to free admission to every premiere.
“My appeal brought immediate
results. We collected $8000 in the first weeks. Thousands of patrons
came to our office on Second Avenue to register. Some sent as much
as $100 in cash through the mail” (Schwartz 24 Mar. 1945). After
the numbers had been tallied, Schwartz estimated that more than
11,000 had joined. Listed in the first playbill of the season
opener, were 150 honorary members of the Art Theatre, the $100
variety. Among them were the banker Otto Kahn, the playwright H.
Leivick, and a host of labor leaders.
Maurice signed a ten-year lease, to
commence October 1st, 1928 and expire June 30, 1938. The
rent would start at $67,500 a year and escalate to $110,000. The
landlord, William Fox, the movie mogul, demanded and received a
security deposit of $25,000. With a much larger hall to fill, and a
vast stage at his command, Schwartz selected Sholem Asch’s
Kiddush Hashem to open the City Theatre. Sanctification of
the Name, is the play’s rough English translation, and was an
expansion by the author of his short story about the Chmielnicki
Massacre of 1648, one of the most horrific episodes in Jewish
history, with over 100,000 Jews slaughtered.
With funds made available through
the subscription plan, he went about the happy hell of fleshing out
the Asch piece. “I hired a troupe of the best actors. I didn’t spare
any expense for sets and costumes. Kiddush Hashem had to be
grandiose at any cost” (Schwartz 28 Mar. 1945). Maurice worked with
Asch on the dramatization, and also directed the play. Joseph Achron
provided the music, Sam Ostrowsky the sets. Charley Adler (Jacob’s
son) choreographed the dances. Available and avid to work with
Maurice again, were many former members of the Art
Theatre:Goldschmidt, Abramowitz, Baratov, Michael Rosenberg, Lisa
Silbert, Lazar Freed, Celia Adler and Anatol Vinogradoff. However,
Anna Appel and Bertha Gersten had made other commitments for the
‘28-’29 season, though each returned the following year. More than
60 actors were used in the production, 40 individually listed in the
playbill, the rest unheralded: extras who were Cossacks, Polish
soldiers, Ukrainian peasants, nobles, children and choir singers.
These unsung performers were products of the acting school Schwartz
had previously organized.
His imagination unbound, Schwartz
instilled a technique he took credit for: the revolving stage,
though it originated in Japan in the 17th Century, a
product of Kabuki Theatre that was brought to Europe in 1896 by the
German stage designer Lautenschlager. Schwartz’s device was
manipulated electrically and “could be turned left or right; scenes
were shifted at lightning speed [. . .]” (Schwartz 28 Mar. 1945). A
stickler for perfection, and goaded by the higher stakes of running
the City Theatre, Schwartz went to extremes to make certain that
everything was exactly so. He drove the crew unmercifully from early
morning to sundown.
All Maurice’s uncompromising
attention to detail, the hard work and the long hours of drilling
his cast, paid off, as Kiddush Hashem opened on September 14th
and was a tremendous success. He felt justified in choosing so
elaborate a spectacle, in spending so freely. In the introduction to
his review, Brooks Atkinson wrote that “most of us are eager to see
the artistic integrity of a local Jewish Art Theatre preserved
against growing obstacles. The literature and the acting talent of
the Jewish Theatre are rich. Even if we remain ignorant of the
language, we can enjoy the ardor and the poetry of their more
racially representative productions” (30 Sept. 1928). About the
play itself, Atkinson was less appreciative, finding the work rather
flabby, the lighting poor, the makeup sloppy, the direction
unfocused. And yet, perhaps more as a commentary on the dearth of
worthwhile material Uptown than on the City’s production, The
Times critic declared that “nothing on Broadway this season
approaches the grandiose conception of Sholem Asch’s epic drama”
(30 Sept. 1928).
Originally, Schwartz’s plan was to
run a work for six weeks only, in order to provide a full agenda for
his subscribers, who were after all the Art Theatre’s engine. But
with the start-up costs of mounting Kiddush Hashem so
exorbitant, he decided to extend the run an additional three weeks.
It was taking in $15,000 each and every week. In late October, while
the Asch piece was still thrilling the weekend crowd, Maurice filled
in the weeknights with a revival of Rags, absenting himself
however from its production. He hired Avrom Morevsky, of the Vilna
Troupe to direct and star in the Leivick play. Ten days later, on
Thursday, November 1st, Schwartz interrupted Kiddush
Hashem to put up The Great Fortune, the Sholem Aleichem
work first offered in 1922, under the title The Big Lottery.
One week later, the Asch play still
on hold, Maurice produced a piece he’d been rolling over in his mind
for ages, Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. The stated reason for
its mounting was the Moscow Art Theatre’s thirtieth anniversary. A
limited run of two weeks was scheduled. Once again, Schwartz
deferred to the Russians on this most Russian of plays, by hiring
Leo Bulgakov to direct. Bulgakov had been a Moscow Art Theatre
member, but was talked into defecting by Morris Gest, during its
1923-1924 swing through America. After his one-play stint at the Art
Theatre, Bulgakov would go on the produce and direct a host of
Broadway plays.
Next came the creaky, ancient
God, Man and Devil despite the warnings of financial failure
from the Art Theatres two managers, Leon Hoffman and Joseph
Grossman. Maurice reread the Gordin classic and did some heavy
tinkering, “eliminating boring monologues, and enhancing the
dramatization [. . .]. I decided to create a new format for the
interesting play, adding a third act, subdividing it into two
parts” (Schwartz 4 Apr. 1945). To the surprise of everyone but
Maurice, the reconstituted play received great notices and made
money, running well from late December to the end of February the
next year.
Not every risk Schwartz took that
season paid off. On January 3rd, he sidetracked God,
Man and Devil to try Shakespeare’s Othello. A substantial
part of the gamble was the Yiddish patron’s distaste for the creator
of Shylock, a slur on the Jewish people, if there ever was one. A
second hazard lay in bringing back Boris Glagolin, whose The
Gardener’s Dog had been such a turkey the season before. Mark
Schweid did the translation, Charley Adler the choreography, and
Alex Chertov the settings. Giuseppe Verdi’s music was employed. Ben
Zvi Baratov played the Moor, while Schwartz took the meatier, more
complex role of Iago, which must have been a jolt to those
detractors who claimed that Schwartz would only play heroes. Celia
Adler was a radiant Desdemona.
The Times expressed surprise
at Glagolin’s interpretation: “It has been subtly translated back
into something much nearer the spirit from which the English tragedy
was derived [. . .]. It is Shakespeare with a new tempo, a color
which is ultimately foreign to the art of the British islander” (4
Feb. 1929). A bit too ingenious was Glagolin’s staging. He demanded
the use of a real lake onstage and a real gondola in it. Maurice had
once before taken his lumps for using an authentic lake during the
1924 fiasco The Devil Knows What. However, Glagolin was most
persuasive and got his way. In the role of Rodrigo, Joseph Greenberg
(who would become Joseph Green, the Yiddish movie producer) became
so unnerved in the gondola, that he came close to capsizing it
during a performance. It was little surprise that Othello
sank at once, the way Greenberg nearly did, Schwarz immediately
beaching the production.
