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Chapter
Twenty-Eight: The Very Last Time
Published in
1936, the first novel I.J. Singer wrote in America, The Brothers
Ashkenazi was an international sensation. It was hailed as a
masterpiece, appearing first in the Forward in weekly
sections, then published in English and many other languages. The
work proved ideal for Schwartz’s brand of theatre, having a
panoramic sweep and a depiction of Jewish life against the
background of anti-Semitism, the latter especially brought home to
him during his two recent tours of Europe.
There would be
no playhouse available to him along Yiddishdom’s equivalent of
Broadway, but as luck would have it, the Venice Theatre was unspoken
for. Located on Seventh Avenue between 58th and 59
Streets, the playhouse had been built by the Shuberts specifically
for Al Jolson, and named for him. Jolson opened there in 1921 with
Bombo, and never played in his namesake again. In 1923,
Morris Gest leased it for the Moscow Art Theatre, for the troupe’s
first tour of America, the one that absorbed so many of Maurice’s
patrons, much to his anguish.
Though I.J.
Singer’s involvement in Yoshe Kalb was minimal, merely an
observer during the birth of his first staged work, he became an
active participant in dramatizing The Brothers Ashkenazi.
Both Schwartz and Singer were listed as dramatists of record,
Maurice’s name appearing first. The collaboration was a happy one,
each pleased with the results. The felicitous union prompted a
promise by Singer to create future original plays for the Art
Theatre.
The
ambitiously broad and deep novel deals with nothing less than the
development of the Polish city of Lodz, from an insignificant
crossroads village, to a bustling industrial textile center.
Beginning with Napoleon’s disastrous retreat from Russia at the dawn
of the 19th Century, the plot works its convoluted way to
the Bolshevik Revolution, and its horrific aftermath for the Jews of
Poland. But more than historical fiction, The Brothers
intricately limns the adversarial relationship between two
diametrically dissimilar brothers, who spend most of their lives at
each other’s throat. Max is the hard-driving, unethical, crude
schemer, while Jacob craves the gracious, assimilated lifestyle of a
bon vivant. Only after the Reds overthrow the Czar, do the two patch
up their differences, but far too late, as Jacob is shot dead before
Max’s unbelieving eyes by a racist Polish officer. Max lives on for
a short while, then dies of a heart attack.
More than its
Cain and Abel aspect, the novel describes every social class and
circumstance of Polish Jewry, and was wonderfully and compactly
captured by Schwartz and Singer in two parts and 17 scenes. Certain
that he had a major hit on his hands, Maurice gathered a large,
eminently qualified cast that read more like the telephone directory
of a small town. Over 50 players, with another two dozen extras as
soldiers, wedding guests, Chassidim, and factory workers. Among the
Art Theatre regulars were Julius Adler, Isadore Cashier, Samuel
Goldenburg (as the charming Jacob), Zvi Scooler, Morris Strassberg,
Yudel Dubinsky, and Michael Rosenberg.
Among the
latest additions to the troupe: Kurt Katch, brought from Germany by
Schwartz specifically for the play. Katch would later pop up in
Hollywood, appearing in such movie classics as Watch on the Rhine
(1943) and The Seventh Cross (1944). Also imported from
Germany was Greta Rosen, in the key role of Dinah, Max’s
unresponsive wife. Though she too would remain but a single season
with the company, she won the heart of every male actor—Maurice
included—for her fine Nordic looks and manner. Helen Beverly (the
future Mrs. Lee J. Cobb) was also a newcomer, and like Katch, would
immigrate to Hollywood, playing mostly bit parts.
Unlike Yoshe
Kalb, the 1937-1938 season opener was rich in story and
immediacy, the kind of tale Jew and Gentile alike could relate to,
especially the part dealing with brother against brother. That Jacob
becomes romantically involved with his own niece, Max’s fiesty
daughter, only added spice to the stew. The work had its premiere on
September 20th, 1937, to much acclaim. In the Times,
William Schack wasn’t given his usual reviewer’s format of listing
the actors and their roles, perhaps because the roster was so large.
Within a cramped 40 lines, he wrote: “If the new work has less sound
and fury than Yoshe Kalb [. . .] it has more significance for
our times” (21 Sept. 1937). Nevertheless, though he found some
scenes to be extremely powerful, their cumulative effect wasn’t
forceful enough.
Every other
English-language reviewer employed only superlatives in describing
the piece. Typical of the more sanguine Yiddish critics was this
from one not predisposed to favor him: “The opening of every new
play of his was an occasion of great disappointment to me [. . .].
No wonder then that the shadow of last year’s failures hung about
the stage as the curtain rose over Maurice Schwartz’s newest
production The Brothers Ashkenazi. I am happy to report that
it is a great play” (Margoshes 1).
All in all,
the piece was every bit the magnificent triumph Schwartz and his
staff had expected. It ran for 18 weeks continuously, without any
repertory productions inserted as filler. Maurice had originally
intended to introduce three other works after The Brothers
had completed its run—Esterke by Aaron Zeitlin, Shakespeare’s
King Lear, and a new play about the Jewish-American patriot,
Chaim Solomon. But packed houses, night after glorious night,
changed his mind. Only one number was put up that season, which
ended early in March 1938. Indeed, a radical transformation had
taken place in Maurice’s theatre cosmology and practice. From
presenting about thirty productions his first season at the Irving
Place Theatre in 1918, he’d confined himself to a single play 20
years later. The reason was Schwartz’s uncanny ability to change, to
make the hard choices, to recognize how the audience had evolved
over that span and was unwilling to support repertory theatre. And
there was the economic factor to consider: it simply cost too much
to mount a play and assume its many costs, never mind the wear and
tear on his actors, who would have to bounce each week from one work
to the next. He had a splendid hit in The Brothers
Ashkenazi, and would stay with it—like his Broadway counterparts
had been doing for years—as long as the piece drew profitable
houses. For the most part, Maurice had also abandoned the world
classics, coming to rely strictly on plays by or about Jews. This
was what his audiences wanted. This is what he would deliver. It had
been Joe Edelstein’s formula for success, and maybe the old fox was
right after all, thought Maurice, having grown less idealistic over
the years.
Perhaps too,
Adolph Hitler had nudged him in this ethnocentric direction. In a
press release promoting The Brothers Ashkenazi, Maurice told
of his shift to more didactic drama: "The play has a message—that’s
what is bringing us this new audience. Parlor drama won’t do these
days [. . .]. The theatre must educate. It must attack. We have
learned that. There is no other way of holding your audience.”
