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Chapter Thirty-Three: “The Thwarted Angel of Death Hid Himself.”
The Yiddish Art theatre had no fixed location for the 1942-1943
season. Perhaps the reason was lack of space—cheap or dear—on Second
Avenue or Uptown, with the war raging and money flowing freely, and
an invasion of servicemen on leave, hungry to sample the 77
comedies, dramas and musicals on the Great White Way, (which was
blacked out during the war to conserve energy, and to hide the City,
should an air raid take place). There was no theatre available
anywhere, especially to a maverick like Maurice Schwartz, who’d
suddenly quit the Venice and his troupe the season before, to go on
the hustings.
Back in town by summer, and deeply mourning
his beloved father, Maurice nonetheless found it impossible to sit
still, time lying heavy, as in the Noel Coward song. “Not performing
is worse for me that for a card player unable to play cards”
(Schwartz 3 Jan. 1946). The America he’d come home to was a
singularly galvanized nation, its entire efforts devoted to winning
the war. Factories were going full blast, around the clock, turning
out the wherewithal to defeat the Axis. The Depression was
definitely over, and with prosperity came shortages-- supply unable
to keep up with demand-- in everything including playhouses. Maurice
was forced to gather a company of Art Theatre veterans and take to
the road. In that group, were such outstanding performers as Samuel
Goldenburg, Ben Zvi Baratov and Muni Serebrov. Together they would
become a modern version of the itinerant European troupe,
immortalized in Sholem Aleichem’s Wandering Stars.
They would stop for a few engagements or a
few days in a favorite, receptive city, before moving on, making
their way westerly to California. There, Maurice looked up a trio of
former employees and friends who’d found work in Hollywood as bit
players and character actors. Leonid Snegoff was the most successful
at it (except for Paul Muni), beginning with Broken Hearts in
1926, leading up to his finest film work as the guerrilla Ignacio in
For Whom the Bell Tolls. Kurt Katch from The Brothers
Ashkenazi, and Egon Brecher, the actor/director first associated
with Unzer Theatre in 1924 and the Yiddish Ensemble Theatre in 1931,
were the two other Schwartz cronies. All three were hired for the
film version of former Ambassador Joseph E. Davies’s memoir of his
two-year assignment in the Russian capital. Mission to
Moscow had a large cast, highlighting such current world figures
as Stalin, Molotov, Churchill, and Von Ribbentrop, the unctuous Nazi
Foreign Minister.
Maurice, who hadn’t made a film since
Tevye the Milkman, and avid to do so, was hired to play a
defendant in the infamous Moscow show trials of the late 1930’s. It
was the tiniest of cameo roles, for which he received no cast
credit. Chagrined on both accounts, Schwartz put the best possible
face on it: “I did it not to refuse any part. Sometimes a small role
can be used to demonstrate an actor’s abilities” (Schwartz letter
12 Mar.1943).
By January, 1943, the Schwartz company was
at the Mayan Theatre on South Hall Street in Los Angeles, preparing
for a heavy schedule that would include The Brothers
Ashkenazi, Sender Blank, Riverside Drive, and conclude
with Maurice’s own adaptation of God, Man and Devil.
All the while, he was planning his return to New York, the way an
exiled king plots to regain the throne. Like very few men in public
life, who have suffered humiliating defeats, he was able remarkably,
to put behind him past disasters, glaring blunders, and enormous
losses. He could handily throw off the past and concentrate on the
future, scarred, of course, yet as eager as an ingenue. With vigor,
he kept up a steady exchange of letters with William Mercur, his
eyes and ears in Manhattan, to make certain that the Art Theatre’s
out-of-town reviews would find their way into the Forward,
the Day, and other Jewish publications. To keep the flame
alive, the interest high. Preparing the way for a triumphant return.
“Do all you can and be healthy,” commanded Maurice, from his Elba at
the Montecito Hotel in Hollywood (Schwartz letter 5 Feb. 1943).
His California commitments completed,
Schwartz flew to South America, his home away from home, for the
third consecutive year. While he was busily engaged in Buenos Aires,
Montevideo and other less populated places, Edwin Relkin was busy in
New York, scouting a playhouse for the 1943-1944 season. The Art
Theatre founder couldn't afford to risk another season's absence
from the New York action, audience of all stripes being as fickle as
they are. The high strung and hyperbolic Eddie Relkin managed to
snare the Adelphi Theatre on W.54th Street, off Seventh
Avenue, a neat little playhouse seating about 1400,
In this his 25th year as heart,
soul and guiding spirit of the Yiddish Art Theatre—his Silver
Jubilee—Schwartz must have felt particularly redeemed, returning to
New York with a contract signed by I.J. Singer to produce his latest
novel, The Family Carnovsky. By Maurice’s count, it would be
his 125th play at the Art Theatre, in all its many
locations, a feat unheard of anywhere on the globe. Singer had
already prepared an adaptation, the writer a quick study in the
essentials of playwriting. Schwartz was pleased with the results,
and on them, hired Joseph Rumshinsky to compose the incidental
music. The Family Carnovsky was no musical, much too serious
a work for songs, but Schwartz had been long convinced of music’s
importance, incorporated within his dramas, in the same enhancing
way that filmmakers use background scores.