On Friday evening, February 15th,
Harry Sackler’s Major Noah was attempted. Mordecai Manuel
Noah had been a real person, one of the most colorful figures in
Jewish-American history. As a visionary (pre-dating Theodore Herzl),
Noah strove to establish a colony to be called Ararat, on Grand
Island in the Niagara River near Buffalo, New York. The enclave
would be a training site and proving ground for Jewish pioneers, who
would then settle Palestine as a Jewish state. As history, Major
Noah, the person, was fascinating stuff. As theatre, the play proved
to be a dud, and two weeks later Maurice moved on to an entirely
different and more theatrically rewarding piece. He centered on the
1888 Sholem Aleichem novella Stempenyu, which Schwartz
adapted without the assistance of I.D. Berkowitz, who’d left America
for good to spend the rest of his life in Palestine.
The resulting play, Stempenyu
the Fiddler, a warm, romantic comedy about the violin-playing
leader of an itinerant band of musicians. During one of his gigs,
Stempenyu, married to a shrew, falls in love with a beautiful woman,
who is the discontented wife of a rich but dull man. Lazar Freed
took the lead role, while Schwartz played second fiddle to the
fiddler, as the boring husband. In the production, Maurice used the
revolving stage to its utmost, presenting two totally disparate
scenes almost simultaneously—an intimate wedding in tandem to a
shtetl crowded with celebrants. Maurice’s use of split-second
lighting shifts contributed greatly to the revolving stage’s
success.
Following the play’s heady run,
the season ended. As usual, it had been an interesting time in the
narrow confines of Yiddish Theatre and in the wider circle of
American life. Herbert Hoover had been elected President in
November, to complete Republican domination of the 1920’s. Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, a dynamic though crippled patrician, had been
chosen Governor of New York. On February 14, 1929, the day before
the opening of Major Noah, seven members of a rival
mob were machinegunned to death in a Chicago garage. This event came
to be known as ‘The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.’ On a more
cultural note, the year 1928 was notable for the publication of four
American classics—A Farewell to Arms, Look Homeward Angel,
The Sound and the Fury, and Dodsworth. The Pulitzer
Prize for drama that year went to Eugene O’Neill for Strange
Interlude, produced by the Theatre Guild. Gershwin’s ‘American
in Paris’ premiered in Carnegie Hall, and among the films New
Yorkers flocked to was The Love Parade, with Jeanette
MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier. Mickey Mouse made his first
appearance that seminal year, in Steamboat Willie, and Fanny
Brice, in her screen debut in My Man.
As an actor and director, Schwartz
was quite pleased with his accomplishments that season at the City
Theatre. Kiddush Hashem and Stempenyu had been
wonderful bookends for the rest of the mostly forgettable fare. As
Zohn has indicated: “Schwartz realized with these [two] productions
he had the advantage of reaching wider audiences—the more
intelligent as well as the broad masses; the students of the modern
stage as well as the followers of the old school. In these
compromises, Schwartz was rather successful” (184).
Less laudatory and more critical of
Schwartz’s increasing affinity for massive productions, was Celia
Adler. To her, Kiddush Hashem proved that “Maurice had
finally succumbed to the same easy path taken by all the other
Yiddish managers, surrendering to baroque ostentation [. . .]”
(Lifson 358).
Artistic satisfaction aside,
Schwartz, the producer, was woefully dismayed by the Art Theatre’s
lack of a healthy bank balance by the end of April,1929. Its income
had been the largest ever, averaging $13,000 a week. Expenses
however were greater—an old story for Maurice—and he was forced to
break his lease, and walk away from the large and commodious City
Theatre, with its fantastic revolving stage and other amenities. He
realized too that his $25,000 security deposit would be forfeited.
Again theatreless, Maurice wondered
where the Art Theatre would be next season, if there would even be a
next season. He’d have to face the problem later, but for the
present, he had a few lovely months before him. Instead of the usual
summer circuit tour, he’d be going to California, where New York
Jews had gone in search of a different kind of gold, the kind made
in the movie business. The trek across the continent ate up the Art
Theatre’s small reserves. Engagements along the way, in Chicago,
Omaha, Denver, and a gaggle of other towns, hardly replaced what the
transportation charges were.
California at last, with San
Francisco being the first stop in that mythic place. The troupe of
regulars and the few single-season players he’d hauled west, opened
with Kiddush Hashem. For Jews once-removed from the Lower
East Side, and not that long ago, the audiences were cold and
unresponsive. Completely Americanized. Hastily, the Art Theatre
moved on to Los Angeles, a city “whose life is regulated by the
movies. People run after their own shadows but never catch them”
(Schwartz 14 Apr. 1945). Giving it his best shot, Schwartz opened
with Tevye the Milkman, at the Mayan Theatre. In the opening
night audience, were the most recognizable movie stars on the
planet, not to mention the first-rate film directors, producers, and
writers. “Some of them brought along their Gentile wives. The story
of Chava’s becoming an apostate was not a pleasant reminder [. . .]
Some left the theatre in tears, with a heavy heart” (Schwartz 14
Apr. 1945).
The company trotted out other Art
Theatre favorites, all of which the Angelinos enjoyed far better
than audiences in San Francisco. The first week in this improved
climate, the Art Theatre took in $18,000. The euphoria wasn’t to
last. Paul Bern, a producer at MGM, had come to the Mayan a few
times, and asked to be introduced to Maurice in his dressing room.
The visit resulted in an offer by Bern: a seven-year deal for
Schwartz only, $12,000 to begin with, and regular increases to
follow. (The same Paul Bern married his protégé Jean Harlow in July,
1932, and was found dead three months later in his own bedroom,
under mysterious circumstances.)
A California sun, the relaxed,
congenial life, the constant aroma of flowers blooming everywhere,
but mostly the chance to live an unharried life, worked heavily on
Maurice. He imagined a future filled with nothing but acting,
without the terrible constraints of New York Theatre sucking the
marrow from his bones. Imagined not having to submit to a Max Wilner
or a Jacob Rovenger, no more a Reuben Guskin to negotiate with, an
Abe Cahan to cringe before, a landlord to face each and every month,
no actors to cajole or bully. And yet, for all his machinations,
ending up in the red, season after season. It was so very tempting,
so flattering to be courted by Hollywood, where the furious
conversion to sound had created an insatiable demand for actors with
good voices—and at unheard of salaries. How could he not agree to a
screen test?