The season
completed at the Venice, Maurice packed up the troupe and hit the
road to Europe, highlighting The Brothers and other tried and
true standards from his bag of Art Theatre tricks. Paris was the
first stop, where he would present a work about anti-Semitism to a
city becoming more stricken with it since his last visit—almost like
bringing coals to Newcastle. Months before, the Socialist regime of
Leon Blum had fallen, leaving a moral vacuum. Germany had grown more
nakedly savage, as the Luftwaffe, honing its skills, had destroyed
the Basque city of Guernica. Within the Third Reich, a concentration
camp for political prisoners at Buchenwald, near the charming city
of Weimer, had opened for business.
At the
Renaissance Theatre, the company won the same plaudits with The
Brothers Ashkenazi that it had five years earlier with Yoshe
Kalb. The expensive seats were snapped up at once, but the
gallery remained nearly empty, night after perplexing night,
Schwartz wondered what was happening: “Is it possible that Parisian
Jews had become rich and were ashamed to sit in the galleries?”
(Schwartz 10 Nov.1945).
A short time
later, he discovered the reason: Paris was filled with refugees
afraid to gather in a public place such as the Renaissance, lest
they be arrested for lack of a valid passport. German Jews, mainly,
they’d crossed the border illegally, and dreaded being sent back,
only to end up in some hellish place the inhumane Nazis alone could
devise. At once, Schwartz took steps to remedy the intolerable
situation. Borrowing an interpreter, he called on the head of the
Paris police and stung him with barbed criticism: “I came here from
America, not to make money, but to present quality theatre for Jews
and non-Jews. Why do you want to arrest those who haven’t passports
and are trying to escape Hitler’s persecutions? Isn’t this France,
the first republic of the world?” (Schwartz 10 Nov. 1945).
Angered at the
badgering, the police official shouted back that he couldn’t bend
the law to suit Maurice Schwartz or anyone else. Then he calmed down
and promised to see what he could do. As leverage, Maurice slipped
him a batch of free passes to the Renaissance. The following day,
the Police chief let Schwartz know—strictly entre nous—that his
officers would no longer question anyone near the theatre about
passports.
Another
situation flared up almost at once. Maurice was summoned to the
office of Baron Robert Rothschild. At first, Maurice speculated that
the Baron, long a generous supporter of Jewish causes, might offer
to cover the Art Theatre’s gigantic expenses. An elderly, rather
distinguished-looking chap was waiting at the Baron’s office. At
first, Maurice assumed he was an employee, but the man identified
himself as Rothschild, and wasting no time, he lambasted the
American actor for the temerity to come to Paris and endanger the
fragile position of French Jews by playing the Communist anthem ‘The
Internationale’ during The Brothers Ashkenazi.
“ ‘The Jews,
always the Jews,’ intoned Rothschild. ‘Haven’t we enough to bear
already? Must you aggravate the situation?’ “ (Inge 10 Sept. 1938).
Schwartz
explained that he wasn’t promoting Communism, but tried only to
present the song as an integral part of the play. The Baron refused
to listen, raging on, explaining that he considered himself the
protector of French Jewry, and that ‘The Internationale,’ presented
by a Jewish theatre group, no matter how much it was respected and
admired, would only provoke more violence against his wards.
Maurice was
just as unmoved: “I assumed a relaxed position, and told the Baron
that our play is Jewish history, events of Jewish life in Russia at
a particular period in time. The Russian people sang ‘The
Internationale’ on the streets of Moscow and Leningrad. I can’t
change the scene” (Schwartz 14 Nov. 1945).
Unmollified,
Rothschild demanded that the players sing ‘The Marseillaise’ or
‘Hatikva’ instead. When Schwartz refused to oblige him, the Baron
threatened to shut down the playhouse. Coolly, Schwartz declared
that “all your millions can’t close the theatre. The people want it
open. We didn’t come here to play for you [. . .] We may not please
the bankers, but we’ll please the tailors and the shoemakers”
(Schwartz 14 Nov. 1945).
The two
exchanged a few more heated sentences, and when Maurice got up to
leave, Rothschild offered to repay him for all the Art Theatres
expenses, if he'd pack up and leave France. Schwartz flatly refused
the bribe, and quit the Baron's office, reeling from his audacity in
defying the most powerful Jew in Europe. The dramatist in him
relished the thought of perhaps converting their exchange into an
exciting stage piece.
As a
postscript to the clash, Maurice noticed that the next day
Rothschild was in the audience. He sat sulkily through ‘The
Internationale,’ but appeared to enjoy the rest of the performance.
In July, the
Art Theatre was in London, for two weeks at the Phoenix Theatre on
Charing Cross Road. The English press was at odds over which was the
better play—Yoshe Kalb or The Brothers Ashkenazi,
though they thoroughly enjoyed both. On the 28th, the
engagement over, Maurice was set to go once again to Palestine.
Conditions there had worsened exponentially. His manager Leon
Hoffman had written from New York, begging him not to go, with Arabs
raiding the kibbutzim and mowing down Jews on the streets of Tel
Aviv. Maurice wrote back that he felt obliged to go and wasn't
afraid of death. “Let it come when it will. People need to look at
life with open eyes. If the Arabs throw a bomb [. . .] go on with
the Art Theatre, keep providing the Jewish people with better
theatre. Now is the time when they need good theatre because we have
practically nothing left. Everything has been taken from us”
(Schwartz letter 28 July 1935).
Maurice landed
at Lod Airport on August 1st. In Tel Aviv, he played Reb
Melech for two benefit performances—one for the Red Mogen Dovid (the
Jewish Red Cross), the other for WIZO, the welfare organization that
aided needy women and children. Abraham Shlonsky, the Palestine
poet, had a Hebrew translation of The Brothers Ashkenazi
waiting for him. If anything, the tense situation in the country had
ratcheted up a few notches, with conditions having worsened for the
Jews of Europe, and refugees pouring in, much to the Arabs’
murderous indignation.
The actors at
the Ohel were all agog about tackling the play, and devoted
themselves to its success, as they’d had the year before with
Yoshe Kalb. Of course, Maurice visited his father again, now
shepherding him to the hospital for cataract surgery. The operation
was a success, but the recuperation period took longer than
expected, Isaac’s advanced years a serious handicap. Taking leave of
his father was more poignant than before: “I had the feeling it was
to be the very last time. He felt the same way. He wasn’t a person
to show emotion, but he seized my hands, held them, and wept”
(Schwartz 17 Nov. 1945).
