|
Chapter Twenty- Four: “When I’m Outside the Theatre I Am Not Alive.”
In late
summer, 1932, Maurice Schwartz returned to an America crippled and
confused, with no end in sight to the misery. Franklin Delano
Roosevelt seemed to be the only one with a vision, a solution, and
the confidence to pull the nation out of its economic doldrums. Only
eight Yiddish Theatres that season were scheduled to open, the Art
Theatre garnering the most interest because of Yoshe Kalb and
its publication in America and serialization in the Forward.
Commenting on the paucity of playhouses and the fewer actors, Schack
noted its trashy array of “unashamedly popular entertainments,
mostly with music and also, if the past is anything to go by, mostly
composed from the good old pharmacopoeia of easy laughter and tears”
(Times 25 Sept 1932). Still missing in action, reported
Schack, were Molly Picon and Ludwig Satz, both of whom seemed
content to remain overseas, unwilling to return to so decimated a
battle zone.
Before
Schwartz’s ship had docked, his excitable, high-powered business
manager, Edwin Relkin, had already rented the Folks Theatre from its
current owner, Isaac Lipshitz, the program printer for all the
Yiddish playhouses. Lipshitz had bought the building in 1930, from
the Second Avenue Realty Company, who’d bought it from Louis Jaffe,
its builder. But even while Schwartz was in Europe, and on the high
seas, interest was gathering over the I.J. Singer oeuvre, which was
declared a masterpiece by no lesser an authority than the Forward.
Yiddish radio and the rest of the press also promoted Yoshe Kalb,
though there were conflicting opinions on its themes, its
implication, and its caustic view of Chassidic narrowness. Some
readers were incensed by the novel’s blatant sexuality. Others found
fault with the thinness of the hero’s character. All would concur on
the richness of the milieu and its carefully honed details.
The story is a
convoluted one, taking place in Poland, circa 1860, in the confined
world ruled by corrupt and autocratic Rabbi Melech. His decent
though insipid daughter Serele is forced into marriage to
Nakhumtshe, also a rabbi’s offspring, who’s never seen his bride
until the wedding. Rabbi Melech craves the union so that he can
marry (having already buried three wives) Malkele, a 16-year-old,
beautiful and high-spirited girl. Melech is 68, and eager to become
a bridegroom once more. Both weddings take place, but soon after,
Nakhumtshe and Malkele fall desperately in love. One brief encounter
between them results in the girl’s pregnancy and subsequent death in
childbirth. The boy, who would then be called Yoshe the Simpleton
(Yoshe Kalb), consumed by guilt, flees the town and wanders the
countryside for many years, before returning to a town close to
home. There, he becomes a gravedigger’s assistant. The gravedigger
has a lump of a daughter, who becomes pregnant, the blame wrongly
falling on Yoshe. The townsfolk force them to marry in the cemetery,
as a means of appealing to God to spare his wrath. Once more, Yoshe
runs away, this time back to his original town, where he is put on
trial for being a gross sinner. Found guilty, he’s sentenced to
forever wander the earth, an outcast.
Within days of
unpacking his suitcases, Maurice met again with Singer, who’d
recently arrived from Warsaw, where he’d been a correspondent for
the Forward, to finalize their contract. At once, Singer
began working on an adaptation of his novel. The script that
resulted fell far short of the version Maurice had conjured up on
the train to Warsaw, speeding him to the meeting with the Polish
writer. In days, Schwartz had his own draft. He showed it to Singer
and to Leon Krystal, his erudite friend at the Forward. All
three agreed that Schwartz’s adaptation was the far superior, and
the one the Art Theatre would work from.
I.J. Singer
hadn’t honestly expected much to come of the enterprise, it being
the European attitude to trivialize everything American. Maurice’s
energy and work ethic however astounded him. “He is a person who can
totally exhaust actors during rehearsals, and he included himself
among them. During the period when a performance is being prepared,
the larger world outside the theatre ceases to exist, as far as he
is concerned. There is no day and no night, no sleep and no rest;
there’s just the theatre” (Denk 172).
For Yoshe
Kalb, Maurice selected a cast with exquisite care. For the
coarse, greedy, Rabbi Melech, he selected himself (who else?). Lazar
Freed was absolutely perfect as the mystical Yoshe, this wraith-like
man who Jacob Mestel described as ‘having dark eyes, which hid a
deep sadness.’ Judith Abarbanell possessed the perfect naïve quality
for Serele, the rabbi’s mismated daughter. Others in the swollen
cast of 70 (the largest Schwartz had ever employed) were
Vinogradoff, Isadore Cashier, and Morris Strassberg, who also
supervised the makeup, an art for which he had special bent. For
Yoshe, Anna Appel returned from Hollywood, where, in rapid
succession, she’d made two films, taking minor roles.
Schwartz
searched even more deliberately for an actress to portray Malkele.
He finally chose Charlotte Goldstein, a lovely up-and-coming
actress, and the daughter of veteran Yiddish actor, Jacob Goldstein.
“The role is the pivot around which the play revolves. It required
an actress of mature talent and experience and great depth of
emotion. Yet she must be youthful enough to let the audience know
that she is only 16-years-old” (Chafran 28 June 1999).
The scenery
was designed by Alex Chertov, and the dances by Lillian Shapero,
late of the Martha Graham dance company. Leo Kutzen, the orchestra’s
violinist, is credited with writing the music, but it was Maurice’s
creation. He used Kutzen as a front so his press enemies wouldn’t
condemn him for usurping that discipline too.
Maurice’s
first indication that he had a hit of tremendous proportion, was the
unusual interest demonstrated by the benefit managers. Word had
circulated of something special at the Folks Theatre this autumn,
and there was near panic within the organizations to snap up entire
blocks of seats for their membership, all of whom would want to be
among the very first to view what had been so hailed by every Jewish
daily.
At rehearsals,
the actors had caught the fevered excitement, sinking into their
parts. Very quickly, Schwartz welded them into a functioning unit.
Where an actor’s usual response is to concentrate on his or her
individual part, now they paid close attention to the play as a
whole. Everyone had sensed the importance and uniqueness of what
they were doing. Certainly, Schwartz’s presence was responsible for
a goodly part of the ferment generated. He seemed to be everywhere
at once: cutting, trimming, adding to scenes, directing from
centerstage instead of the first row, walking and talking his
players through their lines, showing each the proper gestures and
inflections, setting the pace, while maneuvering seamlessly from one
scene to the next, often employing two scenes simultaneously on the
same stage, like a melody played contrapuntally. He shifted his
lighting accordingly, with stunning effect. He used music as a means
to join and contrast these scenes.
Sleep became a
stranger to Maurice, banished from his life so that he might expend
every drop of life force produced by a non-stop brain. Indeed, he
appeared to require no rest, perpetual motion incarnate, and loving
every second of it. His statement to Meyer Levin was the literal
truth: “When I’m outside the theatre, I am not alive” (23 May
1932).
Yoshe Kalb
opened on October 1, 1932, and was more than merely a singular
success. It was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, and the greatest
Yiddish Theatre production of any kind, shund or kunst,
in its entire history. To Schwartz, it proved to be a vindication of
every disaster, every flop, every sacrifice he’d endured. Yoshe
Kalb would also be the high water mark of his long love affair
with the Art Theatre, and become its most solid pillar.
Critics across
the broad spectrum of opinion recognized instantly the play’s
grandeur and value. Abe Cahan, once Maurice’s most ardent supporter,
but of late his severest scold, described Yoshe Kalb as
“extraordinary, powerfully dramatic, indescribably gripping. The
audience watched and listened with a profoundly moving interest.
This is true of the entire performance, from beginning to end [. .
.]” (Forward 3 Oct. 1932). More restrained though almost as
positive, were the reviews from the rest of the Yiddish press,
ranging from grudgingly admiring to describing the play as the
greatest spectacle ever seen in Jewish history.
