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
 

Simcha Natan

 

N. was born on 15 August 1892 in Lodz, Poland. His father was a teacher in a real school, and being good at computing he became at the age of fourteen a bookkeeper in Vilhelm Landau's bank.

N. turned to the amateur circle under the direction of S. Koperman, but due to his small stature he didn't become familiar with the stage, and he had to be content with prompting. Later N. entered into a second amateur circle, which soon became transformed into a professional troupe, which toured across the province. Under such conditions N. gradually neglected his post and became a role rewriter for Zandberg in his "Grand Theatre".

In 1907 N. became engaged by Sholom Tsuker to Vilna in the Nozyk-Sabsey troupe as a prompter, and he specialized as a writer off "tsenzurkes"  in German. In 1909 he entered into Fishzon's troupe, where he married the chorus singer Naomi Levental. Here he attempted to act in Schorr's "Der ikhsn", but it fell through and he remained a prompter. First in 1917 he came to Lodz's "Polish Theatre" (Director -- A. G. Kompaneyets) with Morevsky, Stein, Kamien and Buloff and traveled thereof to Vienna, where he acted with Itzhak Deutsch in the "Freye yidishe folks-bine".

After the dissolution of the troupe, N. entered into the Vilna Troupe, where he acted from 1925 in Poland, Rumania, and Transylvania. Here he created the role of "Der shadkhan" in Dymov's "Der zinger fun zeyn troyer (The Singer of his Sorrows"),

 

"Shimele soroker" in Sholem Aleichem's "200,000", and "Yaitshnitsa" in Gogol's "Khatunah". Later he acted with Ludwig Satz in Rumania.

N.'s daughter, Ida, acts on the Yiddish stage.
 

M. E.

  • "Simcha Natan" -- Zamlheft, Vilna, April, 1933.


 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 2, page 857.
 

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