When it was at last time to go, Moishe
Shertok (later Sharett), the Zionist leader, sent ChaimWeizmann’s
own bulletproof car to take him to the airport. Two vigilant
bodyguards toting heavy weapons flanked Schwartz in the back seat,
and remained with him until boarding time. The three passed the
hours talking Middle East politics and the absolute certainty that,
one way or another, there would soon be a Jewish State.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine: A Great World Drama
“I want you to
read the piece for yourself,” wrote Maurice from London to his
co-manager Leon Hoffman in New York. “You can tell me your opinion
later. Don’t be frightened just because it’s long. The stage
directions take up half the play” (Schwartz letter 28 July 1938).
With a fervor and elan of someone years younger and less hardened by
the sober realities of producing theatre, Schwartz added: “I believe
we have a bigger thing than The Brothers Ashkenazi,
more realistic, with a greater vision.”
The ‘bigger
thing’ that had driven Maurice to superlatives was Sholem Asch’s
Three Cities, a novel of the apocalyptic events surrounding the
Russian Revolution, as seen through the prism of a Russian-Jewish
idealist. The three cities referred to are St. Petersburg, during
its capitalist glory days; Warsaw, a boiling cauldron of
revolutionary activity; and Moscow, convulsed in the throes of
upheaval, as various political factions vie for control of a
stricken city and nation. A voluminous trilogy, written between 1929
and 1931, and originally titled Before the Flood, it was the
first Asch novel to become a worldwide best seller. Maurice read the
tome while on tour, and couldn’t help but compare it to The
Brothers Ashkenazi. Excitedly, he bought the stage rights while
in Europe and began preparing a dramatization. It would be the ninth
Asch work for the Art Theatre, more than any other writer, including
Sholem Aleichem.
“I will read
the adaptation to Asch myself when I arrive home. I’m sure he’ll
kiss me for it. The adaptation is worthy of the book, and the book
is worthy of the adaptation,” concluded the ebullient though
immodest Maurice (Schwartz letter 28 July 1938).
Schwartz and
his troupe arrived in New York aboard the Queen Mary on September 5,
1938, and started rehearsal almost immediately at the Venice
Theatre, where he still had four years remaining on the lease.
Martin informed him that the Art Theatre publicists had done their
work well, and sales of benefit tickets were brisk. He expected also
to be solidly booked for months. But leapfrogging far ahead of
ticket sales were the expenses of floating so immense a leviathan as
Three Cities. Over $28,000 had already been spent across the
boards before the first performance could be given. With that much
invested, no other play was scheduled for the season, a testament to
his faith in the piece and in his adaptation. Three Cities
would have to carry the Art Theatre until spring.
Setting
personal grudges aside, placing theatre excellence before pride or
animus, Maurice hired his old adversary Jacob Ben-Ami to play
Zachary Mirkin, the lead. Producer, director, and playwright
Schwartz contented himself with a much lesser acting role. Other
sterling actors engaged for the season opener (and, with any luck,
the closer too), were Baratov, Gersten, Cashier, Goldenburg. Luba
Kadison, Lazar Freed and Scooler. Powerhouses, each and every one,
they were but a small fraction of the 45 players comprising the Art
Theatre that season.
Sholem Secunda
wrote a fine score, and a young, outspoken and innovative scenic
designer, Sam Leve, conjured up wondrous feats of near magic in his
first stint for Schwartz. Leve,s career as a scenic designer for the
Art Theatre and on Broadway would cover over 30 years. Using the
revolving stage technique employed in the past by Schwartz, to
eliminate the interruption of shifting scenes, Leve prepared “a
procession of beautiful settings that unified the play’s episodes”
(Theatre Arts Monthly Dec. 1938).
On October 10th,
1938, Three Cities opened to reasonably fine reviews from the
Yiddish press, but mixed from mainstream critics. From this
blockbuster novel, so much had been expected by everyone. Too much
resulted in too little, according to William Schack: “A playwright
bent on adapting a book to the stage was faced with an embarrassment
of riches. By not foregoing enough of this novelistic wealth, by
attempting to summarize it in a panorama rather than condense it in
a narrower form of action, Mr. Schwartz has written a pageant rather
than a play” (Times 11 Oct. 1938). In general, the Broadway
critics of the major New York dailies were badly divided over the
play’s merits. The Sun, the Daily News, and the
Daily Mirror found much to admire in Three Cities, while
the Herald-Tribune and the Post echoed Schack’s
complaint about the overwhelming amount of material spread out over
the four hours it took to cover those fulminating days that shook
the world.
Many
unflattering reasons have been advanced by self-styled experts for
Schwartz’s playwriting failures in general (though none have been
offered for such triumphs as The Brothers Ashkenazi and
Yoshe Kalb). Over his career, Maurice transformed 22 novels into
serviceable and often brilliant theatre, and even the most
antagonist critic had to admit that he did have a sixth sense for
what worked on stage, and an ability to take the totally different
medium of words printed on a page, and breathe life into it. But
like any mere mortal dramatist, he had his hits and his misses.
True to form,
Schwartz blamed the eventual box office demise of Three Cities
on everyone but himself. On Sholem Asch, for starters. “Critics
claimed the problem of the play’s climax was that the hero returned
to Warsaw, instead of remaining in Moscow. Asch was adamant, not
willing to change. They had a point, but I couldn’t pressure Asch,
as our next play was also by him” (Schwartz 26 Nov. 1945).
Regardless, the play ran well for four months, though its end could
be predicted because of astronomical operating expenses. Schwartz
wanted the best of everything, but that had cost much more than he
could afford. The nest egg accumulated from the previous season and
the European tour, had melted away, and a hurried decision was made
to launch, as soon as possible, a trimmer, less expensive vessel.
On December 23,
1938, Who Is Who, H. Leivick’s fifth work for the Art
Theatre, was presented. The piece was well within the shrunken scope
of Schwartz’s new interest in urgent and timely plays about what was
happening to Jews within Europe. Leivick’s was the story of a Jew
trying, but ultimately failing, to negate his heritage because of
burgeoning religious bigotry.
In Who Is
Who, a German refugee and former concentrate camp inmate, flees
his country and comes to America with his family. A widower and
scholar, Professor Shelling is hired by a small New England college,
where he and his two children can live in peace and seclusion,
sheltered from intolerance and persecution. Neither child knows he’s
Jewish, a deliberate deception by the professor to spare them what
he’d suffered in Germany. But the truth comes out, and Elizabeth and
Ludwig react with rage against their father for hiding the truth
from them. In the end, after a heated confrontation with his
children and some wrenching soul-searching, Shelling decides to
acknowledge his Jewishness.
For the play,
Sam Leve’s only set consisted of four sturdy columns, which he
varied in number by different lighting arrangements, over the three
acts. “Schwartz had no time for technical rehearsals. And besides,
anything elaborate would have cost too much, and he had little money
left for the season” (Leve 28 May 1999).