The plot of The Family Carnovsky (the
novel not published in English until 1969, translated by the
author’s son Joseph) was extracted and shaped into two parts and
seven scenes. It delves into the life and times of three generations
of Jews—beginning in Hitler’s Germany and concluding in America.
From the grandfather (a businessman and devout Jew), to his son
Georg (who becomes a doctor, serves in the Kaiser’s army, then later
marries his non-Jewish nurse), to grandson Jegor, a sensitive youth.
Though Dr. Carnovsky ascends to wealth and
prestige during the tempestuous 1930’s in Germany, the Nazis whittle
away at him, eventually isolating him and his family from the rest
of society. But the one absorbing the most punishment is Jegor,
physically and psychologically abused by fellow students, teachers
and friends. The Carnovskys escape to America, but not long after,
they self-destruct because of the damage done to Jegor in Germany.
The Nazi menace had been the subject for
mainstream theatre before: Watch on the Rhine, in
1941, Candle in the Wind, in the same year, by Maxwell
Anderson and starring Helen Hayes, and Tomorrow the World, by
Gow and D’Usseau, a well-meaning story of trying to inculcate
democracy in a former Hitler Youth, now living in a small American
college town. The Family Carnovsky is the first truly
powerful Yiddish play about Nazism’s pernicious effect on the Jews.
But more than a dramatization this mass crime, the Singer work “is
peopled with living characters, throbbing with conflict, convulsed
with tragedy, small in periods of complacency, astute and virile in
the hours of trial. Here, the Nazi atrocities and the whole of
Hitlerism are only incidental to the Jewish scene” (Schwartz 14
Feb. 1943).
In other words, it’s not the Nazis who are
the central element of the work, but the Jews and their eternal
struggle to remain a people.
The play opened on October 18th,
with a cast of 60, headed by Schwartz as director and lead. Behind
him was his usual superb cast, including Charlotte Goldstein, who
had left the Art Theatre over a professional dispute with Maurice,
but was back for good, until its end. The Yiddish press went to
great lengths to compliment Schwartz on every aspect of the play,
finding absolutely nothing negative in the production. Broadway
critics were no less laudatory. All ten New York publications fell
over themselves to find the proper superlatives. Perhaps the New
York Sun described it best: “The overflowing house which
attended the opening [. . .] showed its appreciation as only a
Yiddish Theatre audience can show it. For a full quarter hour after
the final curtain, the spectators stood and applauded and would not
stop until Mr. Schwartz, with I.J.Singer, the author, at his side,
made them a speech” (19 Oct. 1943).
Things were moving at a fine clip until the last week in November,
when Schwartz was knocked flat by an attack of double pneumonia.
He’d come to the Adelphi, burning with fever, then couldn’t get into
costume because the room started to swirl like a merry-go-round. He
was rushed to the hospital where (according to the perhaps overly
dramatic actor) he lingered between life and death. After being put
on the new wonder drug sulfa, his fever dropped to acceptable
bounds, and “the thwarted angel of death hid himself somewhere in
the mountains of darkness” (Schwartz 3 Jan. 1946).
For two weeks during his hospital stay and
recuperation at the Hotel Grossman in Lakewood, New Jersey, he
rested his body, but not his mind. While Anatol Vinogradoff played
his role, Maurice wrote to William Mercur about converting his
latest brush with eternity into Art Theatre capital: “You’ve got to
get big publicity—first in the headlines—that I’m healthy again,
after such a difficult infection as double pneumonia, with 105.5
fever, when they’d already given up on me. But I fought bitterly and
won. On Friday, you must get top publicity in all the papers. With a
picture, with the whole story” (Schwartz letter 5 Dec. 1943).
Maurice reveled in the get-well cards, the
letters of encouragement and the anxious phone calls that flooded
the hospital and the hotel as a result of Mercur’s success with the
press. When he returned to the Adelphi, a hero’s welcome awaited him
from those who bought tickets just to see him alive and at work.
Everyone commented on how gaunt he seemed from his bout with the
Grim Reaper. With the blessed routine of theatre once more under his
belt, Schwartz ran The Family for another four months, until
the end of January. It could have continued until May, if the play
had been confined to weekends, and not performed continuously.