But nothing is a secret in a
one-industry, paranoid town like Hollywood, and the troupe soon
learbned of MGM’s wooing of their boss. Schwartz gathered them
together, told them that he had no intention of deserting them to
become a movie star like Paul Muni. Instead, he’d apply the
Hollywood gold to support his true love, to enable the Art theatre
to carry on, no matter the losses. The truth may never be known as
to his true motives, but for many in the Art Theatre, especially
those not promised a contract by Schwartz for the next season, it
was obvious that he had sold out for the easy money of emoting
before a camera for the American masses, instead of before an
audience of fast-vanishing Yiddish patrons. Had the same opportunity
been offered to any one of them, would there be the slightest
hesitation?
At the same time, another
misfortune befell Schwartz. His second week in Los Angeles was a
poor one because of a heat wave that drove everyone to the beaches.
Schwartz was able to pay only half-salaries. Naturally, he’d make
good when they were all back in New York. Each had a prepaid,
first-class ticket to Manhattan. However, the fire he’d lit
unintentionally by taking the screen test, flared up over the cut in
pay. One troupe member (never identified) lodged a complaint with
the Los Angeles Labor Commissioner. Most likely, the same frightened
malcontent placed a call to the LA Times, and its evening
edition ran a story and a photo about the contre temps, accusing
Maurice of signing for big bucks with MGM, while stiffing his
employees.
Maurice was mortified. He’d had
labor problems like any other Yiddish Theatre manager, but they’d
been confined within the microscopic Yiddish Theatre community. In
the most serious one, in 1924, after his return from Europe, the
public had sided with him. Now, out of his natural element, he was
being vilified by the city’s largest newspaper for all the world to
see and relish: Jews scraping among themselves, the greatest of all
sins.
In the morning, Schwartz rushed
to Paul Bern’s office to try and undo the damage. The producer had a
copy of the Times on his desk. In disgust, but wordlessly, he
tapped the paper with a pencil. “Had the office an open grave, I
would have jumped in. I was filled with shame. My eyes began to
tear, but my lips remained sealed. I stood there paralyzed”
(Schwartz 18 Apr. 1945).
Under the circumstances, Los
Angeles being a strong labor town, said Bern, it was best to put
their movie deal on hold.
The formal hearing on the charge
was set for 2 PM that afternoon. Schwartz was there early, and one
by one his players began arriving, some of them his friends for over
20 years. They offered regrets at what they’d done in the name of
union solidarity. They took seats in the rear of the hearing room,
so as not to endure Maurice’s piercing glances. A reporter for the
Times showed up, increasing his humiliation. With Anna and
Martin flanking him, the hearing began before the Los Angeles
Commissioner of Labor. The only question on Schwartz’s mind was how
would they be able to face him after the ordeal was over?
The commissioner asked the actors
if they had tickets back to New York. Yes, they replied. He asked
then how many weeks’ salary were they paid this year. Martin
answered: 43 weeks. ‘Case dismissed,’ was the commissioner’s
decision after taking the actors to task for the meaningless
charges.
Screen test and the renewed
prospect of a movie contract notwithstanding, Maurice packed up and
left for New York. To which playhouse and what kind of a season, he
had no idea. He was willing to let bygones be bygones with his
regulars, for the sake of the new season and its challenges. “The
theatre and quality acting is for me always the first priority. I’d
rather put up with a capricious actor with talent, than a nice actor
without” (Schwartz 21 Apr. 1945).
Chapter Twenty-One: “We
Shall Have Many Years Ahead of Us.”
When they assembled in New York for
the first rehearsal of the 1929-1930 season, the Los Angeles
incident had been all but forgotten in the accelerated pace of
putting together the opening show. The residual effects of the
unpleasantness had taken its toll nevertheless. Maurice had to take
phenobarbital to calm his nerves, and digitalis to treat a heart
that beat too irregularly, a heart he claimed was emptied of anger
towards the troupe that had ganged up against him. At once, he began
shopping for a playhouse. He couldn’t go back to the City Theatre.
At the end of last season, he’d left on bad terms with William Fox,
the landlord. Fortunately, he found a new residence for the Art
Theatre at Proctor’s Fifth Avenue Theatre, which wasn’t on Fifth,
but on Broadway and 28th Street. The season opener would
be Jew Suss, by Lion Feuchtwanger, from his novel written in
1921, but unpublished until 1925 in Germany, where it became an
instant bestseller.
After settling in at the Fifth
Avenue, Maurice renewed his old friendship with Samuel Goldenburg, a
superior actor he’d known since the Kessler days. Schwartz could use
an actor like Goldenburg; he had Muni’s stage presence, Ben-Ami’s
power, and Buloff’s infectious charm. Sam was offered the main role
in the piece, which he accepted without hesitation. Schwartz
contented himself (though only at first) with the part of Duke Karl
Alexander, in this murky drama of an 18th Century German
principality. Ambition, lust for power, and byzantine
intrigue—evident in Jew and Christian alike—infuse the work. Suss is
based on the mercurial Wurttemberg court Jew, Joseph Suss
Oppenheimer, who is a riveting character, from opening scene until
the finale, when he is led off to his execution.
In addition to Goldenburg, Schwartz
applied the talents of Mark Schweid, Morris Strassberg, Lazar Freed,
and the returning actresses Anna Appel and Berta Gersten. It should
be noted that Stella Adler, Celia’s half sister, played her first
role for the Art Theatre. She would remain two seasons before moving
on.
The season opened late, on October
19th, because of a serious labor dispute. Theatre
managers were demanding a 30 percent cut in salaries, so that
theatre tickets might be made as cheap as the movies. Strikes were
threatened by both sides, until a compromise was achieved. The
Times mentioned the play’s general unpleasantness,but raved
about the presentation. “Mr. Schwartz has again assembled a capable
company. He gave two excellent performances last evening, the first
in the character of the lascivious duke in whose court the intrigues
of the play develop, and secondly, as the director of the
production—even, well-timed and well-executed throughout” (29 Oct.
1929).
Justifying Maurice’s faith in the
actor, Samuel Goldenburg was singled out in the Times’
unsigned review for his excellent portrayal of the court Jew. But
beneath Maurice’s apparent generosity in handing over the plum role
to his friend, lurked a darker aspect of the man. Schwartz came to
want the part and exercised his right as producer to take it away
from Goldenburg, over his heated objections.
Another Chone Gottesfeld play was
put on to cover the weekdays, opening Tuesday, December 3rd,
while Jew Suss ran well on weekends into January. Angels
on Earth was a refreshing contrast to the darkly turbulent
piece, and opens in a very pleasant but corrupt Hades. Then it
shifts to an even more lushly sinful Manhattan, where two of Hell’s
resident angels have been assigned to rid it of evil. Instead, the
angels, played in broad, campy style by Schwartz and Goldenburg, go
into business and become husbands, fathers and millionaires.
Commented the Times: “All this on the stage of the Yiddish
Art Theatre is the drollest sort of lunacy, emerging in a sort of
excited commedia dell’arte treatment. With the assurance of good
vaudevillians, Mr. Schwartz and Mr. Goldenburg play it for all it’s
worth [. . .]” (11 Dec. 1929).