To illustrate
Maurice’s never-ending cash flow problem, Leve told a story, here
paraphrased. On the closing night of Who Is Who, one
particularly dedicated process server (part of an army constantly
dogging Schwartz) is waiting in the wings of the Venice Theatre to
hand him a summons for money owed to some supplier. The curtain
descends, the process server dashes out on stage to deliver the
document before Schwartz can scurry off and elude him. The curtain
rises again for the actors to take their bows. The unwary process
server is trapped on stage with the bowing players, Schwartz
included. Not to stand out awkwardly, the poor fellow takes his
unearned bows with the rest of the cast.
Among the
first-timers at the Art Theatre, was Martin’s daughter, using the
stage name of Miriam Riselle. An exceptionally beautiful girl, she
portrayed Shelling’s daughter. The Times reviewer was
unenthusiastic, indicating that “Mr. Leivick has written, as we
should expect of him, a thoroughly honest work [. . .] which Maurice
Schwartz has directed skillfully” (Schack 24 Dec. 1938). Happily
for father Martin and Uncle Maurice, the best notices were earned by
Miriam. Maurice was pleased indeed that his niece had done so well
in her debut, but kept it to himself. As her relative, he dared not
express an opinion.
Miriam however
didn’t last long in her part. The strain on her voice—it was a very
emotional role—produced a hoarseness she couldn’t shake. Luba
Kadison was pressed into service, informed that she would have to
play Elizabeth the very next day. Luba went home, learned her lines
overnight, rehearsed the following morning, and went on the same
evening. Naturally, she was sensational, and because of it, Maurice
kept her in place for the balance of the play’s run.
Even if Schack
wasn’t over-enchanted with Who Is Who, the Yiddish press
applauded Maurice’s attempts to transform the intolerable events
taking place overseas into brilliant theatre. S. Margoshes and
William Edlin of the Day, Abe Cahan at the Forward,
Moses Katz at the leftist Freiheit, and Joel Antin, writing
for the Yiddisher Kemfer displayed a rare consensus in
applauding Schwartz’s latest enterprise. The work had a decent run,
lasting well into the following year.
Early in
February, just prior to the Art Theatre’s early closing for the
season—now standard operating procedure for Maurice, so he could
tour the United States, South America and Europe, and return home
sufficiently enriched to bankroll the next season—a revival of
Yoshe Kalb was given. It was far simpler, and cheaper too, than
starting up with new material, music and stage sets. A week later,
for the same reason of economy, he tossed off a second revival, A
Secluded Nook, the Hirshbein classic that had truly founded the
Yiddish Art Theatre. As a sign of the changing times, Schack
reported: “The audience was not as large as one expects in the case
of a man who has written so graceful a chapter of Yiddish Theatre
history, but those who had come had the pleasure of confirming their
previous beliefs that this reputation was well-deserved” (Times
15 Feb. 1939).
Schwartz
boarded up the Art Theatre in March, his funds running on empty,
unable to do more than the two new works. Before taking off for his
peregrinations around the globe, he arranged to have the Yiddishe
Bande, the riotously satirical Polish company of singers and actors,
come to America. Rescue may well have been on his mind, as each day
brought Europe and its Jews closer to the precipice. Six months
earlier, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had flown to
Hitler’s retreat at Berchtesgaden, to negotiate an end to the crisis
the Nazi dictator had caused over Czechoslovakia. At once, France
and England mobilized its armed forces. Shortly after, a conference
in Munich resulted in a peace agreement that in effect dismembered
the Czech nation. Then, on November 4th, using as pretext
the assassination of a German official by a Jew, the Nazis conducted
its vilest pogrom to date, destroying countless Jewish homes,
businesses and synagogues. Over 30,000 Jews were sent to
concentration camps. This widespread atrocity came to be known as
Kristallnacht, because of the many windows shattered by the German
populace.
In Palestine,
unrest increased, as Arab extremists, occupying Bethlehem, Tiberius
and old Jerusalem, murdered many Jews before the British authorities
retook the cities and restored order. On May 17, 1939, while the Art
Theatre was in Europe, His Majesty’s Government repudiated the
Balfour Declaration that backed creation of a Jewish State, and
stringently restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine.
Schwartz
pitched in to help establish the Bande, which he’d seen and enjoyed
in Warsaw. He leased the Belmont Theatre on W. 48th
Street, where the last presentation had been a series of documentary
films about the Spanish Civil War. He lent them his musical
director, Sholem Secunda, his managers Martin Schwartz and Leon
Hoffman, and his American press agent at the time, Oliver N. Sayler,
the Russian Theatre maven.
The World
Trembles, was the title of the overall production, and consisted
of 21 hilarious sketches, with from one to four performers, and
using the works of an eclectic mix of writers. Among the more
familiar players were Lily Liliana and Leon Liebgold, the
star-crossed lovers from the movie version of The Dybbuk,
which was made two years earlier in Warsaw.
Before leaving
for Europe, Schwartz had one more duty to perform. He attended an
afternoon testimonial in honor of Sarah Adler’s Jubilee in Yiddish
Theatre, held at the Downtown National on Houston and Second. She
was 80 years old. Present were her daughter Frances and son-in-law
Joe Schoengold; Stella Adler and her husband Harold Clurman; Luther
Adler and his wife Sylvia Sydney, as well as Morris Carnovsky,
Frances Farmer, Leif Erickson, and Sam Jaffe, magnificent actors
all.
On the dais,
Maurice recalled memories of the incomparable Sarah, whom he’d long
admired as a young patriote. He told of investing his entire
savings of $900, as an impresario, in a project called ‘Maurice
Schwartz Presents Mm. Sarah Adler.’ The still-active performer
demonstrated her vitality by doing a bit from one of her greatest
successes, Tolstoy’s Resurrection.
But a far sadder commentary on the declining
state of Yiddish Theatre that season was Boris Thomashevsky doing a
three-a-night cabaret act with his second wife Regina Zuckerberg, at
the Rainbow Inn on Second Avenue and 4th Street, an
ignominious end to his career. By July of that year, he would be
dead of a heart attack at the age of seventy-one
Chapter
Thirty: “I Have No More Strength Left.”
After a
fruitful spring touring Europe. Maurice came home to America on June
20, 1939 aboard the Ile De France, enthused as usual about opening
the Art Theatre for another season, his twentieth at the helm. He
had a tentative agenda for the new year that included the Asch play
titled Salvation (though its original name was The
Psalmist Jew). Depending on the piece’s longevity, he was also
considering Esterke by Aaron Zeitlin, who’d (given Schwartz
The Wise Men of Chelm in 1933), and David Pinski’s unheralded
Saints and Satan.