Midweek benefits (at greatly reduced prices) had shortened its life.
After 136 performances the piece was forced to close. Once again,
Schwartz profoundly regretted what the benefit performance had done
to his theatre, how self-destructive it had become. “In this, we
were also guilty, of course, because in the last years since
Yoshe Kalb we relied on the bad way of presenting one play for
an entire season. In order to be able to perform a season of 30
weeks, one has to do several new plays [. . .]” (Schwartz 5 Jan.
1946).
But the benefit genie was out of thew
bottle, and the Art Theatre couldn’t realistically go back to the
repertory days of the past, when half a dozen new works would be
introduced in tandem with the old favorites. When an audience would
visit a theatre many times a season. When a troupe was constantly
enlivened by new lines from new authors, and by the juggling of many
fresh roles.
On February 10th, after the New York run, while the
company was doing The Family Carnovsky in Boston, Maurice was
stunned by word of I.J. Singer’s death in Manhattan, at the age of
50, from a heart attack. It was so sudden, and Maurice felt as if
the ground had opened up beneath him: “This wonderful talent had
just begun to bloom. Everything that he created up until that point
was only a prologue to his great life’s work. He was still a source
which surged forth and satisfied our cultural thirst” (Schwartz 5
Jan. 1946).
The same evening, during a snowstorm, Maurice took a plane to New
York to attend the funeral. The next day, he sat depressed in the
chapel, observing the look of injured disbelief on the faces of his
widow, his son Joseph, and his younger brother Isaac Bashevis, whose
star as yet hadn’t risen.
Schwartz returned later that day to Boston,
where the same evening he performed The Family Carnovsky. He
could sense the writer’s presence hovering over the stage, infusing
the actors with his spirit, convincing them that the magnificent
body of work he’d left behind would never die. From Boston, in
winter’s last gasp, the Art Theatre undertook its usual westward
journey, beginning in Newark on March 1st, making its
regular stops, arriving in late spring in Los Angeles. They'd be
performing at the Biltmore, one of the finest playhouses in the
city.
After such a trying season in New York, Maurice craved the warmth
and guaranteed sunshine of California.
Chapter
Thirty-Four: The Old New Beginning
“There comes a
time when a person becomes a philosopher of his own accord and
evaluates his life. Why am I tearing into the world?” Schwartz
asked himself at the close of his California engagement, still
mourning the sudden death a few months earlier of Israel Joshua
Singer (Schwartz 5 Jan. 1946). With nothing on the horizon, no
plans to return to Manhattan for the 1944-1945 season, he had the
time to reflect, to hold himself out at an objective distance and
take stock.
Lulled by the
exotic climate and indolent lifestyle of Southern California,
Maurice thought in terms of a complete year’s hiatus, “one long
Sabbath to take in the rays of sunshine, shake off the past hard
year a bit, and actually catch up with reading everything I hadn’t
read, see a few things I hadn’t seen” (Schwartz 5 Jan.1946). With
well-deserved self-indulgence in mind, he began earnestly enough by
moving into Peretz and Esther Hirshbein’s secluded cabin in the
Hollywood hills. The Hirshbeins were away for the summer, on
vacation in Calgary, Canada.
The home was
an artist’s hideaway in the mountains, amply stocked with
everything, including the finest in sound equipment and recordings.
He and Anna were engulfed by tall trees, by profusions of wild
flowers, and a cultivated garden of every hue and fragrance. And
birds, thousands of birds, congregating close to the cabin during
the day, at the many feeding stations the Hirshbeins had
constructed. At night, the same birds would sing and chirp so loudly
that it nearly drove Maurice insane. Nerves that were supposed to
unjangle, became tied in knots. Restful sleep proved to be an
impossibility, until he finally became inured to the jarring night-
songs, and could slumber without the aid of chemical crutches.
And so, an
accommodation with the environment reached, Schwartz opened himself
as never before to the slow-paced ethos of the Far West. He
unhurriedly ate his breakfast then went outdoors to soak up the
omnipresent sunshine, or trek for hours up and down the verdant
hills. But mostly he engaged in long, somber looks at his quarter
century with the Art Theatre, weighing the successes against the
failures. He basked in the triumphs but second-guessed himself on
the flops: how he could have done better, or differently, or less
splashily. He profoundly regretted the money squandered, the energy
misguided, the unworthiness of some of the plays. He rued his own
shortcomings—the petty jealousies, the unwarranted battles with
actors, critics, playwrights. It all seemed so foolish now.
While
Maurice’s batteries were recharging that nostalgic summer, the
Allies were racing through France, after having landed in Normandy
on June 6th, liberating Paris 11 weeks later. Schwartz
may have been completely cut off from the world at large, but not
from the world of Theatre. He kept up a steady correspondence with
William Mercur, absorbing at his end everything of interest
happening on Second Avenue.