The mainstream
press was also part of the chorus that sang paeans to Yoshe Kalb
and its prime mover. Atkinson (who’d dropped the J. from the front
of his name), wrote two months after opening night that “if Yoshe
Kalb looks and sounds exhilarating at the Yiddish Art Theatre,
it is because Jewish actors understand that sort of mystical drama,
and Jewish audiences are enkindled by it. [. . .] Whether business
is good or business is bad, Mr. Schwartz’s theatre is alive” (Times
18 Dec. 1932).
The illuminati
of Broadway also came to pay homage, especially on Sunday evenings,
when legitimate theatre was closed. Such household names as Lynne
Fontaine, Alfred Lunt and Noel Coward, and the playwrights Elmer
Rice and Eugene O’Neill, even the Hollywood vamp, Pola Negri “who
almost admitted her heritage after a performance” (Schwartz 14
July1945). Academicians came too:George P. Baker of Harvard’s Drama
Department, George Brendam Powell of Yale (‘Yoshe Kalb is one
of the most exciting theatrical experiences I have ever had’), and
Schwartz’s longtime admirer, Professor Randolph Somerville of NYU,
who visited, and made attendance a must for his Dramatic Arts
students.
If Yoshe
Kalb lifted the Art Theatre, its success had a remarkable effect
on Maurice’s own finances. For years, since 1927, he’d been in hock
to his friend Louis Gordon, the owner of Modern-Silver Linen Supply
Company in Manhattan, to the tune of $42,000, shelled out in dribs
and drabs over five years, and repaid in the same manner, at six
percent interest (though Gordon seldom collected it). As a means of
eventual repayment, the two entered into contract on January 15th,
1932, permitting Gordon to act as Maurice’s manager in the area of
motion pictures. Gordon would receive the net proceeds from
Schwartz’s future film ventures, until the debt was paid.
Louis Gordon
devoted some time to the pursuit of cinema projects for his friend
and client, often dickering with Louis Weiss, the co-producer of
Uncle Moses, but got nowhere in that shark-like world.
Fortunately for everyone concerned, as the profits from Yoshe
Kalb grew, Schwartz repaid his loans in full to Gordon, no
indication given as to whether or not the interest was included.
That magical
fall, and well into spring, Yoshe Kalb did phenomenal
business, over 300 performances, weekends only, while repertory
fleshed out the week. The Art Theatre’s first such filler on
November 3rd, was Asch’s very minor Chaim Lederer,
which was heartily panned by the press. The fact is, Asch was raked
over the coal for Maurice’s shortcomings. The latter actually wrote
the play, but as with Leo Kutzen, he hid behind a front, to avoid
giving the Yiddish press more reason to carp. Actor, director,
producer—and now playwright? Was there no limit to the man’s
arrogance?
On December 1st,
came a revival of Gordin’s The Legend of the Jewish King
Lear, a breezy though hardly-performed piece that was a lark for
Maurice and his cohorts. Wrote the Times: “Mr. Schwartz
revamps it as a play within a play presented by a troupe of his
actors, whose tribulations backstage are even more tragic than
Lear’s. [. . .] They have taken a venerable mutton and made a hash
of it [. . .] which turns out to be delectably kosher” (Times
1 Dec. 1932). Sabbatai Zvi was trotted out a week later for a
short run, and a week after that, in honor of Ossip Dymov, who’d
returned to America after several years abroad, the famed playwright
was treated to Bread, his tasty comedy originally presented
by the Art Theatre, nine years earlier. In the cast for the first
time was William Mercur, a neophyte, who would later serve Schwartz
in other capacities.
On the
penultimate day of December, Schwartz sent up another repertory
piece, Asch’s Motke Ganef, first presented in America in 1917
by David Kessler. The piece gave Maurice the opportunity to
introduce Isaac Samberg, in the title role, to the Art Theatre
public. Samberg, whom Schwartz had met in Poland, had done the role
long before in Eastern Europe.
For January of
1933, Schwartz’s weekday plug was I. B. Zipor’s Revolt, a
dramatic poem about medieval life and one of its horrors: the right
of the first night, which gives a lord wedding night privileges with
his serfs’ daughters. Little came of the eccentric piece, except as
a vehicle for Charlotte Goldstein, in her second stint with the Art
Theatre.
Though nearly
four months had passed, Yoshe Kalb was still playing to
sold-out houses, but Edwin Relkin, the Art Theatre’s business
manager, decided that the show should go out on the road. Relkin,
the very model of the fast-talking promoter, who believes every word
he utters, had brokered a deal with the Shuberts for the City
Theatre in 1928. Though in his 50’s, he had unbounded zest and
verve, but of the nervous, spastic kind, and was given to
extravagant superlatives about whatever he was pushing. Charlotte
Goldstein regarded him as “a nut of the first order, but he was also
a showman, part of an era. You had to give him that” (Chafran 28
June 1999).
They could have
run Yoshe Kalb for years, despite Maurice’s earlier vow to
frequently change their material, an important element of repertory
theatre. But Relkin kept up a steady barrage of chatter about how
audiences across the length and breadth of America were dying to see
the finest work ever in Yiddish theatre. Relkin was already
negotiating with the manager of the Apollo Theatre in Chicago.
Schwartz, who could also be persistent, who knew the art of
promotion, didn’t have to believe Eddie Relkin’s rash promises of
overflow audiences nationwide, but he allowed himself to be
convinced. How he adored opening nights and new places to perform
in, akin to the childish delight of unwrapping presents! His
business sense was overcome, and on April 16th, the Art
Theatre left the Folks, and the thousands of New Yorkers who hadn’t
as yet seen Yoshe Kalb, and those who’d had but wanted to see
it again, and traveled to Chicago, a company of 40, its costumes,
scenery, lights and a full maintenance staff.
What
overzealous Relkin hadn’t accounted for was Chicago’s The Century of
Progress Fair, which opened on May 27th, specifically
calculated to alleviate the Depression. It was a fairy wonderland of
architectural and futuristic exhibitions, evidence of scientific
marvels just around the corner. The subtext was to restore the
public’s faith in industry and America. The Depression, with its
bank failures, foreclosed farms, and shut-down factories, had
destroyed trust in the nation and its institutions.
Over 22
million customers came to the fair that year. Sally Rand, not the
wonders of science, was the main attraction, dancing nude behind two
gossamer fans. She was arrested twice, but invited back the
following year, doing much the same act. A lot fewer Chicago natives
came to see Yoshe Kalb. Relkin had gone well in advance to
Illinois to set up the advertising and publicity, and to prepare for
the arrival of the bloated New York company. When Maurice asked
about the paltry amount of advance tickets sold, Relkin grew eerily
quiet. “I noticed that he’d lost his nerve. Usually, he runs around
shouting: ‘It’s the biggest thing in the world,’ excited by his own
publicity. Now, Relkin was as quiet as a kitten, and I knew that
ticket sales were poor. He couldn’t understand why. He’d placed
posters everywhere” (Schwartz 18 July 1945).
Bewildered,
Maurice went to see Jacob Siegel, editor of the Forward in
Chicago. Siegel explained that Eddie had blundered. He’d wallpapered
the entire city with only English-language posters, leaving the
impression that Yoshe Kalb wasn’t in Yiddish. Then there was
the Fair. And please remember, admonished the editor, Chicago Jews
didn’t run so quickly to the box office to gobble up tickets the way
New York Jews did. This sent Maurice into a tailspin. He’d left the
highest grossing play of his career long before season’s end, to
play to half empty houses elsewhere.
The Forward
editor went about attempting to remedy the situation. He loaded his
newspaper with publicity for the play, and soon after, the other
Yiddish papers in town followed suit. Before long, the Apollo began
filling, as it should have originally, though far short of what was
needed to cover expenses. “Our fiasco in Chicago was a killer for
Relkin. [. . .] He was so distraught that I had to comfort him,
saying, ‘Don’t make such a big deal of it. You’re only losing a
five-percent commission’” (Schwartz 18 July 1945).