His real
reason for an early return was an exciting project awaiting him in
New York. He was to begin filming Tevye the Milkman, after
having waited for years. Maurice had at last found another devoted
fan willing to put up the cash. Harry Ziskin, co-owner of Broadway’s
busiest kosher restaurant, headed a consortium of investors, and
they’d raised $70,000 for the package, a sum unheard of for a
Yiddish movie. Together with Schwartz, they’d formed Mayman
Films,Inc. Tevye would be the only movie it would produce.
With
Salvation slated to open in late September, Maurice hoped to
limit shooting to 22 days, amazing for a film of this magnitude. The
indoor scenes were to be shot at the Biograph Studios in the Bronx,
where D.W. Griffith had made some of his original flicks, rented for
a single month, at the cost of only $2000. The outdoor work would be
done on Long Island, on a 150-acre potato farm in Jericho, estimated
expenses being $3000, including meals and transportation to and from
Manhattan. The location was selected because of its similarity to
the Ukrainian countryside where Sholem Aleichem had originally
placed the locale.
Shooting began
in late July, during the most scorching summer the natives could
remember. Schwartz, as both leading actor and director, labored
unsparingly, sweltering behind his thick peasant’s beard and heavy
cotton clothing. Forever a fastidious taskmaster, he drove the crew
especially hard from dawn to dusk, taking advantage of cloudless,
sun baked days. They expected no less, his everlasting troupe
members that included Julius Adler, Morris Strassberg, Boaz Young,
and his niece Miriam, as the problem prone Chava. Absent and sorely
missed by Maurice was Joe Schwartzberg, the Spufka of old, and
beloved companion of Schwartz’s salad days. He’d died in Manhattan
on July 20th, at 50 years of age, from a heart attack.
With a
compulsive perfectionist like Schwartz, filming moved along slower
than expected, but advanced inexorably to completion, despite the
blistering days and the usual delays in moviemaking. “You can’t hope
to pass off a cheap, inferior picture, even if it’s in Yiddish,” he
told an interviewer. “Patrons of Yiddish film are just as particular
about entertainment as other audiences” (Pryor 30 July 1939). With
pressure heavy on Maurice to achieve something quite special, even
groundbreaking, he rehearsed each scene, exterior and interior, at
his Venice Theatre, before committing it to the camera. Not only did
this save valuable time, but it preserved even more valuable
dollars, though both commodities were in short supply.
The 1939-1940
season was an especially active one for better Yiddish Theatre,
Besides Salvation, there was Jacob Ben-Ami’s production of
I.J.Singer’s Chaver Nachman. Breaking once more with
Schwartz—their re-association had endured only a single
season—Ben-Ami had gathered a goodly part of Art Theatre personnel
and set up shop at the Downtown National. Among those who spurned
Schwartz for the purist Ben-Ami, were Celia Adler, Joe Schoengold,
Vinogradoff, Jacob Mestel, Yudel Dubinsky, Lazar Freed and Ludwig
Satz.
Singer’s story
is a fascinating one about an impoverished, idealistic, Polish Jew
turned revolutionary, who, after devoting his life to the Cause,
becomes disillusioned and is callously expelled from it. The reviews
were good, but hardly worth the remarkable coalition of talent
expended. Perhaps the missing ingredient was the theatrical acumen
of a Maurice Schwartz.
Also of
interest to the serious Yiddish theatre-goer, awash in the welter of
shund presented that season was ARTEF, operating out of the
Mercury Theatre on W.41st Street, where Schwartz had
briefly operated in 1931, when it was known as the Comedy Theatre.
The socialist-minded group was offering Chaver-Paver’s Clinton
Street , Dymov’s East Side Professor, and a revival of
Uriel Acosta, for which Sam Leve designed the scenery and
arranged the lighting. It would be the company’s final season, a
victim of the Nazi-Soviet pact of August 23, 1939, which provided
for the dividing up of Poland and the Baltic States. All left-wing
New York had been appalled and horrified to find Hitler and Stalin
in bed together, the entire left-of-center movement in America
splintering fatally. Lifetime loyalties and friendships broke up as
well. Disillusionment set in and paralyzed even the most diehard
Marxists. Devout patrons stopped coming to see plays that painted
the Soviet Union as mankind’s last best hope.
Casting
against the grain, Schwartz went outside the large reservoir of
available performers to choose Leo Fuchs for the major role in
Salvation. A fine song-and-dance man, Fuchs was a bright star in
Yiddish musicals, beginning in 1935, lasting for 30 years. He had
the charming manner and easy grace of an Astaire or a Ray Bolger.
With only half an ear, Maurice listened to the many arguments
against Fuchs from the Art Theatre players, from his managers, from
the hordes of ‘experts’ doling out free advice. Some even suggested
that Schwartz himself take the part, that of a young man, who grows
old over the two acts. An old man, Schwartz could handle impeccably,
his early reputation built on such portrayals. But he was 51, weary
from a summer of moviemaking, and quite unsuitable as a mere
stripling.
Miriam
Riselle, fresh off her punishing weeks filming Tevye on the
potato farm, would play opposite Fuchs. She was proving to be an
excellent leading lady, with a natural poise and the stage presence
of an experienced prima donna. Though Ben-Ami had spirited away a
large handful of the Art Theatre players for his company, enough
quality actors remained for Salvation: Julius Adler,
Strassberg, Cashier, Appel, Schweid, Abarbanell, and Gersten.
The plot, set
in the Pale of Settlement, concerns Jechiel, a pure soul, who
becomes a Hebrew teacher to the family of an innkeeper, whose
daughter Reisel falls in love with the boy. They marry, but she dies
in childbirth. Destroyed, Jechiel leaves town to roam the world for
many years. Slowly, his reputation as a wise man grows. Returning
home, he falls victim to other misfortunes, until, grievously ill,
he dies. This is over-tilled soil in the Yiddish Theatre canon, but
Maurice found much to admire in Asch’s poetic language and purity of
vision. Moreover, Asch had given him a hit the previous season, and
Maurice sorely needed a winner with which to kick off the new one.
Though their
friend at the New York Times, William Schacht, was delighted
to note the regrouping of so many Art Theatre veterans, and the
infusion of a few new faces, “it would have been a happier occasion
if their vehicle broke new ground” (Times 29 Sept. 1939). He
lamented that most of the scenes were woefully undramatic, which was
Maurice’s fault as adapter, though the Times critic found
much to admire in the staging, the music, the dancing and the
performances.