Rest and
relaxation had also stirred in Maurice the everlasting dream of
being subsidized in the Art Theatre. As never before, he speculated
over how much the lack of money had hampered him. In an exchange of
letters, he and Harold Debrest, Special Representative of the
combined Jewish press in America, worked out the formation of a
Sponsoring Committee to serve as a funding device. The Committee
organized by Debrest included some of the most recognizable names in
America: Leonard Bernstein, Oscar Hammerstein 11, attorney Louis
Nizer, Senator Robert F. Wagner and Dr. Stephen S. Wise. Wrote
Debrest: “I’m sure that my plan will establish the Yiddish Art
Theatre on a permanent basis financially and leave you the
responsibility of carrying on artistically” (3 July 1945).
Nothing of any
consequence came of the well-meaning idea. The Sponsoring Committee
was mentioned only once in print, in the elaborate playbill for
Three Gifts, the opener for the Art Theatre’s 1945-1946 season.
But never again. Like every effort so far to provide a solid
economic foundation under his theatre, this latest attempt faded
into oblivion.
The days of
inactivity soon became interminable for Maurice, and in less than
two months, he’d had his fill of sunshine, and scenery that wasn’t
painted on canvas or plywood. Bored nearly to desperation, he chided
himself for wasting an entire season on Second Avenue. But there was
always Chicago, Yiddish Theatre’s next best city. Arrangements were
quickly made with Oscar Ostroff, who produced Yiddish plays at the
Douglas Park Theatre. A deal was consummated for an eight-week
engagement. During September and October, Schwartz would be guest
director at the Douglas Park. For this, he brought with him only one
member of his troupe, Charlotte Goldstein. She too was summering in
California and anxious to get back to work.
Directing the
Ostroff ensemble was an experience never to be forgotten. The
company specialized in operettas and melodramas, the very antithesis
of what Schwartz had devoted his life and Art Theatre to. Jacob
Siegel, editor of the Chicago Forward, warned him in advance
about his undertaking: “If you can discipline the troupe to come to
rehearsals on time and to perform seriously [. . .] your visit to
Chicago will be worthwhile. If not, it would be better if you didn’t
begin” (Schwartz 12 Jan. 1946).
At their first
meeting, Schwartz’s exalted reputation filled the troupe with awe
and respect. He told the assembled crew exactly what he expected of
them, what his standards were, and that if the enterprise sunk, it
would be their fault, not his. The pep talk worked, as the players
fell at once into line. “A holiday mood descended on the troupe. The
rehearsals were the finest that a director could wish for. Everyone
was punctual, sat in the corner, and watched the others, observing
the positive and negative aspects of each performance” (Schwartz 12
Jan. 1946).
The mixed
marriage of Art Theatre director and shund company worked
out well during the two months, and Charlotte Goldstein got to know
Maurice as never before, as few people ever had. “The reality is,
like Alice in Wonderland, his life took shape in reverse. Its
substance was all fantasy and illusion. The man did not have the
capacity to feel deeply about anything except what pertained to the
Art Theatre. There was nothing left to call upon. It was all
consumed in that other world” (Chafran 29 Nov. 1999).
After the eight
weeks in Chicago were over, Schwartz hopscotched the East Coast for
the next four months, from Montreal to Philadelphia, honoring the
dates set up by Eddie Relkin, using past members of the Art Theatre,
whoever was available, or whoever would rather perform his brand of
theatre over anyone else’s. During a month’s engagement at the
Parkway Theatre in Brooklyn, he met often and long with Reuben
Guskin about getting properly re-established in New York. To a great
extent, he considered the upcoming season to be a watershed period
in his career, initiated by his two months of introspection and
regeneration in the Hollywood hills. He may have also been
influenced by what was happening in Europe. The war was whirling to
its conclusion. Warsaw had been liberated on January 9th
and Budapest on February 13th. By early March, the
American First Army would cross the Rhine at Remagen into Germany.
It promised to be a season of fresh starts—for the world and for the
Art Theatre, though the full abomination of what came to be known as
the Holocaust had been accumulating after the Russian s had taken
Auschwitz during the last week of January.
No more, Maurice
told the union head, would be roam the country, from playhouse to
playhouse, season after season like some nomad. He must have a fixed
location for at least five years. “The theatre audience and the
Yiddish organizations that buy benefits must know the steady address
of the Art Theatre, and I want to perform a season of more than 16
weeks. To do not one new play, but five, every season, besides the
repertory pieces” (Schwartz 12 Jan. 1946).
