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According to a correspondence
[according to A.R. Malakhi—written by Dr. Mordekhai
Erenpreyz or from the chief rabbi of South Africa, Dr.
Yehuda Leyb Lando] at the end of the eighties, from [ ]
the play Samson the Hero was staged in the
Lemberg Yiddish Theatre. In the correspondence, which
was dedicated autographed inscribed the visit of Avraham
Goldfaden to Lemberg, there was sharp criticism of the
play:
“… in general, the
jargonized theater—which has had success for the last
three years in our town—very often manages to teach the
masses and to awaken the nationalist spirit, [like our
governesses?], when the directors, the actors, and the
singers understand their task, and should there be a
periodical that will criticize them and prove their
foolishness; should such a newspaper exist in this case,
it should not cease to cry, that besides jesters and
vulgar, tasty songs there is an audience for vital,
indispensable dramas, that would show them the way to
go, that would describe their lives in the past and the
present, that would teach and educate them. So, is it
not essential for a folk-poet and a writer to go to the
theatre, if he should also be a scholar of antiquity and
write Samson the Hero after the latest
archeological research, and in this play he should bring
together, through a broker, two souls who have not met
before (that is also after new research from Shmuel
Filib’s university). Only he must first be a poet to
everyone, he must. The people can discern his
development, his desires, and the knowledge that he
lacks.”
A.R. Malakhi remarks
further:
Filib, who presents himself
as a playwright, is possibly Shmuel Moshe Filib, who
took part in the founding of the annual Treasury of
Literature, which Shaltiel Yitshak Graber began in
1887, and is the writer of House of Freedom, an
edition of Yehuda HaLevi’s poems.
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