Schwartz
bristled at the unfavorable response in general by the
English-language press, even if he would liberally quote from their
more positive reviews: “It’s ridiculous to have to get our
instructions from Broadway for traditional Jewish plays. Right or
wrong, those critics harmed us [. . .] The spoiled Jewish audience
listened to the critics and stayed away from Salvation”
(Schwartz 24 Nov. 1945). But in spite of poor reviews, the play ran
for a not- too- shabby 100 performances. Not a total loss, but
hardly the big profit maker Maurice had hoped for and needed.
The movie
Tevye opened at the Continental Theatre on Seventh Avenue and 52nd
Street, on December 22nd. Very favorable notices followed
close behind. Bosley Crowther gave it a backhanded, upbeat review:
“While Hollywood insists that successful pictures cannot be produced
in the East, a picture like Tevye comes along and refutes the
argument” (Times 22 Dec. 1939).
The 96-minute,
black and white production was the first non-English flick to be
included in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in
1991, the rarest of honors. According to film historian J. Hoberman,
the production “stands apart from other American-Yiddish talkies in
its superior production values. The film is extremely well shot and
elaborately orchestrated [. . .] As Tevye, Schwartz gives a bravura
performance—a perpetual motion machine of non-stop singing, humming
and talking” (308).
A quick study
of whatever he undertook, Maurice had learned filmmaking exceedingly
well, by hands-on involvement, as he learned everything else related
to theatre. The Yiddish critics thought so too: for the first time
in decades, they fell over one another to heap praise on Tevye,
even those ivory tower intellects, who’d been unforgiving for his
frequent excursions into excess and his inadequate adaptations. The
film opened three days before Christmas, during the same year that
spawned some of the best American films ever made: Stagecoach,
Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and Wuthering
Heights. To many in the Jewish community, those who more
frequently patronized the movies than Yiddish Theatre, Tevye
was every bit their equal. An instant classic, the film played the
Continental for five weeks, before opening in many New York area
movie houses.
Maurice next
turned his attention to the season’s finale, Sholem Aleichem’s odd
comic piece If I Were Rothschild. The Zeitlin work planned
for the current season would have to be postponed until the
following year. Pinski’s Saints and Satan would be forgotten
altogether. Liberally altered and brought current by Maurice, If
I Were Rothschild is part vintage Sholem Aleichem and part
political tract. It begins in the mythical town of Kasrilovka,
immortalized in his other fiction. Chaim Chono is a poor (as are all
Sholem Aleichem characters) Hebrew schoolteacher, who would give
away every kopeck of Rothschild’s millions to help his similarly
penniless townsfolk. Through a misunderstanding, Chono and his
family run afoul of the law, and are placed under house arrest.
While confined, he falls asleep one afternoon, and dreams he’s the
awesome baron (perhaps the same Rothschild whom Maurice had defied
in Paris), who’s involved in a global peace conference with such
international figures as Hitler, Stalin and Chaim Weizmann, even
though Sholem Aleichem died in 1916.
The theme of
the conference is eternal world peace, and delegates from every
nation bicker over how to achieve this elusive goal. After much
heated debate, Chaim wakes from his daydream to find himself and his
family no longer confined, and can return to their former routines.
Leo Fuchs and
once-only Art Theatre actor Abraham Lax, would alternate the role of
Chono, while Fuchs and Maurice would take turns at the secondary
character Menachem Mendel, a marriage broker and all round con man.
Miriam Kressyn, also from the Yiddish musical, a fine singer,
actress, and dancer, would make her Art Theatre debut as Chono’s
daughter. She would go on, over the next three decades, to achieve
fame and an earned reputation, shifting quite handily between both
branches of the profession, becoming, at the close of her career, a
much-respected instructor in Yiddish Theatre at Queens College. In
the early ‘40’s, she would marry Seymour Rexsite, an ingratiating,
multitalented presence on the musical stage, and eventually the
president of the Hebrew Actors Union. Often appearing together, the
couple was considered the Yiddish Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson
Eddy.
William Schack
wasn’t impressed by the beloved humorist’s incursion into world
politics, or by Schwartz’s adaptation and updating of the piece:
“Though the resulting extravaganza [. . .] has its moments, it falls
considerably short of its objective because it lacks a clear-cut
point of view” (Times 1 Jan. 1940).
Maurice was
terribly disappointed by this and other poor reviews of the play.
He’d come through a particularly vulnerable moment in his life. For
weeks, he’d been putting himself and his crew through many marathon
rehearsals. One evening, around seven, he collapsed onstage and was
rushed to the hospital, where he was found to have a severe lung
infection. There, his control of the play hadn’t ended. From his
bed, Schwartz had written the temporary director detailed
instructions on how to improve the entrances and exits of the female
lead, Miriam Kressyn. “Please see her at 10 o’clock in the morning
and show her what to do. All my directing comments are here. Make
sure that the entire troupe attends the rehearsal. I have no more
strength left” (Schwartz letter 17 Dec. 1939).
Many times,
especially after weeks of long rehearsals, Schwartz would be felled
by serious colds bordering on pneumonia, accompanied by spiking
temperatures. This one, more debilitating than most, sent him first
to the hospital, then south to Miami to recuperate and regain his
strength. If I Were Rothschild opened, flopped and closed
soon after a well rested and restless Schwartz returned to New York.
He took up his director’s mantle again, but left the acting to
others.
Following the
close of the season, Maurice took the company on tour, but of
America only, as war in Europe was spreading rapidly over the
continent, its nations falling to the Wehrmacht in rapid succession.
Remaining stateside, Schwartz and the Art Theatre visited the
American heartland to do Salvation and other favorites. As
usual, he did extremely well. Over the next ten weeks, they made up
the previous season’s deficit and set a bit aside for the season to
come. It was a pattern Maurice was quite used to.
Chapter Thirty-One: “The Theatre Is a Failure As an Industry.”
As was his
modus operandi out of experience and necessity, Maurice Schwartz
would open the 1940-1941 season with another extravaganza.
Esterke by Zeitlin, a bustling, boisterous costume drama based
in fact, about Poland in the 14th Century, centering on
the love affair between a simple Jewish girl and the monarch who
risked his kingdom to possess her, causing violent upheavals at
court and among the peasantry. By play’s end, the affairs of heart
and state are happily resolved. Christian king and Jewish maiden
walk hand-in-hand into the sunrise of a bright future. On the cusp
of world conflagration, with the threat of Jewish extinction
patently real, the message embedded in Esterke was as timely
as it was obvious.
In actuality,
Casimir lll ruled Poland from 1333 to 1370. An enlightened head of
state, he invited Western Jewry, fleeing persecution arising from
the Black Plague, to settle in his country and develop its trade and
commerce. To this end, he fashioned an equitable code of laws for
everyone, and encouraged Jews to participate in Polish life. As to
his personal history, in 1356, 20 years after granting privileges to
the Jews, he fell in love with one of them: Esterke. Together,
without benefit of clergy, they had two sons and a daughter.