No season at the Art Theatre would
be complete without a Sholem Aleichem bauble. On January 7, 1930,
Wandering Stars was presented. The 1911 novel, on which the play
is based, is about the riotous misadventures of a traveling company
of Yiddish actors during the primitive Goldfaden days. Schwartz
adapted the novel in three acts and 18 scenes, even if
ineffectively, according to most critics, one of whom noted the
play’s inability “to warm the romantic glow it sought to attain,
remaining a succession of insufficiently fused fragments in
themselves” (Times 25 Jan 1930).
With Leivick;’s Chains in
February, the Art Theatre redeemed itself, if not to the paying
customers, then with the critics: “It is one of the few Yiddish
plays of the season in which the English-speaking world can take
pleasure,” enthused the Times critic (23 Feb.1930). The
story is centered in a Siberian prison circa 1905. Leivick knew the
subject first hand, having spent many years there as a guest of the
Czar. Despite the fine play, the exciting acting, the handsome
mounting and rave reviews, Chains was a box office cripple.
The wind gone out of his sails,
Schwartz presented only Ibsen’s Ghosts and Toller’s Bloody
Laughter in March, then closed the Fifth Avenue, after a mere 24
weeks. The problem of making ends meet had become so desperate that
Maurice had to put his players on part salary. To prevent the union
from shutting the Art Theatre earlier that winter, he was forced to
sign an agreement with Guskin to permit the partial salaries, but
only if Maurice consented to a member of the cast, on the summer
tour, collecting the entire proceeds and paying full current
salaries from it. The balance (less traveling and advertising
expenses) would then be applied to the money owed, until the debt
was paid in full. Should the tour for some reason not take place,
Schwartz would be personally liable for the obligations, and
whatever Maurice might earn , in any capacity, on or off the Yiddish
stage, would go directly to Guskin, to boil down what was still
owed.
The tour never panned out. On
Friday, October 29th of the year before, the Stock Market
crashed, resulting in an immediate loss of almost nine billion
dollars. All those paper millionaires, who’d gotten that way by
buying on 10 percent margin and pyramiding their holdings to
dizzying heights, soon became actual paupers after Black Friday.
Before long, one-quarter of the American work force was unemployed.
Not only did the Art Theatre fall on hard times, the entire industry
suffered too, as did every aspect of American life. Declared William
Schack: “Yiddish Theatre is in a bad way. Two minor house [. . .]
have closed their doors. Maurice Schwartz and his troupe, the chief
exponents of the upper levels of the dramatic art in Yiddish, put on
only four new plays this season and have already shut up shop” (Times
30 Mar. 1930).
Maurice had closed the Fifth Avenue
owing his people a tidy sum. He couldn’t simply wipe the slate clean
and start over the next season, as managers in the past would
routinely do, before the Hebrew Actors Union came into its own. He
probably wouldn’t have even if he could. It was one thing for
investors like Lipshitz to lose; such is the nature of capitalist
enterprise. But the actors needed every penny to live on, and his
people had been with him for years, almost family, even if they
hadn’t behaved as such in California. To solve his dilemma, Maurice
did something he swore he’d never do again. He girded himself for a
return to Broadway. Vaudeville, no less. He would do excerpts from
The Merchant of Venice—three snippets only, with Shylock the
central figure.
Shylock on Broadway: it wasn’t an
original concept in Yiddish Theatre. Jacob Adler had given the first
performance of The Merchant in his native tongue in 1901, at
the People’s, on the Bowery. Two years later, under Arthur Hopkin’s
aegis, the Eagle attempted the role Uptown, at the 58th
Street Theatre, in Yiddish, while the rest of the cast performed in
English.
Maurice had struck a deal with the
RKO vaudeville chain to play its Keith circuit, including the crown
jewel of its collection, the Palace Theatre, which “had always
invited the most important artists to perform vaudeville acts—the
Barrymores, William Gillette, and even Otis Skinner performed
abridged plays [. . .]” explained Schwartz, as if to legitimize his
defection once again from Yiddish theatre. (2 May 1945). To be fair
to Maurice, his back was to the wall.He had debts, obligation, and
his own expenses to cover. He demanded and received $3500 a week,
because his chief rival, Molly Picon, was being paid that amount for
working the Loews Theatres. Schwartz calculated his costs for the
six actors who’d be working with him, and the costumes and sets, at
$1000 a week. What remained would go to Guskin to honor his
contract.
April, 1930, was a busy, exciting
month for Maurice, beginning on a Wednesday evening, the 12th,
at the RKO Franklin in the Bronx. Then on to the Kenmore, on
Flatbush and Church Avenues. On Sunday, the 19th,
Schwartz played the Palace, giving a 30-minute performance, composed
of three parts from The Merchant of Venice—the opening scene,
the section where Jessica leaves her home, and, the most dramatic
moment of the play, when the wronged Jew demands his pound of flesh.
Sharing the bill with him was Horace Heidt and his Californians (an
orchestra), radio tenor Peter Higgins, singer/dancer Nina Olivette,
and six other acts.
The condensed Shylock was a
successful tour de force for Maurice. “ My conception of the role
was not that Shylock was a bloodthirsty usurer who sharpened the
slaughterer’s knife to obtain a pound of meat [. . .] I created a
Jewish merchant from that era who bore the yoke of exile upon his
shoulders” (Schwartz 5 May 1945) The English-language press
applauded the bravura performance. Wrote the Times: “It is a
passionate, furious portrait that he creates, but precise and
controlled in diction and held closely to the rhythm of the prose”
(21 Apr. 1930).
After the Palace, Schwartz went on
to the RKO Coliseum, the 81st Street, and the Albee in
Brooklyn. Encouraged by the responses of Jew and Gentile alike,
Maurice told his agent to book the act throughout the East and
Midwest. The tour was never made. Perhaps the novelty had worn off,
doing two and three shows a day of the same slices of The Merchant,
with no large casts to ride herd on, and absent the thrills and
terrors of constantly opening a new play. Sometime during the spring
of 1930, an offer had come from Adolph Meade, an impresario in Bueno
Aires, to appear as a guest star on the Yiddish-Argentine stage, a
very tempting offer, as many Yiddish-American players had already
made the trip and were well-received. “Buenos Aires was portrayed to
me as the finest Yiddish Theatre city in the world [. . .].There,
Jews go to theatre with love and gratitude. They attend as families,
with their children and grandchildren” (Schwartz 9 May 1945).
The statement of course reflected
Maurice’s on-and-off disillusionment with his home audiences. Year
after year, he’d presented brilliant tapestries, only to have it all
go unrewarded and unappreciated. His unrequited love would eat at
him as the years passed and the seasons grew less profitable.