Maurice took
pity on the agonizing business manager, and sent him back to New
York by plane, to book them in the next location and make the
necessary arrangements, but, above all, to forget past errors. Six
hours later, Schwartz received a telegram from Eddie, announcing
that the Art Theatre would open in Milwaukee a day after it closed
in Chicago. Then on to St. Louis. “Don’t worry,” Relkin added as the
final line. “Yoshe Kalb is the greatest thing in the world’
“ (Schwartz 21 July 1945).
After the
hastily-constructed tour was over—one or two performances per
playhouse, and income one-quarter of what might be expected—Yoshe
Kalb was still very much a draw. South America beckoned
invitingly, but Maurice took only four members of the cast to
Argentina for the summer: himself, Judith Abarbanell, Lazar Freed
and Charlotte Goldstein. The balance needed for a full-bodied
presentation of the hit play, would be gathered from the wealth of
Yiddish-Argentine performers. The quartet spent four months in South
America, capitalizing on the runaway sensation. Yoshe Kalb
was as much a hit in Buenos Aires as it had been in New York.
“There isn’t
any lightning left in Yoshe Kalb. Organizations are not
interested in the play, they’d seen it before, two or three times by
many,” bemoaned Maurice (Schwartz 28 July 1945). Nevertheless, the
Art Theatre kicked off the 1933-1934 season with what he hoped would
give it a running start. Despite the Depression and its aftermath,
Yiddish Theatre that season had lofty expectations—and lots of
competition, sufficient to cause a loss of sound judgment in
scheduling the Singer work. Ludwig Satz had returned from Europe,
and would be at the Public. Molly was eagerly anticipated after her
foreign expedition, the theatre not yet chosen. ARTEF would be
fielding The Bonus Marchers, by Paul Walker. At the Prospect
in the Bronx, Jenny Goldstein had hired Vilna Troupe veteran David
Herman to direct her. The McKinley and the Bronx Art Theatre
playhouses were gearing up for the new season with their usual
boisterous musicals.
While Maurice
had been away in South America, mesmerizing audiences, most of the
Art Theatre actors left behind weren’t able to await his return in
the fall. They had families to feed, rent to pay, careers of their
own to preserve. Looking out for themselves, Celia Adler, Samuel
Goldenburg, Luba Kadison and Zvi Scooler, signed on with the Second
Avenue Theatre.
Expecting to
make hay with Yoshe Kalb’s fame, Schwartz tried running the
piece seven days a week. In short order however, he was playing to
sparse audiences. By late October, he saw the light, and made room
for another production during the week, confining Yoshe Kalb
to weekends and doing quite well with the shift. The tandem play
selected was The Wise Men of Chelm, a riotous comedy
by Aaron Zeitlin. Two years earlier in Warsaw, Zeitlin had read his
play to Maurice, who immediately purchased the stage rights. It had
been slated to debut the season before, to alternate with Yoshe
Kalb, but the latter’s unexpected and lingering success had
changed Schwartz’s plans, and he put The Wise Men on the back
burner.
Its scenario
is an uncomplicated one. The town of Chelm, in the province of
Lublin, Poland, is populated only by simpletons. The Angel of Death
visits Chelm to select a bride, and while there he bestows on the
town the dubious gift of immortality. His gift goes unappreciated. A
medium-size production by Art Theatre standards, a mere 25, it was
directed by Schwartz, who also took a major role. The cast was
composed of those former players who hadn’t found work for the
season, and a few new freshmen.
William
Schack reviewed it favorably: “A delightful grotesquerie stylized
without loss of humor and spontaneity, enlivened with song, dance
and costume [. . .] Superbly directed by Maurice Schwartz with the
change of pace such buffoonery demands” (Times 18 Oct.
1933).Yiddish critics also were delighted with the broad comedy,
describing the piece as “one of the most artistic productions in
Schwartz’s career as a director” (Zohn 187).
Yet regardless
of the overall splendid reviews, ticket sales lagged. Schwartz and
Relkin did everything possible to save the show, increasing the
advertising, talking freely to the press. All in vain: after two
weeks, the losses had grown to over $16,000. Maurice was
understandably scathing about this latest flop: “We cannot train an
audience. Our New Yorkers go to the theatre for a few hours of
pleasure, to fill up leisure time, or to stimulate the nerves. Their
expectations are purely practical. Unfortunately, we don’t have
enough theatre-goers to appreciate these plays” (Schwartz 1 Aug.
1945).
On the final
day of November, the Art Theatre presented, by contrast, the deadly
serious Feuchtwanger drama Josephus. Convinced of his ability
to adapt quality novels into worthy plays, after his unqualified
success with Yoshe Kalb, Schwartz had given himself totally
to the effort.
Josephus was
a much-dishonored figure out of early Jewish history, a Hebrew
scholar, soldier and governor, who turned traitor during the
Roman-Hebrew War, to save his own skin. He ended up as a Roman
chronicler of that war. Feuchtwanger depicts the man, not as a
simple turncoat, but as a realist and patriot, who tries to make
peace between Roman and Jew, thus saving his people, a much maligned
and misunderstood man. Schwartz trimmed and shaped the novel down to
22 scenes, employing a cast of 40, in an ornately handsome
production, with himself in the title role. Many of his former
alumnae such as Freed, Vinogradoff, Cashier, Julius Adler and
Michael Rosenberg, found their way back to him.
Josephus
replaced Yoshe Kalb on weekends, to give the newer piece a
chance to flourish. But Schack wasn’t impressed with Maurice’s
acting or directing. “Mr. Schwartz, while making a striking figure,
scarcely conveys the man’s ambition and intellectuality, nor the
full depth of his inner struggle before going over to Rome" (Times
1 Dec. 1933). The play bombed badly. With the perceptive clarity
of hindsight and a touch of sarcasm, Schwartz noted that the piece
was “not too fit for a Jewish audience which looked for praiseworthy
heroes, honest characters, not turncoats. [. . .] Where Jews are
concerned, if the hero has sinned, he has to repent to be
acceptable. The play should have a happy ending” (Schwartz 28 July
1945).
With nothing on
the horizon at the Folks, Maurice listened with an open mind to one
of his best mainstream friends, Broadway producer Daniel Frohman.,
who reasoned that since Yoshe Kalb had been so successful
with Jews and Gentiles alike on Second Avenue, it would do even
better playing to a wider audience. It belonged at the National
Theatre on W. 41st Street. To demonstrate his confidence,
Frohman would act as the producer. The same Daniel Frohman had lured
Maurice to Broadway in 1923,in the ill-fated English-language
treatment of Anathema. Daniel was so convincing, and Schwartz
so susceptible at this low point (one of many) in his career, that
Maurice decided to have a go at it.
The production
was a first-rate flop, one of the worst in the experiences of both
Schwartz and Frohman. “It is diffuse and unimaginative,” wrote
Brooks Atkinson. “English is not the language of wonder, but
Yoshe Kalb is labored storytelling unless wonder can be added to
it” (Times 29 Dec. 1933). This was the same Brooks Atkinson,
who couldn’t stop raving not that long ago about the Yiddish
version. Understandably, the Schwartz/Frohman misjudgment closed
after four performances.
Three
unmitigated flops in a row were too much for Maurice. As he had
nothing lined up, and was fearful of slipping into extreme debt and
melancholia once more, he took the prudent approach and closed the
season abruptly in February. He marched the troops back on the road,
hoping to recoup his losses by playing Yoshe Kalb (in
Yiddish, of course), wherever booked. Surely, there were thousands
of hinterland Jews who’d heard of but never seen this remarkable
phenomena. To Maurice’s dismay, the Art Theatre performed before
surprisingly small audiences in regions of the nation still in the
frozen depths of winter, in the throes of the Depression. As the
weather improved, spring approaching, receipts grew larger, and he
made a few greatly appreciated dollars.