Esterke
may have had a larger meaning for a world becoming familiar with
such terms as ‘final solution,’ and such locations as Auschwitz, but
for Maurice, the piece had all the elements of damned good theatre.
The Yiddish public had the same thought, as advanced ticket sales
were reported to be over $50,000, thus guaranteeing a noteworthy
hit. That season, the Art Theatre settled in at the Public Theatre,
on Second Avenue and 4th Street, the result of a deal
worked out between Edwin Relkin and Jacob R. Schiff, who was
unrelated to Jacob A. Schiff, the philanthropist, who’d done so much
for Jewish immigrants 40 years earlier. Jacob R. Schiff, the
Public’s current owner, was the chairman of a large commercial
banking firm, and a devoted patron of Yiddish Theatre.
Maurice’s
company was to be the sole serious Yiddish troupe in town that
season. ARTEF was gone, and the assorted splinter groups led by
Ben-Ami or Jacob Mestel or Joe Buloff, were inactive, its members
either on tour or engaged in mainstream endeavors. By early August,
Maurice told Schacht, he had a full plate ready for the upcoming
season. He’d begin with Esterke, and depending on its
reception, would put up Hutzmach by Itzhak Manger (a
reworking of The Witch). After that, a piece by the novelist
and writer for the Day, Benjamin Ressler, whose 60,000
Heroes had been done by the New York Theatre Troupe in 1935, a
core of Schwartz players made available after he’d packed up early
and left for Europe. Time permitting, he’d do Haman’s Downfall,
then close the season with a rollicking Sholem Aleichem work,
Sender Blank, based on one of the master’s short novels.
In the same
article, Schack issued his usual gloomy prognosis about that
perpetually comatose patient, Yiddish Theatre. This time, there was
much to be concerned over, especially the sad state caused by the
sale of benefit tickets, the very foundation of its business.
Resignedly, he noted that “selling blocks of $100 benefit tickets
at 25 to 40 cents on the dollar, and a complete house for $500 to
$900 on weekdays, may not make the managers rich. But it will give
employment to some 200 actors [. . .] and presumably amuse the
public, which frequently grumbles but comes again” (Times 25
Aug. 1940).
Schack’s
colleague at the Times, Brooks Atkinson, also found much to
bemoan about mainstream theatre, and for basically the same reason:
money, the lack of it, in this tenth year of the Great Depression.
“The theatre is a failure as an industry. As a creative art, it
rests on the hollowest foundation it has had in my time [. . .]. The
professional theatre has been living in a vacuum for a number of
years” (Times 10 Mar. 1940). Citing exorbitant expenses,
Atkinson stated that few Broadway producers would risk money on
anything fresh, experimental, daring or controversial. Only what had
been successful before would be presented again.
Maurice
believed he’d found the magic formula for Yiddish Theatre, at least,
beginning with Sabbatai Zvi. On October 17, 1940, he was
certain, with the opening of Esterke, he’d recover that magic
once more. Miriam Riselle handled the hefty title role, and Samuel
Goldenburg played Casimir. Again confounding his detractors,
Schwartz took for himself the minuscule part of an old peasant. The
Times review next morning, though very good indeed, was much
too brief. William Schack had written his last column the year
before, and was replaced by Lester Bernstein, a beginner, who would
climb the corporate ladder, becoming an editor at Time Magazine,
then, in 1969, the managing director of Newsweek. In his
first Yiddish Theatre assignment, Bernstein wrote: “It was like old
home week [. . .] the first original play in the last ten Schwartz
productions” (Times 18 Oct. 1940).
The five other
New York dailies and Variety were more generous in their
assessments and the space allotted for Esterke. The
World-Telegram led the field: “One finds himself sitting
spellbound before the heroic elements of showmanship that have gone
into its creation. The spectacle is one of complete enchantment”
(19 Oct. 1940). But despite unanimous raves from the Yiddish and the
English-language papers, Esterke was not the blazing comet
Schwartz had hoped for. Audience came, but not in numbers sufficient
to match the swelled expenses of the show, not—as William Schack had
previously noted—with the greater part of revenues going to the
benefit funds.
One respected
Yiddish critic, who claimed to be in the Schwartz camp, had a ready
explanation why plays such as Esterke usually failed. Leon
Glazer compared Maurice to those revolutionaries who eventually
become infused with the same philosophy of those they revolted
against. In Schwartz’s case, he wanted the colorfulness of the
shundists, but he also wanted excellent, realistic drama, and
searched all his life for its fusion, which led to the spectacle.
“The truth is that he wanted everything at once from theatre:
tragedy and comedy, heresy and religion. He wanted to see in the
theatre everything that constitutes the modern and the old-fashioned
Jew. He came with so many desires that it was impossible to satisfy
them. The Yiddish theatre-going public really wanted the
impossible” (June 1960).
And it was to
this ‘impossible’ public that Schwartz tried catering. They were the
ones footing the bills, filling the playhouses, and keeping Yiddish
Theatre barely alive. Therefore, the big, strong plays with the
powerful dramatic tensions found in the works of Asch and Singer,
or, when they hadn’t anything available, in Maurice’s own tinkering
with manuscripts. The truth was, Schwartz was forever walking a
tightrope, refusing to submit to shund while trying to please
the larger audiences needed to stay solvent. Each year the tightrope
was raised higher, made longer and more dangerous, while below, the
safety net became thinner, until it disappeared entirely.
This sort of
circus act was apparently ignored by many of the anti-Schwartz
purists on the Forward and the Day, and those small
but loud Yiddish journals, whose theatrical gods were Jacob Ben-Ami,
Jacob Mestel and Joseph Buloff, none of whom lasted more than a year
or two at the strictly repertory theatre, which was directed at that
very exclusive cabal of Yiddish intelligentsia, who couldn’t fill
the first six rows of a playhouse, much less the entire place.
With
Esterke a critical success but a disaster at the box office,
Schwartz moved at once to recapture his audience. He skipped over
Hutzmach, and went directly to Sender Blank, which was
from Sholem Aleichem’s most prolific period: the last decade of the
19th Century. Written in 1888, under the title Sender
Blank and His Household, the earthy comedy focuses on a robust,
self-made merchant, the richest man in the town of Berditchev. Blank
is certain that he’s dying, and his large family (from two
marriages), and the entire town, are thrown into disarray, as he is
also the leading citizen. Soon, those with a financial stake in his
death bicker among themselves, jockeying for position, wanting their
slice of the pie. Played by Schwartz, the patriarch recovers
miraculously, upsetting plans made by all for the redistribution of
his wealth. Voices are raised, threats made, friendships destroyed,
as quarrels lead to near violence. Above the fray and whole again,
Sender takes great pleasure in the fuss he’d unknowingly kicked up.