In Buenos Aires, representatives of
both the Jewish and the Argentine press were waiting for him and
Anna. The reception was very Latinish in its warmth and
effusiveness. Never before, in any of his foreign jaunts, had he
experienced such an outpouring of affection. To the Schwartzes, the
Argentine capital seemed more Parisian than Los Angeles had been the
year before. Except in one crucial area: “In no country in the world
did I see so many young people in Yiddish Theatre as in Buenos
Aires. Mothers would take their infants into the playhouses [where]
they became avid enthusiasts in diapers” (Schwartz 9 May 1945).
Maurice decided to open with
Tevye the Milkman. The play had been done to perfection shortly
before by Buenos Aires’s own star, Rudolph Zaslowski. It then became
Schwartz object to outshine the local hero, as in the old days on
the Bowery when Adler, Thomashevsky and Kessler would strive to best
there rival in the same role. The people of Argentina may have been
warm and inviting, but their playhouses were not. Even the finest
Buenos Aires theatre was unheated and dank, and Maurice came down
with a monumental cold and a high fever. After a few rehearsals at
the Nueva Theatre, he had to take to his bed. A day before the
opening, he was still there. But fortune smiled, and he recovered in
time for the premiere.
“In the Nueva, a great excitement
and tumult resounded. I have never before encountered such a holiday
mood. This reminded me of the patriotten era in 1901 and
1902, in the galleries, where the noise was like in a steel mill”
(Schwartz 16 May 1945). The first-nighters were quite enthusiastic,
and Maurice gave a fine rendition of the hapless milkman. Next
morning, the reviews were extraordinary.
Schwartz and his company toured the
larger cities of Rosario, Cordova and Santa Fe, to the same
over-the-top crowds. Almost perversely, these receptions
strengthened his resolve to carry on as before in America, even to
dream of an international Art Theatre that would travel the world,
visiting even the most remote Jewish enclaves. “If you can find an
enthused theatre crowd 6000 miles from New York, it means that
Yiddish Theatre still has a future. We have to respect our audience
and respect ourselves. We still have many years ahead of us to play
Yiddish Theatre” (Schwartz 19 May 1945).
Chapter Twenty-Two: “He Was a
Little Afraid of Buloff.”
The season opened inauspiciously on
September 24, 1930, the first day of the Jewish New Year, with only
three premieres, none of them especially noteworthy. During the
first full year of the Great Depression, Yiddish Theatre in general
drifted dangerously close to dissolution, its course a swirling
uncertainty, with few actors being in the same companies or
playhouses as the season before. As yet, the Art Theatre hadn’t made
its usual entrance with a production that would set the Jewish world
abuzz, and Schwartz’s steady players, left behind while he and a
select handful traipsed around South America, were forced to make
other arrangements.
While the managers scratched and
strove to prepare the season, Maurice was winding down his stay
overseas, restored to new heights by the reception received wherever
he took his troupe. Thus inflated, he sent a message via the Jewish
Telegraph Agency, that he wouldn’t be returning to America until and
unless some organization or some group, assume financial
responsibility for the Art Theatre. He would no longer endure
another season in New York consumed by money worries. He was
prepared to set up permanently in the more friendly Buenos Aires,
and remain the toast of its large and deserving Yiddish audiences
and critics. (Times 17 Aug. 1930).
Needless to say, in this worst of
times, no one came forth to present Maurice with a proposal. Before
long, he knew that he’d overplayed his hand. Waiting for some Prince
Charming, he’d already missed out on securing a Manhattan theatre
for the season. Equally as vital, he’d not been around to work deals
with the organizational benefit managers, who, by now, had become
the dog-wagging tail of Yiddish Theatre. Attempting to salvage a
portion at least of the coming season, Maurice cabled the manager of
the Gibson Theatre in Philadelphia, consenting to terms there for a
year’s lease. He’d have to gather up what he could of an acting
ensemble, with so many of his regulars otherwise engaged.
Except that early in September, the
Second Avenue Theatre became available, and after a flurry of
transatlantic cables crisscrossing the ocean, a deal was worked out
with Joe Edelstein, its current owner. The Art Theatre would be back
on Second Avenue after all, at the very playhouse David Kessler had
built for himself, and where Maurice had been his apprentice. But
the Gibson’s manager wasn’t about to release Schwartz from their
contract, and Reuben Guskin had to be called in to mediate the
dispute. He informed Maurice that a valid agreement existed and must
be honored. This thorny mess was resolved by the union leader, who
induced Schwartz to pay $1000 in cash and the full proceeds of an
Art Theatre performance to the Gibson, in return for his release
from the contract.
On September 19th, the
Schwartzes and the nucleus taken to South America, set sail for New
York and an uncertain future. What he knew for sure, was that a
killing schedule lay ahead, with six weeks of intense labor, before
he could open with Asch’s The Witch of Castile. To be
followed, in no fixed order, by three mainstream classics—Chekhov’s
Ivanov, Moliere’s Tartuffe, and Schiller’s The
Robbers. And from the Yiddish repertoire—Asch’s Uncle Moses,
Kiddush Hashem, and God, Man and Devil. This was
quite an optimistic agenda for so condensed a season, but hope and
energy had blossomed gorgeously in the South American climate.
Rumors of an economy in shambles and spiraling downward, seemed to
him only the blatherings of spineless Chicken Littles, who’d been
scared silly by what had happened on Wall Street.
After weeks of non-stop activity,
that included marathon rehearsals often lasting ten hours at a clip,
The Witch of Castile opened on October 25th. Three
of Maurice’s steadies were back with him: Joseph Achron for the
music, and Chertov and Ostrowsky for sets and costumes. Among the
actors Schwartz managed to corral, was Joe Buloff, in the prime role
as a pope. “In hands other than those of Joseph Buloff,” one
Times reviewer wrote, “Pope Paul might have been nothing but a
figure of papier mache, but Buloff endowed him with a silent
strength. Here is an actor whose every gesture and movement is
eloquence itself” (25 Oct. 1930).
Of course, Maurice realized that his
‘discovery’ wasn’t long for the Art Theatre, still smarting over the
defection of Muni Weisenfreund. That Buloff had grown disenchanted
with Maurice is attested to by Joe’s wife, Luba Kadison. “While his
respect for Schwartz as a producer, director, and actor was
considerable, he felt the strain of a natural rivalry between two
leading men. As for Schwartz, I think he was a little afraid of
Buloff. He seldom addressed him directly, using me to convey
messages. With me, he was invariably polite, and even chivalrous”
(Kadison 67-68).
Schwartz conceded that it had been a
tactical blunder to open with The Witch of Castile,
because of its similarity in theme to Kiddush Hashem, the
former being a drama of religious persecution by the Roman clergy,
after a young, Jewish woman is rumored to be the reincarnation of
the Virgin Mary. Perhaps as well, the doings on stage too closely
resembled what was taking place in Germany, orchestrated by the
latest Haman. The Witch did poorly, and Maurice’s current
partner, Joe Edelstein, was incensed. The crafty theatre manager,
who cared nothing about a play’s substance, but only about its
effect on the cash register, grew so disgusted with his stubborn
partner, that he stopped observing even the smallest amenities
between them. To be fair to Edelstein, it must have been
exasperating for him to see that the young, brash actor he’d stolen
away from David Kessler during the 1914 season, hadn’t gotten any
wiser, after two decades in the business.