Charles Groll,
lawyer extraordinaire and friend supreme, entered the discussions by
negotiating with Jules Raines, the current landlord of the Public
Theatre, where Maurice had briefly spent the 1940-1941 season.
Because of its convenient location, on Second Avenue and 4th
Street, the Public was ideal. It contained 1750 seats and a balcony.
Charley worked out the greatly-desired five-year deal.
The lease
inked, Schwartz at once engaged Rumshinsky to write the scores for
five plays: Three Gifts by I.L. Peretz, Dr. Herzl by
Lentz and Giliof (German playwrights Maurice had met in Buenos
Aires), Wandering Stars, King Lear (the Gordin
version) and David Pinski’s The Ba’al Shem. He also melded a
company of the most seasoned Art Theatre players on hand, none
better existing anywhere: Bertha Gersten, Luba Kadison, Yudel
Dubinsky, Charlotte Goldstein, Abraham Teitelbaum, Irving Cashier
and Morris Strassberg.
Buoyed by a
wave of optimism, and on the strength of the new lease at the
Public, the Schwartzes rented a three-room apartment at 26 E. 10th
Street (in Anna’s name) for $118.25, with modest increases every two
years. The apartment on the sixth floor was in a lovely Tudor-style
building close to New York University and Greenwich Village, and
only blocks from the theatre. The Schwartzes would retain the place
for the next 15 years.
‘The Old New
Beginning’ was how Maurice described his eagerly awaited and wildly
hopeful return to Second Avenue. “Toward a period in our theatre as
happy as [from 1922 to 1930], we aspire to return to it with an
interest greater than ever before. For we are more mature now,
better equipped to meet the challenges of the modern theatre in a
liberated world confronting every sincere artist” (Schwartz
Programme Oct. 1945). In the same message to his audience, Maurice
acknowledged that he was at a crossroad, and despite the many
unsolved and perhaps unsolvable problems remaining at the Art
Theatre, he pledged himself to return to those felicitous days of
putting up several new plays a season, with steady infusions of
repertory.
For this fresh
start, Schwartz marshaled an extremely able force behind the
footlights as well as in front: Max Kreshover, a tested pro, was
taken on as Business Manager; Mitchell Kantor as General Manager;
good, sturdy William Mercur, in charge of publicity in the Jewish
press; and Anne Woll, beginning her career as English-language
Publicity Manager, a position of growing importance, with the coming
of age of third-generation American Jews, As an indication of this
group’s importance to the Art Theatre, an ad for Three Gifts
was placed by Miss Woll in the regular list of Broadway plays in the
New York Times, bewteen Eva Le Gallienne’s Therese and
Sigmund Romberg’s Up in Central Park.
“Three
Gifts is one of the most beautiful pearls that Peretz created.
In order to bring it out onstage, I engaged the renowned poet Melech
Ravitch, for whom every word of Peretz is a diamond. For months, we
worked on the dramatization, until we were both satisfied”
(Schwartz 12 Jan. 1946). Knowing Maurice’s tendency to tinker, it
can be reasonably assumed that the finished product was more
Schwartz than Ravitch, even if the latter was Canada’s foremost
Yiddish poet,
The story of
Three Gifts is a truly poetic one, a folktale. The place is
Poland, the time unknown. Joel, an elderly and superior violinist,
is content to remain in a small town and perform with his sons. He
dies suddenly and is reincarnated as his long-lost brother Jechiel,
and must wander the earth in search of three special gifts in order
to be admitted into Paradise. He gathers the three gifts from Jews
martyred during his peregrinations, and finally does gain entrance.
The
English-language press mainly delighted in the fantasy that opened
on October 1st, 1945. But to Maurice’s great
consternation, the New York Times did not review the piece. A
day after its premiere, he dashed off a note to Lewis Nichols, the
current Times theatre critic: “This is the first time in 25
years that the New York Times has not reviewed one of our
productions. Our press representative, Miss Anne Woll, relayed to us
that it is the policy of the New York Times not to review a
Yiddish performance in the downtown section of New York” (Schwartz
letter 3 Oct. 1945). This of course was not the strict truth, but
close enough to it for Maurice to kick up a fuss. He personally
invited Nichols to come see Three Gifts and to meet him
afterward. There is no record of either offer being accepted.
Not to be
outdone, the Yiddish critics also found lots to enjoy in the Peretz
work. Private citizens were duly impressed as well, among them the
illustrious Professor of Dramatic Arts at NYU: “Not only is your own
performance in Three Gifts a work of artistry in acting, but
also the production is on the same level of accomplishment”
(Sommerville 2 Nov. 1945).
