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Sonia
Ariel
(Bezman)
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Born on 4 January
1892 in Lodz, Poland. Parents- owners of a
restaurant where Yiddish actors used to eat. Learned privately. At the age of fourteen she
was taken by actors to Odessa into the chorus of Avraham
Fishzon, where for several months until the troupe
arrived in Yekaterinoslav, where she had her
father, who didn't want her leave "with his actors", and she was
sent home.
In Lodz she again went into the chorus
of a Yiddish theatre of Kaminski,
and toured with various troupes as a chorister. At first
when with Kaminski in Odessa, the actress Nadia
Neroslavska became sick, and A. performed for her in the
role of "Heyse babkelekh" in "Koldunye".
Returning to Lodz, she again
entered into the chorus of Zandberg, however here there
came changes in her career. About this, Zalmen
Zylbercweig recalls:
"When Aaron Lebedeff came to
guest-star in Lodz's Grand Theatre for Zandberg, he
found himself in an embarrassing [position]. He hadn't
partnered with whom to act in the entire troupe. The
prima donnas and soubrettes of that time were all either
physically or artistically unable to adapt to Lebedeff.
He had an elegant, outgoing, well-dressed man. His movements were graceful. He performed
with an odd lightness. that was entirely new, and the
soubrettes and prima donnas in the troupe, although they
were famous actresses with names, |
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had themselves however not
fit into his repertoire, and especially not to the
manner of his acting, and here his eye fell on the
chorister Sonia Ariel, who had a brother in the chorus
who at times used to receive small roles. Lebedeff, with
her, had studied so thoroughly her role that she became
a sensation with her acting, and before we came around,
she was counted on as a reputable actress. Later she
even married that prominent entrepreneur and manager of
the troupe, Iser Bezman".
During the First World War,
she had, under the name of Sonia Bezman, acted in Russia
in the troupes of her husband and of Young-Bezman. In
1925 she returned to Lodz, and since she again acted
with the local member troupes.
The actor Moshe Pulaver, who
had been saved from the Lodz ghetto, writes that when
the Germans had created the Lodz ghetto on 11 May 1941,
there were found twelve professional Yiddish actors,
including A. with her son. Her further fate is not
mentioned, but she was no exception: she fell a victim
of the Nazis.
Sh. E. from
Zalmen Zylbercweig.
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"Lexicon of
the Yiddish Theatre", New York, 1931, Vol. I, p.
96.
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Moshe Pulaver --
"Geven iz a geto", Tel Aviv, 1963, p. 59.
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