After months
of traveling, the Art Theatre arrived in Los Angeles in May, 1934,
where five years before, Maurice had fallen victim to a mutinous
crew and a bad press. They were booked at the splendid Biltmore, and
gave an excellent performance of Yoshe before a very savvy
crowd that included many members of the movie community, including
Charley Chaplin, and a fair sampling of Hollywood’s top producers
and directors.
One evening, a
pair of MGM bigwigs came to Maurice’s dressing room and asked to see
him at their office at the studio. In artistic limbo after the past,
debt-incurring season, and no plans for the next, he consented
without hesitation, even though he’d been burned before by Hollywood
sweet talk, and wasn’t all that dewy-eyed about working for a Lotus
Land conglomerate. He knew very well that film studio rajahs were a
pretty flaky bunch: with the power of dictators, the culture of
barbarians and the attention span of children.
Aware of this,
Schwartz attended the meeting and grew dizzy over the sweet honey
they poured in his ear and the astronomical sums they offered—just
like before. And as in the past, they dangled a seven-year contract
with escalating increases before him. He would act and direct under
the immediate supervision of the head honcho himself, Louis B.
Mayer.
The actor and
the movie mogul soon met. Schwartz described him in non-mogul terms,
as a “happy-go-lucky character who likes a Jewish joke and gefilte
fish” (Schwartz 4 Aug 1945). So far, so good. Mayer placed him in
the capable hands of an underling, Harry Rapf, who promised him the
world, though Maurice wanted just enough of it in cash to plow back
into the Art Theatre, and keep it alive forever, a kind of indirect
subsidy from Hollywood.
While
considering MGM’s offer (what really was there to consider?),
Schwartz received a second proposal from Warner Brothers. They
offered more money—but with strings. Maurice would have to change
his name, which they stated flat out would be a decided handicap.
Blatantly, they told him: “In Chicago, New York, Boston or
Philadelphia, the name Schwartz may be respected. But not so in
Chattanooga, Kansas City or Nebraska” (Schwartz 4 Aug. 1945). As a
Jew, as an artist, Maurice was appalled. MGM hadn’t made
surrendering his birthright a condition of employment, so Schwartz
signed with Mayer’s company, and for less money.
At his next
meeting with Louis B. Mayer, the studio head expressed his regrets
that he wouldn’t be able after all to personally guide Maurice
through his initial months at MGM. His wife Margaret wasn’t
well—women’s problems—and in the morning he was leaving for
treatment in Europe. Not the most felicitous of beginnings, Mayer
said, intuiting Schwartz’s apprehension. He turned the actor over to
Rapf, who then advised Schwartz to relax for a few weeks. Take up
golf. Go to the races. Try deep- sea fishing. When they were ready
to get cracking, he’ll let Maurice know. Relaxation was Schwartz’s
first assignment.
Maurice was
more than a little discouraged. “I’m used to working 16 to 20 hours
a day, rehearsing and writing [. . .] and now I’m condemned to
idleness. I came here to accomplish something and he advises me to
become a sportsman” (Schwartz 8 Aug. 1945). And despite his
inactivity, Maurice received a fat paycheck every Monday.
Punctually. Week after week. His internal clock became skewed,
equilibrium knocked for a loop. He couldn’t sleep, had trouble
eating and digesting; felt his mind going soft and slothful. He was
living at the Grand Hotel in Santa Monica, near the ocean. In the
mornings, he’d go out to the beach for a swim and a stroll; read in
the afternoons, then hang out with California-converted Yiddish
actors in the evening. He simply couldn't accept that he was getting
paid for doing nothing more than getting a good tan.
Out of sheer
boredom, Maurice quit his hotel and rented a 14-room house on the
beach, with lots of bathrooms and balconies. To ease the monotony
and loneliness, he called his brother Martin in New York, and begged
him to please come and help fill up the damned mansion. And bring
along his wife and daughter. Maurice and Martin would go together to
the ocean and exercise on the beach. Evenings, they would invite his
Yiddish actor cronies over for food, booze, and to sing the old
theatre songs and tell inside stories about their experiences—some
lies, others exaggerations, all well-appreciated. Months wore on
like a jail sentence, until, totally marooned from himself, Maurice
jumped into his car and drove to the MGM lot, intending to back Rapf
against the wall. He would tell Harry that he was in an intolerable
bind and deteriorating rapidly. He had to do something to earn his
keep.
But Harry had
a few crises of his own to contend with. Marie Dressler, one of the
studio’s biggest draws, had just died. And his last film had laid a
huge egg, losing nearly a million bucks. So Rapf was understandably
unsympathetic to Maurice’s difficulty dealing with what amounted to
a long paid vacation. Icily, he reminded Schwartz what he should
have guessed by now: that Hollywood runs on its own particular
timetable, at its own inscrutable pace. “We have actors, directors,
writers sitting around for years, doing nothing until the time is
right” (Schwartz 11 Aug. 1945).
Maurice took
the dressing down without flinching. Later, a less tense and flip
Harry Rapf scheduled a series of screen tests, Schwartz doing
Shylock, Lear and some modern figures. Harry was so excited by the
results that he called Louella Parsons, the Empress of Tinsel Town,
to come see them. “The fate of actors, producers and directors is
determined by Louella Parsons. If she has a poor opinion of someone,
he’s lost. She has the ability to make some famous and to ruin
others” (Schwartz 11 Aug. 1945). The next morning, her article
appeared in the Los Angeles Examiner, rapturous about the screen
test, and predicting Schwartz’s certain acceptance in films. Her
unexpected boost stimulated management at MGM, and Rapf ordered his
writers to sit down at their typewriters and produce material worthy
of Schwartz’s talents.
Six weeks
later, nothing of substance was banged out by those mobilized
typewriters. Each Monday his check would arrive. The only change
was, the air around Maurice had become harder and harder to breathe.
Alone in his cavernous house, he sat facing the ocean, poring over
his scrapbooks, delivering his best lines to the breezes. At his
fingertips, in his blood, they would come tumbling out on their own.
A few scripts
did arrive but instead of anything resembling art, Schwartz found
himself rummaging through garbage strewn with cliched dialogue and
silly plots, populated by characters who showed little sign of life.
“I looked into the mirror to see if I was really the director of the
Art Theatre, that had presented the most beautiful plays of world
literature” (Schwartz 15 Aug. 1945). There and then, Maurice
decided not to accept any of the parts proffered, but would tell no
one but Mayer on his return from overseas. So many months of
precious time had been wasted, and he had nothing to show for it but
the thousands of dollars MGM had tossed at him.
When Louis B.
Mayer came back to California and learned that little had been done
with the Yiddish actor, he was furious. He replaced Rapf with Sam
Katz, the former Chicago movie exhibitor and now underling at the
studio. Katz’s brainstorm was to dig through MGM’s archives and
dredge up a batch of ancient Emil Jannings and John Barrymore silent
films, with the intention of converting them to talkies starring
Schwartz.
On hold once
again for the next four months, Maurice would dream of rehearsals at
the Art Theatre, of opening nights, and the never-ending rounds of
applause from adoring fans, and the extraordinary visitors who’d
come backstage just to see him and chat. His nerves were pulled
tauter than violin strings, and he couldn’t help but wonder how
close he was to complete mental collapse. In January of 1935, after
eight unbearable months, he sent Martin back to New York, to make
arrangements about doing his highly regarded one-man concerts in
assorted American cities, as he’d done in Europe. Concerning the
next season, he’d worry about that later. First, he had to make his
escape and get back in harness.
Martin managed
to book 15 cities, with Maurice paying his two accompanists and part
of the advertising costs. Beginning in San Francisco, he barnstormed
the country, every night another concert in another city, another
state, working his way back to New York. He played to crowds as
large as 2000, as thin as 200, taking in from $300 to $2100, but
usually netting less weekly than the size of his Monday check for
doing absolutely nothing in Hollywood.