As an example
of Schwartz’s skewed sense of humor, which flourished no matter how
much pressure he was under, there happened an unexpected incident at
one performance, during Joel’s death scene. His last earthly request
is to have his sons play for him, one more time. “They all take
their instruments and start playing a sad tune. One of the sons
plays off-key, and Schwartz remarks: ‘How do you expect me to die
with a sound like that?’ The audience roared with laughter and the
curtain fell on the tragic scene” (Mercur 225). Three Gifts
ran well for over two months, then was replaced on December 20th
by Dr. Herzl. The new play, in two parts and 12 scenes,
stocked a full contingent of characters borrowed from Yiddish and
world history. The plot covers Theodore Herzl’s uphill battle to
convince the world, both Jewish and Christian, of the need for a
modern Zion in Palestine. But not too convincingly in the drama
presented by the Art Theatre, as far as the English-speaking press
was concerned, their consensus being that the piece was chock full
of long discourses and empty of theatrical value. For the Yiddish
audience and critics, a different attitude prevailed, shaped by
increasing reports out of Europe, of the wholesale extermination of
entire Jewish communities in every nation the Nazis overran. Herzl’s
dream of a Jewish homeland was a dream that had to be realized. In
the Art Theatre’s attempt at recreating the circumstances that
converted Theodore Herzl from a standoffish, assimilated
newspaperman, to a devoted partisan for Israel, often scenes would
be interrupted by thunderous applause. At each and every final
curtain, Schwartz received a standing ovation.
The season
ended however with many of Maurice’s promises unfulfilled, with but
two plays actually presented. The expected windfall from the
Sponsoring Committee never came to pass, and there was never enough
money left at the end of the week to pay the bills. The Art Theatre
was forced to do what it had been doing for many years: to pack up
its equipment and leave New York in the dead and drear of winter to
visit the provinces.
Maybe next
season will be a better one. It was all Maurice could cling to and
hope for.
Chapter
Thirty-Five: “A Very Unspectacular Season”
Twice before,
Maurice had met Zalman Zalkind Schneour—during the Art Theatre’s
first swing through Europe in 1924, in Paris, and again in 1937, in
Palestine, where Schwartz had induced the noble-looking,
ebony-bearded literary giant to translate Yoshe Kalb into
Hebrew for the Ohel. The year before the second visit, Joseph
Leftwich had translated the writer’s most famous novel Noah
Pandre into English, after it had been serialized in The
Forward. In 1945, an expanded version was produced under the
title Song of the Dneiper, with 14 new chapters added and
some original chapters excised. This is the version that gained
Maurice’s attention.
Before leaving
for the summer season in Buenos Aires, Schwartz contacted the newly
immigrated David Licht, the Argentine Yiddish Folk Theatre director,
about doing the dramatization and directing of the Schneour work.
Though Maurice was in Argentina during the spring and early summer
of 1946, he kept tabs on Licht’s progress in New York through
William Mercur, attempting to micromanage though thousands of miles
away. “I want you to know that I place the entire success or, God
forbid, failure on you and Kreshover, and if the Publicity
Department and the organizations aren’t hot for it—things won’t be
good” (Schwartz letter 26 May 1946).
Despite his
faith in Mercur, he couldn’t help trying to control the advertising
campaign for Song of the Dneiper from afar. He designated the
placing of posters in the many Jewish enclaves in Manhattan,
Brooklyn and the Bronx, wherever the Americanized Jews resided,
wherever the influx of refugees from the concentration camps had
settled. “Also, you should give Anne Woll enough material so that
she can place news items in the English- language press. Aside from
that, the ads should appear in the Times and the Post
every two weeks—one week in the Times, one week in the
Post. Write often and see to it that the work proceeds
ferociously” (Schwartz letter 26 May 1946).
The ad Anne
Woll, the Art Theatre’s English-language Publicity Manager, placed
in the New York Times, was eye-catching and double sized. On
opening night, it towered above a like notice for Laurence Olivier’s
production of Henry V at the Golden, which in turn rested on
an astounding two-column directory of arguably the finest Broadway
presentations every assembled in any single season: Anna Lucasta,
Annie Get Your Gun, Born Yesterday, Call Me
Mister, Cyrano de Bergerac, Oklahoma, Show Boat,
State of the Union, and 17 other top flight attractions.
For the sole
new offering of the 1946-1947 season, Schwartz gathered the best
troupe available, mostly second-stringers, as many of his hearty
perennials were growing much too ancient for the roles available.
And the very capable ones still performing, like Bertha Gerstein,
had transferred their loyalties to Broadway and to the films.
Rumshinsky, by this late date was the Art Theatre’s regular
composer, wrote the score. With Licht doing yeoman service as
adapter and director, Maurice confined himself to playing the lusty
lead role and overall supervision of the project.
