Lives in the Yiddish Theatre
SHORT BIOGRAPHIES OF THOSE INVOLVED IN THE Yiddish THEATRE
aS DESCRIBED IN zALMEN zYLBERCWEIG'S "lEKSIKON FUN YIDISHN TEATER"

1931-1969
 

Yitzhak (-Yona) Mestel
 

 

M. was born on 15 September 1894 in Zlotshev, eastern Galicia. He is the brother of Jacob. He learned in a cheder and in school in Zlotshev and in Lemberg. He completed a pro-gymnasium. In 1912 M. founded the Yiddish worker stage "Yakov (Jacob) Gordin" in Lemberg, and in the same year he traveled across the province in Galicia with an itinerant troupe. In 1913 M. entered into Gimpel's troupe in Lemberg, where he acted until the World War, and he participated then as a soldier in the Austrian Army.

In 1921 M. founded together with Shlomo Pryzament and Francis, the first Yiddish theatre in Czechoslovakia ("HaOr"), where he also was regisseur.

At the end of 1923 M. came back to Vienna as a co-director and actor in the Yiddish art theatre under Yitzhak Deutsch's direction, then went over to the German stage and acted in the "komershpile" of director Geyer in Vienna, until his trip to America in 1925. Here M. withdrew from the stage.

M. also wrote theatre pieces under the pseudonym "Yitzhak Mdh". His one-act "In a vinter-nakht" in 1912 was staged by the "Arbeter-bine (Worker's Stage) Yakov Gordin" in Lemberg.
 

M. E.


 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 2, page 1374.
 

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