By March, he was back in New
York State, at the Capitol Theatre in Albany, where he took in
$1425. By month’s end, he was in Manhattan. “If I could embrace the
entire city and kiss it, I’d be thrilled. I behaved like a mother
overjoyed to find her lost child” (Schwartz 15 Aug. 1945). And like
any relieved and grateful mother, New York embraced him back. He
visited his old haunts: the theatres, the restaurants, the Yiddish
newspapers. Far too late to do anything about the current season,
Maurice drew together what he could of his Art Theatre, the ones
presently unengaged, a small regiment of 20, and took them and all
his equipment, and left for Paris, where he planned to open
with—what else?-- Yoshe Kalb.
How good it
felt to be in his element again!
In the spring
of 1935, at 47 years of age, Maurice Schwartz was at the top of his
game, already a formidable icon of Yiddish Theatre. Never mind that
shortly before he’d endured eight months of humiliation in
Hollywood, listlessly biding his time with a growing sense of
uselessness. The salvation of one-night stands, using a host of
American cities as steppingstones back to his New York City duchy,
had partially restored him.
Maurice had
made a full recovery and then some in Manhattan, where he’d strode
again familiar ground and inhaled the more receptive and nurturing
air. There was plenty here to remind him that he was Maurice
Schwartz, who’d given the world Yoshe Kalb, and that its
justifiably famous had beaten a path to his dressing room door to
pay homage. So full of himself, an immensely imposing figure, he
would remind many of an Eastern emir, with swarthy, sensuous
features, dark piercing eyes, and a low sonorous voice that began in
the depth of his gut and grew stronger, rounder, until it emerged
thunderous and commanding. He could have been handily cast as an Old
Testament prophet, a redoubtable Jeremiah.
His
professional manner was frigid, imperious. He never answered to
Maurice, or the more ancient Morris, but only to Mr. Schwartz, even
from those who’d been with him for decades. One reporter, observing
him at work, wrote: “Mr. Schwartz possesses the gleaming eye that
draws into itself all the living power that floats about the
surrounding space. He discharges that power in a gleam ironically
sad, usually directed upon a host of other actors, who are storming
about, while he sits rigid and silent, dominating the scene by sheer
concentrated genius” (Levin 10).
And like some
Oriental potentate, he could be unstintingly cruel to incompetent
actors, or those with talent who gave less than everything to a
performance. His sense of humor, though often dry and witty, could
also have a cruel underpinning, especially toward its hapless
object. The Art Theatre player closest to him during this exalted
period in his life, Charlotte Goldstein, has arguably the most
incisive view of this enigmatic man. “Oh, he could be cruel alright.
But it didn’t stem from viciousness, but rather, oddly enough, from
his humor. And he did have humor in full measure. His cruelty was
directed toward those he considered bad actors, or good actors not
giving their utmost, as he did, performance after performance”
(Chafran 28 June 1999).
Bearing a
solid sense of self-possession and his place in the cosmos, Schwartz
crossed the Atlantic once more, armed with a recognized and beloved
repertoire, surrounded by a cadre of 20 top flight actors, and
carrying all the necessary equipment to present Europe with the
finest Yiddish productions the continent had ever seen.
They opened at
the Renaissance Theatre, one of Paris’s oldest playhouses, where
Sarah Bernhardt had once captivated the French with her
splendiferous acting and personality, the two inseparable. But for
all its past glories, the place was a veritable firetrap, webbed
with winding wooden staircases that could easily become blazing
torches. It simply had to be bribery that prevented its
condemnation. Nevertheless, Maurice went full steam ahead with
Yoshe Kalb, which soon proved to be a sensation in the French
capital. Wrote a non-Yiddish reporter for the Times: “The
greater part of the audience at this first night obviously did not
suffer my disability of being unacquainted with the dialect [. . .]
for they seemed almost as enthusiastic as were the performers”
(Carr 26 May 1935).
The Art
Theatre spent most of the summer in London, at His Majesty’s Theatre
in Haymarket, where the best English plays from Shakespeare to Noel
Coward were presented. At first, their reception was invigorating,
the British mainstream critics very favorably impressed with
Yoshe Kalb—not as great literature, but as spectacle (as were
their American counterparts). One English reviewer described it as
“a magnificent piece for the theatre [. . .] brilliantly
expressive.” He reported that “the demand for curtain calls even
drowned out the playing of the national anthem afterward” (Times
31 July 1935).
When in
London, do as the Londoners. Since its better drama critics would
attend premieres and spend an inordinate amount of the intermission
at the playhouse bar, so did Schwartz. He was no tippler, but he did
so want to win over the press, all in the service of his Art
Theatre. Whether the hail-fellow-well-met routine paid dividends,
Maurice would never know for sure, except he did receive universal
raves from the staid London Times, and the trendier Daily
Examiner and Daily Herald.
With the
arrival of fall, interest in Yiddish Theatre slowly petered out in
London. Maurice blamed the unexpected slack on the assimilation of
London Jews into the general society. Perhaps a tour of the English
hinterlands might reverse the Art Theatre’s fortunes, just as a
summer tour in America had always been good medicine for the spirit
and the bank account. Relkin booked them into Leeds and Manchester,
where they bombed badly. “Both cities have synagogues, cantors and
rabbis. Their Jews observe tradition by preparing gefilte fish for
the Sabbath. They collect charity for Palestine—not too much, but
every little bit helps. However, Yiddish Theatre for them was an
alien concept” (Schwartz 22 Aug. 1945).
By late
autumn, the troupe had moved on to Belgium, a nation with a
distinguished history of tolerance towards its Jews, if not outright
cooperation in business and political matters. Antwerp and Brussels
Jews were part and parcel of the towns’ commerce, engaged in the
lucrative and highly specialized diamond trade. The Art Theatre
played Antwerp for ten shows, Brussels for five, and each
performance a sell-out. The company more than made up its losses in
England.
Next stop was
Holland, a land dear to decent men everywhere, because it took in
the expelled and persecuted Jews of Inquisitional Spain. The country
of Spinoza and gracious Queen Wilhelmina, who regularly visited the
synagogues of Amsterdam as evidence of unity and friendship. A
seemingly cold people, the Dutch Jews demonstrated few signs of life
during the first performance of Yoshe Kalb. Backstage, a
flustered Isadore Cashier grumbled that they were in the process of
laying an enormous egg. But after the final curtain, “the audience
rose and applauded for a very long time. It was followed by bravo
calls that lasted for more than three minutes. We will never forget
that evening” (Schwartz 29 Aug. 1945).
From
Amsterdam, most of the company returned to Paris, then back to New
York, Anna included. While Maurice, Martin (his business manager for
the tour), and stage manager Ben Zion Katz, as well as all the Art
Theatre’s sets, costumes and lighting fixtures, went on to Warsaw to
continue the tour. The reason for the abrupt schism was the refusal
of the Polish Actors Union to permit foreign performers on its
stages. It had too many of its own mouths to feed.
Anna’s
returning to America with the bulk of the troupe was the result of
worsening relations between herself and Maurice. The bitter truth
was he’d found another playmate to be young again with. She was the
doe-eyed beauty Judith Abarbanell, the insipid Serele of Yoshe
Kalb, who’d been with the company since Jew Suss in 1929.
They’d fallen under each other’s spell and Anna knew it, tolerated
the affair, but decided to show her repugnance by going home,
leaving the two lovers to become bored with one another. Judith
would go to Warsaw with Maurice. But the affair was neither brief
nor casual, instead lasting for years, with Anna’s tacit approval.
As far as can be determined, he hadn’t given vent to the impulses of
the boy trapped within the man (Charlotte’s analysis) since his 1924
partial escapade with Dagny Servaes. They would enjoy a passionate
union, Maurice and Judith, that burned feverishly while it lasted.
Warsaw had four
Yiddish playhouses, but only the Kaminsky was available. It had many
shortcomings. Its acoustics were poor: voices from the stage seldom
carried beyond the first six rows. The stage was tiny. Seating
capacity was very limited. The seats themselves were old and worn.