For such an
important offering, the one and only for the season, and absent a
large budget, Maurice desperately wanted Sam Leve to do the
settings, Sam a designer known for doing much with very little. Leve
had last worked for the Art Theatre eight years before, in Who Is
Who, then went on to greater fame and more lucrative assignments
on Broadway, involved in 20 productions since 1938. The two men met
for lunch at the Café Royale, and Schwartz made his offer. Which Sam
declined. “What’s the matter, Levenu? You’ve become a big shot now
that you’re on Broadway? You don’t want to work for me anymore?”
“No, no,” shot
back the diminutive set designer. “It’s just that I can’t afford to
work for you.” Sam rose from the table and did a half turn. “See
this suit I’m wearing, Mr. Schwartz? It cost $200.”
Schwartz, who
cared little for sartorial splendor, got up, and with a weighty
silence, examined the suit carefully, as if perusing a Van Gogh. He
palped the fine cloth of the jacket between his thumb and
forefinger, nodding his approval. “Nice, very nice, Levenu. Take my
word, you’ll never have to buy another one. “
At once, Sam
broke into laughter, and despite a backlog of mainstream projects,
he accepted the assignment. “I could never refuse Maurice Schwartz
anything” (Leve 28 May 1998).
The theatre
program, beginning with Yoshe Kalb, had become an important
advertising tool for Schwartz. The first half of its extra large
pages was in English, the second part in Yiddish, and it served not
only for the essential of listing the players and their roles, but
as a platform for Maurice to do a bit of crowing, by reviewing the
Art Theatre’s extraordinary past, and to herald an even brighter
future (tentative though it surely was). A synopsis in English was
also de rigueur, for those third-generation Jews who might
miss the narrative flow of the spoken play, their Yiddish having
grown rusty or obsolete. Also, more and more non-Jews were coming to
the Art Theatre as a result of the fabulous English-language
reviews, wherever Schwartz happened to be that particular season.
Starting with
Salvation in 1939, Maurice introduced something quite
innovative to the playbill: a group photo of the entire Art Theatre
staff, much like that of a pennant-winning baseball team.
Heretofore, there’d been shots of the lead players only, separate
and isolated. For Song of the Dneiper, the program features
three rows of actors and non-actors in no discernible pecking order.
The bottom tier contains in its center Schwartz (appearing quite
paterfamilias), then to his left sits a most uncomfortable Zalman
Schneour, on the edge of his seat, as if poised for flight after
being grouped with performers and box office personnel. To the
author’s left, Buddha-like and self-composed, is Joseph Rumshinsky,
the most veteran of veterans. To Maurice’s right, is David Licht,
slim, dapper and bow-tied, his back soldier-straight as if ordered
that way by the photographer.
Fanning out
right and left of the four, are Isidore Cashier (stuck with the face
and figure of a Russian commissar); a self-conscious but minor
player, Celia Pearson; a grandmotherly Anna Appel (after 28 years of
service with the Art Theatre); cool and serene Luba Kadison; a
slightly disheveled-appearing Frances Adler; a distracted Jenny
Casher (Mrs. Isadore Cashier; and, with his arms folded and
expression ironic, Menachem Rubin, in his second year with Schwartz.
The second
level holds an assortment of the new and the old. Among the former
are white-haired, beetle-browed Leib Kadison (Luba’s distinguished
and versatile father); an arrogant-seeming Yudel Dubinsky;
multitalented Morris Strassberg; black-suited Mark Schweid (who
handled Yiddish and English-language parts with distinction, and
who’d worked during the war for the Office of War Information in
Berlin). To Schweid’s left, in a high upsweep hairdo, is a radiant
Charlotte Goldstein, and beside her is tiny Sam Leve, looking
bright-eyed but underage. To Sam’s left, is long-faced Ola Shlifko,
a first-timer with the Art Theatre. Beside her, stands Jacob
Rechtzeit, another newcomer, whowas Ola’s husband and brother of
operetta idol Seymour Rexsite. Alongside Jacob is Abe Teitlebaum, a
long-termer and respected author on art and drama. Then comes
Gustave Berger, recently out of the army. Followed by supporting
actors Misha Fishohn and Morris Krohner.
The top row is
more or less the front office and the backstage crew, as well as a
few more bit players. Willisam Mercur stands anchored at the right
end, angled to face the entire ensemble, as if watching over them.
It was Mercur who took this group portrait one step further by
including two pages of thumbnail profiles of all 24 players, which
not only individualized each, but gave them a history to go with
their faces.
