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
 

Chaim Benjamin Treitler

 

T. was born in 1853 in Stanislawow, Galicia. From childhood on he was a choir boy for Cantor Frilinger and was known as a beautiful student and good singer.

From the age of twenty plus years he was allowed to be a "folk singer", then in Vienna he entered into Hurwitz's troupe and soon thereafter began to direct troupes in Galicia.

According to B. Gorin, T. had in 1885 acquired a concession to perform Yiddish theatre in the Galician province, and his troupe, in which his daughter Malvina had also acted in children's roles, became one of the popular and prominent Yiddish itinerant troupes.

When Berta Kalich left Bucharest's Jignitza Theatre, Goldfaden thither brought T. with his daughter Malvina. But soon T. again took to wandering across the Jewish settlements in Europe, and in the beginning of the twentieth century he with his troupe (among others his daughter Malvina [then already Lobel], Sherman and Axelrad) came to London.

About him B. Gorin wrote:

"The company came for Passover and took in during the holiday the Pavilion Theatre, but the theatre was too big and [one was to the company] added money. But it did not keep a certain Morris Cohen to engage the troupe and took a small theatre in a better area and made a test to act each night. Local theatre had named

 

the Monar Theatre and for the first production there was Zanwill and Benkir Zeligman. The expense in the Monar Theatre was little, and in the beginning he had shown that the troupe was [haltn], but soon he had the actor at the start advance a large expenditure and the [runs out= puel yutsa][defun aiz geven], that the director hadn't [oysgehaltn] and the theatre was closed".

In the winter of 1902 T. with the family came to Montreal (Canada), and after only a few months traveled to New York.

T. also had -- according to the information from Jean Greenfeld -- wrote several plays, which were never once staged.

According to B. Gorin, T. especially excelled in the role of "Mlkhim".

In New York T. almost didn't fully act and here on 4 Mar 1916 passed away.

T.'s daughter: Malvina (Lobel), Rosa (Greenfeld) and Betty (Jacobs) -- also act on the Yiddish stage.

T.'s in-law -- Jean Greenfeld -- is a prompter and for many years the president of the Yiddish Actors Union in America.
 

Sh. E. from Malvina Lobel and Jean Greenfeld.

B. Gorin -- "History of Yiddish Theatre", Vol. II, pp. 142, 149, 153.


 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 2, page 892.
 

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