Schwartz’s main problem however was an embarrassment of riches. He
had too large a group of actors to select from, each with an
overweening sense of self-importance, and a firm conviction of being
the bulwark of Yiddish Theatre in Poland. Competition among them was
fierce. As a matter of tact, and to limit the infighting, Schwartz
engaged the entire company for his productions. “I was impressed by
the Yiddish actors in Poland. They were very dedicated to the
profession despite the handicaps they had to face. In the primitive
playhouse, they suffered in winter from the cold, in summer from the
heat; from holes in the roof when it rained or snowed” (Schwartz 1
Sept. 1945).
Maurice
admired how, regardless of the many obstacles, they traveled from
city to city, knowing it was their duty to uphold Yiddish Theatre in
Poland, and to his delight, the habitually bickering group fell
instantly in line with Schwartz as their ringmaster. He demanded of
them no less than a rendition of Yoshe Kalb equal to that of
the Art Theatre in New York. It seemed not to matter that many of
Warsaw’s most illustrious kunst players were assigned minor
roles. The play was the thing, and, after all, Yoshe Kalb was
born in Warsaw and should be performed here to its best advantage.
With
rehearsals going splendidly, Maurice couldn’t have been happier. He
put in impossibly long hours and loved every second of it. He’d come
back to the hotel with Judith, drained but so pleased to be alive
and in the center of things. If he missed Anna, or considered
divorcing her, he wrote nothing of it. Then disaster, in the form of
the Polish government, ended his euphoria. Perhaps to curry favor
with its Nazi neighbor, the Warsaw authorities grew bolder in what
had been only a tepid antisemitism. In Schwartz’s case, it surfaced
as a prohibition against the use of the sets, costumes and lighting
fixtures that had been toted over Europe and were now moldering in a
government warehouse, under lock and key. Obviously, the bureaucrats
were trying to delay, if not cancel, the production of Yoshe Kalb.
A bribe of
$10,000, in the form of an import fee was demanded. Officials also
tacked on a second tariff of the same amount, to ensure the removal
afterward from Poland of the equipment, as if Maurice intended to
dump such valuable items like unwanted garbage. Those actors with
political connections began calling in favors to ransom the
materials. No way could Maurice pay the combined bribes. Finally,
Hirsh Hirt, one of the Polish troupe and an officer in the military
reserves, got to the right person, and for just a few thousand
zlotys, had the warehouse gates opened. Martin and Ben Zion Katz
rushed over in a truck and rescued the sets, costumes and the very
valuable lights.
Jewish Warsaw
went into a highly charged state, contemplating the opening of
Yoshe Kalb. Never before had 60 actors worked together on a
single, albeit minuscule, stage, in 26 gorgeous scenes, and with
such advanced equipment. All his travails in Warsaw had been
acceptable prologue, thought Maurice, at the close of the final
scene, as the rousing applause threatened to shatter the cracked
ceiling of the Kaminsky theatre. The play ran for 20 magnificent
weeks in the Polish capital, the theatre filled to capacity each
night despite the organized bands of college students who tore down
the posters. This was the spring of 1936, four years since Schwartz
had tasted the ugly potion Hitler had been brewing, and he could now
feel its accumulated results in the streets of Warsaw, in its
restaurants, in the very hotel where he and Judith were staying.
While at the highest levels of government, the Poles were engaged in
a bootlicking campaign to endear themselves to the Nazis, who
abhorred them. Mein Kampf was openly displayed in all the
city’s bookstores. A terrible premonition engulfed Maurice, as had
I. J.Singer during their meeting in 1932, that some monstrous
disaster awaited the Jews of Poland. It was therefore with profound
relief that Schwartz took a brief hiatus from Yiddish Theatre to fly
back to London and make an English film.
The how and
why of the movie The Man Behind the Mask cannot be retrieved.
All that remains are the surface facts. It was a Joe Rock
production, directed by Michael Powell, (who also did The Red
Shoes in 1948), and adapted from the 1906 Jacques Futrelle novel
The Chase of the Golden Plate. It was shot in three weeks,
with Maurice in the title role as the Master, a mad, career
criminal, who steals a valuable icon. The movie was never released
in America.
Schwartz
returned to Warsaw, to the spicy stew of Yiddish Theatre, for only a
few weeks more. He then took the company to Lodz, a city with an
even greater devotion to theatre than Warsaw. The elite of American
Yiddish Theatre had played Lodz: Kessler, Thomashevsky, and Sigmund
Feinman, who’d literally expired on its stage 30 years earlier.
During the short six weeks in Lodz, Maurice could see how conditions
for its Jews had deteriorated. In a spate of viciousness, the Polish
parliament had outlawed Kosher slaughtering, deeming it barbaric. To
Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike, it was a patent indication of more
restrictive legislation to follow, like the infamous Nuremberg
Decrees.
Martin phoned
Maurice at his hotel with the disturbing news and suggested they
scrub the evening’s performance, as sort of protest. Half an hour
later, he called back to say that they must play as scheduled.
Tickets had been sold. Crowds were already milling in front of the
Roszmantoszche Theatre. Approaching the playhouse by cab, Maurice
could see the throngs gathering anxiously, murmuring their confusion
and anger. They saw him and ran to his cab, pleading with the actor
to perform, if only to defy the antisemites, who would like nothing
better than a cancellation. He took a quick poll of the crowd, found
it overwhelmingly in favor of going on with the show. Jew Suss
happened to be the evening’s fare, a piece about German intolerance
of a bygone era, but an example of the more things change, the more
they stay the same. The performance ended with the spontaneous
singing of ‘Hatikva,’ the Jewish national anthem, by the audience.
In Lemberg,
their host was the Coliseum Theatre. Once a nondenominational
playhouse, where Max Reinhardt had once brought his company, it had
become a strictly Yiddish theatre. Polish performers and audiences,
infected with the same hateful disease, now refused to attend. In
fact, all over Lemberg, once a city of harmony between Jew and
Christian, many acts of inhumanity were occurring. Because Jews were
afraid to venture out in the evening, theatre-going had been reduced
to afternoon matinees, that is, if Lemberg’s Jews thought at all of
theatre, many being fired from offices, factories and government
posts.
It was with a
sense of deliverance that Maurice and Judith left Poland and arrived
in Vienna, “one of those magical cities [. . .] that make you feel
as if you’re in a crib, having sweet dreams” (Schwartz 18 Sept.
1945). Drinking in the thick, creamy Austrian aromas, he realized
how much he’d missed the Strauss waltzes, the strolls in the
Wienerwald, the opulent atmosphere of its pastry houses. This time,
Anna wasn’t with him, but Judith was, and he could see the city
anew, through his young lover’s eyes.
Schwartz had
taken the Polish troupe along, and they were booked at the
Burgertheater, one of the oldest and finest playhouses in Europe.
But at once he discovered here too the changed, charged climate, the
Hitlerian taint having spread to this most civil and cultivated of
all Continental cities. He could have predicted that the city
fathers would attempt to block the opening of Yoshe Kalb.
This time the ruse employed was a violation of the fire code because
of the high-powered projectors he’d been lugging all over Europe.
Schwartz dashed over to the American Embassy for help, but received
none. Conditions in Austria were very volatile, he was told, a
veritable powder keg. Nazi influence was increasing daily.
Tension
mounted as the time shortened until opening night. Viennese Jews
were fabulous theatre patrons, and with momentum building, Schwartz
hoped against hope for a satisfactory resolution. He hadn’t the
stomach to tell a soul that the Art Theatre had been refused a
permit. Opening night, eight PM. Curtain time. An overflow audience
of 2000 filled the Burger, many of whom had heard but disregarded
rumors of cancellation. There was no disorder, no grumbling, no
vague threats against the authorities. They were being good
Austrians, and the worse they expected was a slight delay,
Faced with no
alternative, Schwartz had to go onstage and tell the audience,
primed for an exciting evening, that the opening would be postponed.