Briefly,
Song of the Dneiper encompasses the life, times and travails of
Noah Pandre, a teamster who attracts not only a Jewish sweetheart,
but also a high born Christian lady, as in the much earlier
Yiskor. In fact, both works have the same background of an
earthy Jewish peasantry posed against a militantly antisemitic
Slavic township. In Noah’s case, an accidental slight to the town’s
police chief results in an 18-month jail sentence for Pandre. Upon
his eventual release, he arrives back home just as a pogrom is
brewing, organized by the same police chief. A fight takes place,
and Noah, defending himself, kills the murderous official. The
pogrom is averted, if only for now.
The play opened
on October 25, 1946 to less than wonderful reviews. Atkinson
(replacing Lewis Nichols) noted quite rightly that Maurice “is
getting a trifle too mature and portly to emulate Valentino. He
needs more spring in his knees to raise himself to full manly height
after scenes of polite rapture with his sweetheart” (Times
26 Oct. 1946). Nonetheless, the critic did recommend the piece for
its “abundance of narrative, many characters and many scenes,”
noting that “the Yiddish Art Theatre has always been one of the most
interesting stage organizations in this city, and it always produces
plays with good taste” (Times 26 Oct. 1946).
Song of
the Dneiper was not the resounding hit Schwartz had devoutly
hoped for back in May. It ran decently well however, until the first
week in December, while Frank Sinatra was thrilling the bobbysoxers
at the Wedgewood Room and Ted Lewis was doing the same for their
parents and grandparents at Lou Walter’s Latin Quarter. With
essentially the same crew, except for David Licht (who’d left) and
Sam Leve (who’d gone back to Broadway), the Art Theatre resurrected
Wandering Stars on December 13th. It was tolerated
but not wildly received by both presses.
Thus ended the
1946-1947 year for the Art Theatre. “It was a very unspectacular
season,” commented Charlotte Goldstein. (Chafran 30 Nov. 1999).
Schwartz’s high expectations were dashed, but this didn’t send him
into a state of depression, at least on the surface, as it might
well have, for someone less strongly constructed, with so much
exquisite Yiddish Theatre history behind him, and seeing all he’d
striven and suffered for reduced to a single but poorly received
play, over a greatly reduced season.
Did he wallow
in past glories? Did he rage against the loss of what used to be?
“Hardly,” said Charlotte. “When business was terrible, that’s when
he was the sweetest, the most humorous, the most fun, the most
mischievous. His everyday working attitude was strong and positive.
He came to the theatre each morning prepared to do the best job
possible” (Chafran 30 Nov. 1999).
Perhaps the
grand honor he received over the disheartening winter sustained him,
even if in his soul he nursed legitimate fears about the Art
Theatre’s future, regardless of a five-year lease. On February 18th,
the Jewish Forum Magazine, a well-respected monthly dealing
with serious topics of interest to Jews everywhere, from music and
drama in Manhattan to the Black Jews of Abyssinia, celebrated its 30th
anniversary by presenting Maurice with its Louis D. Brandeis medal.
The editorial that month began with Schwartz’s contributions to
Jewish life as an artist, and how the Talmud lauds the spreading of
culture among its followers by strengthening the resolve of Jews
everywhere to strive under unfavorable conditions. “Maurice Schwartz
however does more. He not only makes people laugh, he also makes
them cry. He not only stirs the sympathies, but he also ignites the
emotions to action” (Rosengarten Feb. 1947).
For this
singular honor, held at the Public Theatre, Maurice scheduled a
complete act from three of his favorite productions—Yoshe Kalb,
Tevye the Milkman, and Wandering Stars, with
full casts for each. The Citizens Committee of the Forum, credited
with arranging the gala evening, included, as Honorary Chairmen,
former Governor Herbert Lehman, and current US Senator Robert F.
Wagner.
Schwartz
accepted his medal during intermission, clad in his Tevye costume,
with Wandering Stars yet to be performed. “Mr. Chairman and
dear friends,” he began. “This evening I feel happier than one who
has gained or found a million dollars; for of what significance is a
material treasure in comparison with a spiritual one?” (Schwartz
Jewish Forum)
The
recognition of so many, from different walks of life, was yet
another form of applause for Maurice, and may have gone a long way
in relieving his dejection over the miserable season. It may have
been what had kept him seemingly so charming, so upbeat, such good
company (according to Charlotte Goldstein). Using the dais however
as a bully pulpit, he revealed his truer self by directing the
audience’s attention to “the importance of subsidizing the better
type of theatre in America, without distinction as to the language
of expression [. . .]. The artist must not be obsessed by worrying
over a livelihood; he must have in mind only his artistry”
(Schwartz Jewish Forum).
That old
chimera again. Schwartz may have shown a happy face to Charlotte and
the rest of his crew, but his acceptance speech more accurately
reflected the bitterness over the killing pressure he was constantly
under to cover expenses, and the constant anguish of knowing how
much more he could have accomplished, if only… |