Restored, he decides to live a fuller, happier life, never mind the
storms unleashed.
Jacob
Rothbaum, formerly of the Kaminsky Theatre in Warsaw, and future
director at the Folksbiene, was hired to dramatize and direct.
Secunda and Chertov did the music and settings. The cast of 30 was
basically the same players as in Esterke, except for Maurice
playing the title role, a part he wore like a second skin. Though
the Times didn’t see fit to review Sender Blank,
Robert Coleman of the Mirror did: “This is hilarious farce [.
. .] Schwartz is as much at home in this adventure in zanyism as he
was in the serious works” (22 Nov. 1940).
Despite the
scant critical attention paid the Sholem Aleichem work, it ran well
and long to mostly capacity houses, until late in January, 1941,
when it was replaced by Benjamin Ressler’s Worlds Apart. This
was the kind of play Schwartz had become deeply committed to, in
direct response to the plight of European Jewry. Rabbi David
Horowitz escapes from a German concentration camp and comes to
America (as had Dr. Shelling in Who Is Who), where he’s taken
in by his rich son. In the luxurious residence, the Rabbi feels out
of place, unable to enjoy its many amenities, while overseas many
fellow -Jews are being slaughtered. He flees to the Lower East Side,
to live among the poor. In America, Horowitz sees injustice
everywhere and is appalled. He incites a strike in his son’s factory
(reversing the situation in Rags). The Rabbi, as much social
reformer as man of God, believes that America should be in the
forefront of rescuing Europe’s Jews. One of the acolytes he makes is
his own grandson. In the end, Horowitz manages to unite his son,
grandson in this worthy crusade.
“It is true,”
Schwartz wrote, “that the theatre should not be made a tribune for
propaganda, but can we deny that Ibsen, Gorky, Chekhov and Eugene
O’Neill have helped, with their plays, to launch the liberation of
the enslaved, and to inspire mankind to fight for a better, more
attractive world?” (Times 23 Jan. 1941). Could Maurice do
less in these tragic, dire days than offer a work such as Worlds
Apart?
The Yiddish
press generally agreed, but Bernstein of the Times thought
otherwise: “The production fails to achieve uniform excellence
because the author [. . .] has given his second act over to an
omnibus of problems, and, in solving them, he has compromised
reality with wishful thinking, and violated the consistency of a few
splendid characterizations” (23 Jan. 1941). Variety, which
measures a play only by its bottom-line appeal, was more positive:
“The Art Theatre’s first definite click in several seasons should
considerably reap back some of the losses sustained by the outfit’s
two earlier box office flops” (29 Jan. 1941).
By the
beginning of March, the Art Theatre had completed its season, and
was off to the provinces. That old warhorse and vein of gold,
Yoshe Kalb, opened on the 4th at the Forrest Theatre
on Walnut Street in Philadelphia. On the 6th, it was
Sender Blank at the Plymouth in Boston. Sometime during that
overly cold winter of 1941, Maurice received a cable from his friend
and attorney Charley Groll. Charley and his second wife Jenny
Goldstein (the leading tragedienne of shund), who’d been
married once before, to Max Gabel), were on a three-year tour of
South America, Charley serving as her agent and counselor. Groll
offered Maurice a neat deal to join them. He’d rent the Soleil
Theatre in Buenos Aires and cobble together a worthy troupe.
Maurice hadn’t
been to South America since 1933, and felt a strong yen to return,
but without the Art Theatre, just Anna and himself. With Europe
going up in flames, and England taking a pasting from the Luftwaffe,
Maurice decided to accept Charley’s proposition.. The Schwartzes
flew to Buenos Aires, as travel by ocean was too risky. Wolf packs
of German U-boats were prowling the Atlantic, sinking everything in
their periscopes.
Sender
Blank may not have been a sensation in New York, but Buenos
Aires Jews flocked to see it. Spanish reviewers as well as their
Yiddish counterparts were absolutely enchanted, comparing the
playwright to Moliere, while considering Maurice Schwartz without
equal. Clearly, Charley Groll had done a fine job. The Soleil was a
topnotch playhouse, and the troupe proved more than adequate. Yet,
while Maurice was adoringly received and well attended, it was quite
evident to him that the assimilation process he’d abhorred in New
York, was also taking place in Argentina: “The younger generation
was missing. In 1933, a family would buy 15 tickets for husband,
wife, children and grandchildren. At present, they bought at most
four tickets [. . .]. Our audience consisted of the older
generation. They were following the path of America, England, France
and Poland” (24 Nov. 1945).
Saddened by
this insidious trend, Maurice spoke to many Argentine Jews about
what he’d noticed. To a person, they shared his concern, but
presented no solution. Another phenomenon that horrified him was the
erosion of democracy in the nation. Perhaps the Nazi plague had
reached its shores. Yiddish was prohibited in public places, even in
the synagogue. Spanish was the sole language permitted. Only Yiddish
Theatre was exempt, and though the language was fast receding, into
the past, Schwartz’s audiences were still large and enthusiastic.
Sender
Blank ran for 30 performances, and would have been the only play
on the tour, but Maurice wanted these hungry souls to feast on
The Brothers Ashkenazi and other Art Theatre favorites. Over and
over during his visit to South America, he inhaled like an erotic
perfume, the responses of his audiences, and their graciousness at
banquets given in his honor. At one of them, a group of Charley
Groll’s friends suggested that he remain permanently in Argentina so
he might form a nucleus around which Yiddish might be preserved and
encouraged, and as a result, the Jewish community strengthened. More
concretely, these concerned leaders had a deal for him. They were
willing to build a home for the Art Theatre. “The building would
also house a large library, a dramatic school and music studios. The
plan would allow me to spend six months in New York and six months
in Buenos Aires, with the same plays presented in both cities”
(Schwartz 1 Dec. 1945).
Maurice readily accepted the proposal, telling Charley
Groll’s friends and the Argentine press that he’d be back next year
to finalize the wonderful arrangement. He couldn’t help but remember
his so-called ideal partnership with Louis Jaffe, and how it had
gone awry. But he was willing to take the chance again. Sold on the
prospect of a less peripatetic, more stabile way of doing theatre,
Maurice packed up and made ready to home to New York, which may no
longer be his only home, if all went well. “My goodbyes at the
airport were just as wonderful as my arrival. Groll, the actors, and
a few hundred theatre friends came to say farewell. It was to be
only temporary. I would be back soon” (Schwartz 5 Dec. 1945). |