Cutting his losses (he’d certainly
become adept at that), Maurice swiftly went to the next item on his
menu, Uncle Moses. Results were far better. Opening on Friday
evening, November 29th, the play had been adapted from a
novel serialized in the Forward, always a sure-fire guarantee
of success on the Yiddish stage. Like Leivick’s Rags, the
play has a sweatshop setting, but is in fact as much a character
study of an older man infatuated with a young woman, as it is a
class struggle piece. Though the Times didn’t go overboard in
its review, it nevertheless deemed the Asch play “a fairly
entertaining rather than a gripping play” (29 Nov. 1930). The
Yiddish press was far more laudatory, and once again the cash flowed
into the Art Theatre’s coffers. This was all it took to make Joe
Edelstein civil again to Schwartz. He exclaimed: “This is a play
with humor. The public laughs, cries and applauds. If you always
produced [. . .] these kinds of plays, you’d have lots of gold”
(Schwartz 23 May 1945).
As nothing good lasts forever, or
even long in Yiddish Theatre, the cordiality between the two men was
gone by the first week of December, destroyed by labor problems.
Theatre managers and the Hebrew Actors Union got into one of its
periodic donnybrooks over wages. The managers, Schwartz included,
demanded a 40 percent cut to reflect the horrendous state of the
national economy. In the poorest theatrical season in memory, it was
patently impossible to cover operating expenses. On December 8th,
as the result of an implacable stalemate, all nine Yiddish theatres
closed, throwing over 700 men and women out of work, none of them
willing or able to accept any reduction in salary.
As spokesman for the managers,
Maurice told the press: “Present conditions make it necessary for us
to cut our prices, and in order to do this, we had to seek a general
reduction of wages in all departments of each house. We placed the
matter before the various unions and made the situation clear” (Times
8 Dec. 1930). A compromise was reached after two weeks of
intense negotiations and a darkened Second Avenue. Wages were
reduced from 10 to 25 percent, but not soon enough to rescue
Uncle Moses. Interest built up through word of mouth, and from
favorable reviews in the Yiddish press, were insufficient to get the
momentum rolling again. The play limped along, finally closing in
early January,1931.
On the 16th of that
month, Maurice opened a play that would be among the most popular in
the Art Theatre’s bag of tricks, Kobrin’s Riverside Drive.
Many years had elapsed since Schwartz last offered a Kobrin piece.
The transitional, post-Gordin playwright was no longer in vogue. The
play’s theme had become trite: the intergenerational friction
between the immigrant and his American-born offspring. Though the
Times was sympathetic to the sociological situation presented,
the constant harping on it by Kobrin and his director, Schwartz,
weakened the play. Schwartz, the actor, was applauded, “turning in
one of the warmest performances he has given in a long time” (6
Jan. 1931).
The Man With Portfolio, which
opened on Lincoln’s birthday, February 12th, was the
final new play of the shortened season. Less than half the number
Maurice had contemplated, while his ship steamed towards America,
had actually come to fruition. The work is a drama of the
then-contemporary Soviet Union, and had neither song nor dance, but
sported a cast of 18 tried and true actors, including the Buloffs
--Joe as a coarse blackmailer, Luba playing a fascinating,
fast-rising, young apparatchik. The author, Alexei Faiko, was
a Soviet writer of semi-expressionist plays, meant to counter the
easy sloganism of most Communist tracts. No mere mouthpiece for the
party line, he was somehow permitted to present his plays during the
worst days of the Stalinist purges, despite an unflattering
portrayal of life in the Worker’s Paradise. To the Times, the
piece seemed turgid and flawed. “If some of [Faiko’s] meaning does
come through, if the play does command one’s attention despite its
bare intellectual development, it is because of the sensitive
performance given it by the Schwartz troupe” (12 Feb. 1931). The
Times also reported that a full house, replete with an
enthusiastic audience, enjoyed the work.
Writing what had the feel of an
obituary for Yiddish Theatre that season (one of many that would
appear regularly, season after season), William Schack found little
of value in Schwartz’s attempts. To him, The Witch of Castile
was tedious, Uncle Moses not particularly insightful, and
The Man With Portfolio never fully developed. But, if it was any
consolation to Schwartz, the journalist wrote: “If there was nothing
even approximately great in any of these plays, there is scarcely
anything worth mentioning in the 20-odd productions put on at the
popular theatres” (Schack 17 May 1931).
On the Broadway stage, the crop was
equally as lean. Between the Augusts of 1930 and 1931, 226
productions were mounted, with an appalling 82 percent failure
rate. Of the 188 flops, 70 had expired after less than a month.
Talking pictures was responsible for part of the dreadful season in
every branch of theatre, growing ever more popular as a cheap fix
for the Depression blues. As a direct result, the number of
legitimate theatres declined sharply. Vaudeville was also hard hit,
its stock and traveling companies rapidly dwindling.
The overall economy fared no
better. On December 11, 1930, while Yiddish Theatre had closed its
doors because of the strike, the Bank of the United States folded,
all 60 branches, and its 400,000 depositors lost their savings. That
dismal year, 2300 other banks failed. By the following January, as
the nation entered its second year of the Great Depression, five
million American workers were unemployed, and many others with jobs
were working for as little as five cents an hour. Over 20,000
businesses of all kinds had closed their doors forever.
In the last quarter of 1930, of
special import to Jews everywhere, the British issued its infamous
White Paper, halting immigration of Jews to Palestine, and in
Germany, the Nazi Party had won 95 seats in the Reichstag. The world
indeed was in a sorry state.
Chapter Twenty-Three: “An Exit
Made More in Sorrow Than Anger.”
Twice before, Maurice Schwartz had
taken French leave from the Art Theatre, to sample the rewards of
Broadway, and twice he’d returned, chastened and repentant, swearing
never to depart again. A vow broken, for he spent most of the
1931-1932 season Uptown, alone, performing some of his finest
Yiddish triumphs in English. It is unclear what event sparked his
decision to quit his beloved niche and the incomparable band of
players he’d been blessed with, if indeed there was a single reason.
We know that he chafed constantly about the lack of proper support
from the Jewish community. And he couldn’t help but notice the
shrinkage in the number of theatres available. Also, like many a
keen-eyed observer of the Yiddish Theatre scene, he had to wonder
“if there is an audience for the more ambitious theatre. The
majority of the audiences seen nowadays at these playhouses are
composed of naïve members of the older generation, and of children
who come for the thrill of footlights and the ice cream. Of youth,
there is hardly a trace” (Schack 17 Jan. 1932).