Maybe tomorrow, or the day after. Or maybe never, but he couldn’t
say that. Then, about 10 PM, word came from the American Ambassador
that permission to present Yoshe Kalb had at last been
granted, but only for a single week. And for a single week, they
played the hoary, aristocratic Burger. By the following week, they’d
moved to the lesser Reklan, on Praterstrasser, the accepted home of
Vienna’s Yiddish Theatre. After the Burger, the Reklan seemed
hopelessly inadequate, but soon Maurice found the arrangement
completely satisfying.
In the Jewish
quarter, the local Brownshirts made life as difficult as possible—as
the Polish students had—ripping down posters and attacking Jews in
their coffeehouses and restaurants, as they waited for the theatre
to open its doors. It soon became a dreary challenge, day after day,
to do theatre and ignore the boys wearing swastika armbands. Maurice
knew he’d have to leave. There was nothing further to be done for
the Jews of Vienna, and by overstaying—an irritant to the local
Hitlerites—he’d be making life worse for his co-religionists.
Schwartz
disbanded the brave, excellent troupe and sent it back home to
Warsaw. He and Judith left for Paris. Even there, in the birthplace
of tolerance and rationality, he felt the disease at work, eating at
the very foundation of democracy. Even there, Jews were being
targeted for abuse and violence. Jewish-owned stores were attacked
and vandalized, its proprietors brutally beaten.
Not long after
Maurice left Paris, haunted by an image of a limitless grave as wide
as all Europe, yawning open and swallowing its entire Jewish
population.
“The season at
the 49th Street Theatre was not a good one,” admitted
Maurice Schwartz. “It was on a small scale, so losses were also
small. We didn’t cater to the audience’s tastes. They expected
something extraordinary and we played mediocre theatre” (Schwartz 3
Oct. 1945). He’d come back to New York at the tail end of summer,
1936, much too late to rent a playhouse on Second Avenue. Yiddish
Theatre seemed to be thriving, with 14 houses set to open: a
whopping eight in Manhattan, four in Brooklyn and two in the Bronx.
Of the Manhattan group, three would be on Broadway: ARTEF at the 48th
Street Theatre, Maurice at the 49th Street Theatre, and
at the Biltmore, the Yiddish unit of the Federal Art Theatre,
subsidized by the United States Government, through the Works
Progress Administration, one of the many creative measures taken by
the Roosevelt brain trust to get the country on its feet again.
Curiously
enough, what Schwartz had been beating the drum over for the past 20
years had come to pass. Federal Theatre planned to operate
playhouses, sign leases, pay salaries and royalties, and run box
offices, hoping to attract wholesale audiences of Americans to its
productions. From 1935 to 1939, the years of Federal Theatre’s
existence, millions of dollars were poured into “the largest
theatre-producing organization in the world” (Times 18 Aug
1935). In 1940, concerning the program’s termination the previous
year, Schwartz wrote: “All credit must go to that effort for the
excellent productions it succeeded in displaying. But that attempt
was based only on putting people to work, not primarily in retaining
an art that was collapsing” (Times 1 Dec. 1940).
With a
repertory of over 75 plays, the program employed some 1700 actors in
1935, with more slated to join them. Part of this overarching
umbrella, were Yiddish Theatre units in New York, Boston, Chicago
and Los Angeles, presenting works by the best in Yiddish plays, by
the finest Yiddish playwrights.
With a robust
but mostly trash menu that season, Yiddish Theatre had outlived yet
another death notice from the critics, one of whom had written a
particularly mordant one at the close of the previous season: “Never
before, not even in the Depression year of 1929, did Yiddish theatre
show such a deficit [. . .] One of the worst seasons since its
inception [. . .] with a still poorer outlook for the future” (Smolar
362).When Schwartz’s boat docked in New York harbor, Eddie Relkin
was there to welcome him home. What’s new on Second Avenue? Schwartz
wanted to know. Relkin’s reply was evasive, the gist of it being
that every house on the Avenue was spoken for, offering the same old
garbage, but the 49th Street location Uptown was still
available. Too bad though that it had a seating capacity of only
800, and a lozenge-size stage. Chastened by past losses on large
stages with grand productions, and hampered by the lack of options
for the new season, he told Relkin that “maybe it was better to do
things on a smaller scale, so expenses would be less and the plays
more moderate” (Schwartz 27 Sept. 1945).
Spoiled by
grandeur and spectacles, Maurice had to bow to the exigencies of the
day. He’d try a season of less, hoping it would prove to be more.
He’d adjust to what was, as he always did, trying to stay alive.
There is some
controversy over the play Schwartz brought back with him from Paris.
Jacques Bergson was supposedly written by Victor Felder, a
French playwright. Everything points to Felder actually being none
other than Maurice Schwartz, hiding behind yet another stick figure.
Indeed, Schwartz was an experienced dramatist, three of his complete
manuscripts slumbering in YIVO’s archives, including The Cloud,
the play he’d written for Celia Adler when they were together in
Philadelphia. There is sufficient evidence pointing to Schwartz and
Felder being one in the same. On December 5, 1936, Maurice received
a letter from the US copyright office in Washington, DC, denying his
application to register Jacques Bergson, “an
unpublished dramatic composition [which] gives as the author Victor
Felder, a citizen of France. Is not Mr. Felder the author of the
original version? It is understood that the copy deposited is not
the original version, but a Yiddish translation and adaptation for
the Yiddish stage” (Bouve 5 Dec. 1936).
On the
surface, it appears that there is no original copy of the Felder
manuscript because there is no original Mr. Felder. And yet, the
play that opened on October 31, 1936, credited Jacob Nadler with the
translation from the French. Nadler was a real enough person, a bit
player at the Art Theatre, who spoke not a word of French. But real
or trumped up, Felder’s name appeared in the credits, his play
directed by Schwartz, who took the main role, followed by his core
of steady players. William Schack liked the piece, comparing it to
previous Art Theatre selections and complimenting Maurice for “one
of the most full-bodied performances of his career” (Times
31 Oct. 1936). Schwartz played the right-wing Jewish father of two
socialist sons during the turbulent 1930’s in Paris. American Jews
however seemed less than sympathetic over the plight of French Jews.
The play ran for eight uninspired weeks then was replaced on
Christmas Day by something completely different, Jacob Prager’s
The Water Carrier. (Prager would perish later with fellow
playwrights Mark Arnstein and Alter Katzizne in the Warsaw Ghetto.)
A folk comedy
in two acts, with music and dance, this was a return to the Yoshe
Kalb style of Yiddish Theatre, despite the playhouse’s
limitations. Schwartz knew that this was what his audiences wanted
and expected. The music was written by Alexander Olshanetsky, who’d
been composing since 1930, and would become a giant in his chosen
field, though the score for The Water Carriers was his lone
contribution to the Art Theatre. Lillian Shapero arranged the
dances, Robert Van Rosen the sets.
Once more the
playgoers were taken to the familiar ground of shtetl life
for this assault on religious hypocrisy and greed. The wickedly
humorous piece concerns a poor, innocent half-wit who is caught up
in the religious politics of a tiny Yiddish town, after he is
mistakenly declared a miracle worker. “For those who fall in with
the author’s spirit, the fun is fast and furious, though its
obviousness palls at times. There are moments too, when the spirit
of burlesque wavers, and the values it sets out to ridicule seemed
to be played up for their picturesqueness,” wavered William Schack.
(Times 25 Dec.1936). Despite other good notices in both
presses, the piece failed. As did the third and final play of the
terribly disappointing season. Opening on February 10th,
was Borderline, a play by the German-Jewish playwright Albert
Ganzert. It was slated for midweek showings, with The Water
Carrier covering the weekends.
A hit in
Vienna the season before, the Ganzert piece was another didactic
take on the deteriorating European scene, this time set in Berlin
instead of Paris. It concerns the havoc stirred up in a happy,
distinguished, German Christian family when the grandfather, a
beloved physician is discovered to be a Jew. Wrote one reviewer: “At
this safe distance from concentration camps, one asks, So what? Even
if the consequences are such as can be confirmed” (Times 10
Feb. 1937). Like the critic, few Jews in America actually believed
that Hitler meant what he said and wrote.