If nothing else, Schwartz was a
survivor, a skill learned on the streets of Whitechapel. No wonder
then, reading the tea leaves, he signed contract with Lee and J.J.
Shubert on June 20, 1931, to form a corporation, Modern Players,
Inc., primarily to produce an English-language version of Hard to
Be a Jew, but not strictly limited to the Sholem Aleichem play.
The decision to leave Second Avenue “was an exit made more in sorrow
than anger” (Schack 30 Dec. 1931).
Total capitalization of the new
corporation was $10,000, half anted up by the Shuberts, (who were in
a bad way because of talking pictures and the Depression), and half
contributed by Maurice. Terms of the contract stipulated that the
Shuberts would be in charge of all financial arrangements with
employees, expenditures, receipts and collections for Hard to Be
a Jew, and any other play jointly produced. Only Shubert
houses were to be used, thereby preventing Schwartz from returning
to Yiddish theatre, should nostalgia seize him. Maurice’s duties
were limited to acting and directing, a huge lessening of
responsibilities he must have at first found salutary, after
carrying the entire weight of production on his shoulders for
decades.
Immediately and reflexly, the
schmoozers at the Café Royale, the crowd that hung around the Hebrew
Actors Union building on E.7th Street, the writers at the
Yiddish dailies, and patriotten of every persuasion, branded
Maurice a traitor, as they’d done in the past, after he’d left for
the 48th Street Theatre in 1923 and for vaudeville, seven
years later. These perpetual antagonists had conveniently closed
their eyes to the realities of current Yiddish Theatre. Molly Picon
had fled the scene for an extended tour of Europe. The superior
comic actor Ludwig Satz had followed her to France, where he hoped
to learn the lingo and debut on the Parisian stage. And Boris
Thomashevsky had already committed to Broadway, appearing at the
Selwyn in the English-language musical, The Singing Rabbi.
Hard to Be a Jew opened at
the Shuberts’ Ambassador Theatre on W.48th Street, on
Wednesday, September 23rd, retitled If I Were You,
a change Schwartz claimed was a concession to Lee Shubert, who
believed that the original name would sharply curtail the
audience.The translation into English, ironically enough, was done
by Tamara Berkowitz, Sholem Aleichem’s granddaughter, and whose
father had been Schwartz’s adapter of the Yiddish legendary figure
for the Art Theatre. Only one of Maurice’s crew came north with him,
Judith Abarbanell, with whom he was having an affair, his first
known romantic relationship since Dagny Servaes. He would have to
deal with a fresh crop of non-Yiddish players, to mold them into
shape, despite the lack of a common history he might draw from and
rely on.
The Art Theatre’s favorite
English-language critic, Brooks Atkinson, was there on opening
night, but decimated the play in the first sentence of his review:
“By all that is holy in our transfiguring art of Broadway, this
comedy translated out of the Yiddish of Sholem Aleichem, is childish
and transparent, lacking the knockout punch necessary to our
enlightened drama” (23 Sept.1931). If I Were You ran for 10
weeks, first at the Ambassador, then later at the Comedy Theatre, an
earlier Shubert property, on 41st Street.
In early December, Lee Shubert
moved Schwartz a second time, to the 49th Street Theatre,
for an English-language production of Bloody Laughter, which
had been introduced to America by the Art Theatre in 1924. With
Germany reaping the harvest of post-war chaos and disillusionment in
the form of Nazism, the play seemed especially timely. Though he
trashed Bloody Laughter, Atkinson was more solicitous of
Schwartz: “He has strength, eloquence and magnetism. He can fuse the
scattered details of a scene into some sort of meaningful form [. .
.] When Mr. Schwartz finds a play that suits his temperament and his
personality, English-speaking audiences will realize that he has
something to give” (Times 5 Dec. 1931).
Maurice’s third collaboration with
the Shuberts, the Rolland costume drama Wolves, opened on
January 6th, 1932, and for the third time, Atkinson
savaged Schwartz’s attempts on Broadway: “It is a turgid play in
many respects, written for a departed purpose, and it suffers some
turgid theatricals during the first half of the evening [. . .] Mr.
Schwartz, as the embittered idealist [however] gives a biting,
dignified performance” (Times 7 Jan. 1932). Theatre Arts
Magazine concurred, finding the production histrionic and
superficial. “Maurice Schwartz has not yet found the play which on
the English-speaking stage would give us his full quality as an
actor” (Mar. 1932).
The three commercial disasters in
succession, over a 22-week period, marked the end of Maurice
Schwartz’s brief partnership with the Shuberts, though not his
relationship with them in the future. Who initiated the break up is
not indicated, though knowing Lee to be a clear-eyed and ruthless
businessman, and not inclined to tarry long with losers, it’s safe
to say that most likely Maurice was given the boot. Scrapped were
plans to present other Art Theatre favorites in translation. Not one
to dwell on flops either, Schwartz was back on Second Avenue by
April, at the playhouse Louis Jaffe had lovingly raised for him. It
was currently known as the Folks Theatre. Maurice chose a work by
Florencio Sanchez, a Uruguayan journalist and playwright, who’d
worked in Argentina, where Schwartz had probably learned of him
during his recent tour. Sanchez was the most important South
American dramatist of the early 20th Century. His final
piece, Our Children, written in 1907, was adapted by Schwartz
as The New Man. It revolves around Dr. Eduardo Diaz, a
liberal, whose eldest daughter Mercedes is unmarried and pregnant.
Diaz wants he girl kept at home during the confinement, but Mrs.
Diaz orders her to marry or enter a convent. Mercedes sides with her
father, and the two go off together, to make a new life.
Like pigeons returning to their
coops, many of Maurice’s actors came back to him, and in a
charitable mood, or more likely, because of the harsh economic
realities: Schwartz being the only game in town for their
specialized talents. Schack wasn’t ecstatic over the homecoming
piece, but Women’s Wear Daily took special –if jaundiced-
notice of the welcomers: “The theme of the play was hardly as
interesting to the large audience as the return of Maurice
Schwartz” (Allen 24 Apr. 1932).
With loads of free time on his
hands, Maurice kept busy by filming Uncle Moses, a fairly
direct transfer of the previous season’s best number at the Art
Theatre. A few open scenes were shot on Delancey Street, the balance
at Metropolitan Studios, across the Hudson in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Its two directors were Sidney Goldin, who’d shot Yiskor at
the Schonbrunn in Vienna in 1924, and Aubrey Scotto, an authentic
movie professional, whose best film, I Was a Convict, was
shot in 1939 at Republic Studios and starred Barton MacLane.
Schwartz reprised his role for Yiddish Talking Pictures, with
secondary parts taken by members of his Art Theatre.
The film opened on April 20th,
1932, early in the run of The New Man, in three New York
locations—Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx. In general, the Yiddish
press approved, and Uncle Moses was a much-needed money
earner for Schwartz.
On the whole, the 1931-1932
season had been, like the season before, a frustrating and
disappointing one for Maurice. Indeed, his corporate tax return for
the year reflected this, showing a loss of over $10,000. As never
before, he was fed up with theatre in New York, both Yiddish and
mainstream. The load he’d been bearing for so many years, became
much too onerous, and he leaped at the chance to flee the City, the
United States, as Molly and Satz had, and treat himself and Anna to
a holiday--- if going on tour of 15 European cities as a solo act
could be considered a vacation. He would be doing monologues, short
bites from his best plays, and, for good measure, a few of his own
creations: humorous little pieces such as The Drunken Cantor,
Three Politicians, and In the Old Synagogue.
Maurice hired the pianist Boris
Kogen, and a singer, Viola Philo of the Metropolitan Opera House, to
accompany him, at $400 a week each, from May 15th to June
30th. He said his farewells to his Art Theatre contingent
and set off for Europe. The overwhelming reaction he found in Paris
stunned him: every evening a sell-out. He was more than elated by
the possibility of performing practically solo next year in America,
without the awesome responsibility that came with preparing
full-scale productions at the Art Theatre. He moved on to Berlin,
where he was suddenly immersed in a cold bath of reality. “The Nazi
spirit was already the order of the day. Jews were starting to
tremble” (Schwartz 30 May 1945). His manager told him that he’d
been unable to rent a theatre, and in the end Schwartz had to settle
for a movie house in a seedy section of the city. His audience
consisted of Polish and Galician Jews, and Americans living in
Germany. “The German Jews refused to come. They were ashamed to see
Yiddish actors and refused to mingle with Eastern Jews” (Schwartz
30 May 1945). Despite being decently received in Berlin, Maurice
could taste the poisonous antisemitism unleashed by Hitler, the
terror increasing daily. Life for the Jews of Berlin had become
tentative and perilous, and he was relieved to conclude his
concerts, pack his bags and go.
As a theatre practitioner, Maurice
had always dreamed of visiting Warsaw. The city was justly famous
for its Yiddish activities in literature and music, but especially
in theatre. The Vilna Troupe’s production of The Dybbuk ran
there for over a year. His reception in the Polish capital was large
and very noisy, as was most visits by Yiddish-American actors.
Sold-out concerts were usually followed by luscious banquets, at
which Warsaw’s finest actors spoke. At these shindigs, Maurice met
the cream of its native artists: the Kaminska family of actors (much
like America’s Adlers),and Avram Morevsky (who’d worked for Maurice
in 1924 at the Art Theatre) and Isaac Samberg, the two querulous top
dogs of Warsaw theatre, each at the other’s throat, so like the
rivalry that had existed among Kessler, Adler and Thomashevsky. The
highlight of Schwartz’s short sojourn in Warsaw was his concert at
the immense Circus Theatre. He claimed a packed house of over 4000,
which seems on the face of it, more like poetic license than
head-counting.
Next stop was Vilna, the Jerusalem
of Lithuania, where “even the stones speak Yiddish” (Schwartz 2
June 1945). First off, Schwartz behaved like any other pilgrim to
the holiest Yiddish city in Europe. He visited the house of Elijah,
the Gaon of Vilna, the supreme scholar of the Polish and Lithuanian
rabbinate, and an outspoken foe of Chassidim. Then to the cemetery,
where the Gaon was buried, followed by a few hours at the YIVO
building, the world center for Jewish research,
In the smaller but just as
theatre-friendly city of Bialystok, Maurice gave two concerts and
was floored by its booming response. In Grodne and Lubin, he
performed but a single concert in each city, in theatres as modern
as those in Paris or London, and to hordes of sharp-minded, involved
theatre lovers. From there, Maurice and his two accompanists
journeyed to Romania, where they were slated to give 12 concerts,
the first in Kishinev, site of the infamous massacre of its Jews,
and the inspiration for Zolatarevsky’s The Twentieth Century.
Regardless, the city appealed to him: its broad, clean, lovely
streets, the Russian-style architecture of its homes, its
theatre-committed populace, who were delighted that a famous Yiddish
actor from America had come to perform for them.
In Jassy, where Avram Goldfaden had
given birth to Yiddish Theatre, Schwartz was graciously appreciated.
One evening, he went to the very playhouse where Goldfaden had put
on his first productions. A work by American shund playwright
William Siegal, The Galician Wedding was in progress.
Maurice and Anna entered, sat down on an old wooden bench, and
stared out at a twelve-by-twelve stage. The place was no better than
a stable; not a single item seemed to have been replaced since
Goldfaden’s day, At the final curtain, Maurice left the theatre in a
sad state. It wasn’t much of a leap to compare the miserable
condition of Yiddish Theatre’s birthplace to American Jews’ neglect
of his Art Theatre, compounded by the deplorable fact that Maurice
didn’t even have a playhouse to call his own.
Soured by Jassy, the Schwartzes
left for Bucharest. Anti-Semitism was so potent there that Maurice
couldn’t find a theatre to perform in, but had to settle for a
garden. Later that evening, at the Grand Hotel, where they were
staying, Schwartz was handed a telegram. It was from his friend
Louis Gordon in Manhattan, begging Maurice to hurry up and see
Israel Joshua Singer in Warsaw, and nail down the rights to his
novel Yoshe Kalb. The Forward had serialized the
Polish roman, and it was causing a sensation in New York.
Schwartz had met Singer before, on
the Polish leg of his tour. He knew the writer’s work, and was
impressed with his translation of Sabbatai Zvi. During their
short encounter, Singer had mentioned his novel and how suited it
was for the stage. But Schwartz had done enough plays about the
Chassidim. When he received Gordon’s telegram however, he sent
Singer a wire stating that he was coming back to Warsaw to discuss
Yoshe Kalb. The gloom of the past few days, from seeing
Goldfaden’s postage- stamp size theatre and contemplating his own
sorry condition, evaporated in an instance. Like an old firedog
responding to the alarm, he dashed out and bought a copy of the
novel. Skimming through the first dozen pages, he realized it would
be the perfect opening vehicle for next season, and a fine challenge
for him to tear apart and reassemble as marvelous theatre. And if
this wasn’t reason enough, he gleaned a full-bodied role he could
sink his teeth into.
Before Schwartz stepped off the
train in Warsaw, he had the adaptation worked out in his mind. They
met in the restaurant of the Hotel Europa. Singer was already there,
seated at a table. For hours, the two men chatted about many things,
then at last about Yoshe Kalb. Before much longer, they’d
come to an agreement, later to be formalized in New York, where
Singer would be next month. The novelist expressed a strong yearning
to quit Poland forever, which he described as a tinderbox, ready to
erupt with centuries of maniacal hatred for its Jews. After his
recent experiences in Germany, Poland and Romania, Maurice couldn’t
help but agree with him.
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