Mercifully, the
season ended on March 7th for the Art Theatre, more than
a month earlier than usual, and by late spring Maurice was once
again in the same Vienna where the previous year he’d viewed its
transformation into a city of hate and intolerance. But only long
enough to do a few solo concerts before moving on to Palestine,
booked to do the same, but more importantly to see his father for
the first time since Isaac had emigrated to the Holy Land.
The sea voyage
across the Mediterranean was long and tedious. Maurice used the
boredom to study his 22 solo pieces, half to be delivered in
Yiddish, the other half in Hebrew, an impossible language for an
adult to learn.. He docked in Port Said, Egypt, then boarded the
night train to Tel Aviv. The Arab porters were slow, the flies
thick, the fetid air thicker, the endless desert from horizon to
horizon diminishing him to insignificance.
At the Tel
Aviv station, Schwartz was amazed to see large numbers of Arabs,
cloaked in their burnooses, as generation after generation of them
had dressed. Even more surprising were the Palestinian Jews
everywhere to be seen, those tough hearty souls “who had the courage
to build Tel Aviv and other settlements. They dried the swamps, they
irrigated the desert and turned it into gardens” (Schwartz 10 Oct.
1945). Maurice had arrived in Palestine after a troubled year of
unrest between Arab and Jew, and he sensed a deadly tension in the
atmosphere. He checked into the San Remo Hotel facing the sea,
reminiscent to him of Coney Island near his home in sea Gate. He was
greatly impressed with Tel Aviv, especially its sights and sounds:
the men and women swimming in the ocean, the children cheerful and
happy, all uttering the language of David and Solomon.
A visitor
appeared the next morning, I.D. Berkowitz, Sholem Aleichem’s
son-in-law and adapter for the Art Theatre. Years before, he’d moved
to Palestine, becoming a highly regarded writer and scholar. “It’s
high time you came to see us,” said Berkowitz , smiling broadly. “If
not to settle here, then at least for a visit. You should come back
again and again. This is the place for Jewish artists” (Schwartz 13
Oct. 1945).
Quite soon,
Schwartz learned that for the Palestinian Jew, theatre was a truly
serious business, not merely a way to kill time. For old and young
alike, going to see a play was an integral part of one’s education.
And so, Maurice practiced his Hebrew, isolating himself in his hotel
room, paying close attention to every sound, to each subtle
intonation of the guttural language. He had to get it perfect.
Isaac Schwartz
had become a resident of Jerusalem, but he insisted on making the
journey to Tel Aviv to see his son. The trip would be hazardous,
with snipers poised along the road, ready to pump lead into passing
vehicles. His father looked very different. His gray beard was now
white as fresh snow. He’d missed his children and grandchildren, and
they were now very much on his mind. He lived alone, cooked his own
meals and looked after himself. Seeing Maurice, he barely managed to
hold back the tears. “My father came close to me, spoke quietly, the
way a mother speaks to a child. ‘It’s good of you to make such a
journey to come see me.’ A fine smile covered his face” (Schwartz
17 Oct. 1945).
The intense joy
Maurice felt was boundless after Isaac agreed to spend the entire
month of his son’s stay with him in Tel Aviv. With a white-hot
doggedness, Maurice prepared for his first concert. He would be
performing before a standing-room-only audience at the Ohel, a
theatre like no other. The Ohel (Hebrew for ‘tent’) was originally
known as the Workers’ Theatre of Palestine. Founded in 1925 by Moshe
Halevy, its aim was to develop a socialist-based theatre for actors,
who would also work the fields and groves. By 1927, it became
abundantly clear that Ohel members had to devote themselves
completely to creating a national theatre, so they became full-time
actors. Three years earlier, in 1934, the troupe had made its first
highly successful European tour. Schwartz had seen them in London,
on one of his tours.
It was a
sparse but spacious hall, Maurice noticed, with an inordinately
great number of windows. His first dramatic concert consisted of a
one-man performance of Yoshe Kalb, with himself doing all the
parts. Zalman Schneour, the vibrant, imposing writer Schwartz had
met during his first visit to Paris in 1924, and a current
Palestinian resident, had translated the play for him into Hebrew.
“The Ohel was filled to capacity with the finest Yiddish scholars.
We also had guests from Jerusalem [. . .]. They were eager to see
how a diaspora actor who had performed in Yiddish would fare with
Hebrew” (Schwartz 20 Oct. 1945).
Maurice
accepted the challenge, handling the two dozen parts, male and
female, in Hebrew. The evening was overly warm, not a drop of air
from the open windows, not the wisp of a breeze from the sea. He
must have done well, as he was roundly cheered, but more
importantly, was invited to repeat his performance in Haifa,
Jerusalem and other cities.
When Moshe
Halevy asked Maurice to direct Ohel’s production of Yoshe Kalb,
inspired by Schwartz’s solo presentation, he accepted with some
reservation. Its stage was far too confining, seats for only 600.
Lighting was deplorable: a single projector with limited wattage.
But even worse, was the task of whipping into shape this particular
troupe. By nature, Maurice was not suited for the Ohel’s languorous
pace. More importantly, he had less than three weeks before
scheduled to go home. A play of Yoshe Kalb’s intricacy and
depth required a minimum of a month of eight-hour days, non-stop
except for a short lunch break.
Schwartz
assembled the actors and told them he wanted a ten-hour a day
rehearsal schedule. Without opposition, the Ohel players accepted
his edict. Earnest about doing a superlative job, they threw
themselves into the Schneour translation, enthusiasm effervescing,
After ten days, the troupe of 20, doing 40 roles, knew their lines.
Lacking the proper lighting, Maurice improvised with the one and
only projector and sheets of colored paper, to produce the desired
effects.
“The premiere
of Yoshe Kalb was very festive and finished ten minutes
earlier than expected. The actors had to take 12 curtain calls.
Success was as great as in New York. Schneour’s translation had a
poetic lilt [and] felt like drinking good old wine” (Schwartz 27
Oct. 1945). Under Schwartz’s direction, the Ohel played the entire
week in Tel Aviv, every evening, to full houses, as requests for
Yoshe Kalb poured in from all over Palestine. The few hours
he managed to steal from the theatre, were spent with Isaac, who was
becoming increasingly anxious to return to Jerusalem and his
monastic life.
Maurice took
his father back to the small lodgings Isaac called home and examined
with sadness the tiny hovel where he spent his days and slept on a
tiny cot. But as much as he pitied the old man, he respected the
sincerity of his choice, and the principles behind it that had
guided his existence. “I suddenly felt very weak. It occurred to me
that this might be our last meeting. I became so emotional that I
cried like a baby” (Schwartz 31 Oct. 1945).
His Palestine
tour completed, Maurice made his tender farewells with Isaac and
took off for Paris. Propelling him was the thrilling prospect of
opening the 1937-1938 season with a dramatization of I.J. Singer’s
magnificent epic The Brothers Ashkenazi. In the City of
Lights, he couldn’t help but notice its further decline. Thousands
of German Jews were streaming into France, each one desperate to go
to Palestine or America. France was only a resting spot, no longer
considered safe for them. Fascist Parisian papers were extolling
Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. Bullies were sprouting everywhere,
fomenting attacks on Jews and on Spanish Loyalists, who’d become
refugees after the Falangists had overthrown the
democratically-elected government in Madrid.
Maurice
returned to America in an ugly mood. Waiting for him at the pier
were Anna, his managers Relkin and Milton Weintraub, and Rubin
Guskin. Protected by the Atlantic Ocean and enmeshed in the nation’s
own internal problems, they didn’t care to hear horror stories about
Europe. They were delighted to see Maurice and excited as well with
the chance to do The Brothers Ashkenazi. They were certain it
would be as gargantuan a hit as Yoshe Kalb had been. |
