State Jewish Theater (Romania) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Teatrul Evreiesc de Stat (TES, the State Jewish Theater) in Bucharest

Bucharest

Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....

, Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

is a theater specializing in Jewish-related plays. Its contemporary repertoire includes plays by Jewish authors, plays on Jewish topics, and plays in Yiddish (which are performed with simultaneous translation into Romanian

Romanian language

Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

, using headphones installed in the theater in the 1970s). Many of the plays also feature Jewish actors.

A precursor, the Teatru Evreiesc Baraşeum operated as a Jewish theater through most of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, although they were closed during the few months of the National Legionary State

National Legionary State

The National Legionary State was the Romanian government from September 6, 1940 to January 23, 1941. It was a single-party regime dictatorship dominated by the overtly fascist Iron Guard in uneasy conjunction with the head of government and Conducător Ion Antonescu, the leader of the Romanian...

, and thereafter performed in Romanian

Romanian language

rather than Yiddish through until the fall of Ion Antonescu

Ion Antonescu

Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...

Prehistory

The Jewish Theatre in Romania has a tradition dating back to the 19th century. The first newspaper reference to a Jewish theater in Romania was a review by Mihai Eminescu

Mihai Eminescu

Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul , the official newspaper of the Conservative Party...

in the Romanian newspaper Curierul de Iaşi (The Courier of Iaşi) in 1876, in which he described a troupe of sixteen Jewish actors who performed in the famous Green Tree garden of Iaşi

Iasi

Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...

under Avram Goldfaden

Abraham Goldfaden

Abraham Goldfaden ; was an Russian-born Jewish poet, playwright, stage director and actor in the languages Yiddish and Hebrew, author of some 40 plays.Goldfaden is considered the father of the Jewish modern theatre.In 1876 he founded in...

’s management, the father of the modern Jewish Theatre.

In Bucharest, the theater building, the Teatru Baraşeum or Sala Baraşeum, was used from the early 1930s as a Yiddish-language theater, originally under private management. The theater was named in honor of Dr. Iuliu Barasch

Iuliu Barasch

Iuliu Barasch or Baraş was a Galician-born Jewish physician and writer who made his career in Romania.-Biography:Born in Brody into a Hasidic family as Yehuda ben Mordehai Barasch...

, as was an adjoining clinic. (The street it is on, the former str. Ionescu de la Brad, is now str. Dr. Iuliu Barasch.) On the verge of World War II

World War II

, it was home of the Thalia company, one of four professional Yiddish theater companies in Bucharest at that time.

As war broke out in Europe and the antisemitic right-wing politics

Right-wing politics

In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...

that had long been a factor in Romania came to the fore, resources for Yiddish theater in Bucharest dried up. In the summer of 1940, all four Bucharest-based Yiddish theater companies, including Thalia, set out on tours of the country rather than attempt summer theater in Bucharest. Thalia were on the road when King Carol II

Carol II of Romania

Carol II reigned as King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until 6 September 1940. Eldest son of Ferdinand, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria...

abdicated

Abdication

Abdication occurs when a monarch, such as a king or emperor, renounces his office.-Terminology:The word abdication comes derives from the Latin abdicatio. meaning to disown or renounce...

on September 6, 1940, the start of the National Legionary State

National Legionary State

under General (later Marshal) Ion Antonescu

Ion Antonescu

. The extremely antisemitic Iron Guard

Iron Guard

The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...

became the only legal political party in Romania. On September 9, Jews were prohibited from participating in theater. All Jews were fired from artistic or administrative positions at the National Theater and others, and the country's Yiddish-language companies had their licenses revoked. Public use of the Yiddish language was also banned.

Nonetheless, after some petitioning, permission was obtained on September 26 to start a single Jewish theater in Bucharest, subject to conditions such as making donations to a fund for unemployed Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

actors, performing only in Romanian

Romanian language

, and getting permission from the Military Commander of the capital. Some 200 people were associated with the group that emerged, ranging from performers of light comedy to actors versed in the method acting

Method acting

Method acting is a phrase that loosely refers to a family of techniques used by actors to create in themselves the thoughts and emotions of their characters, so as to develop lifelike performances...

of Konstantin Stanislavski

Konstantin Stanislavski

Constantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski , was a Russian actor and theatre director. Building on the directorially-unified aesthetic and ensemble playing of the Meiningen company and the naturalistic staging of Antoine and the independent theatre movement, Stanislavski organized his realistic...

, and representing a wide range of politics and all levels of experience.

The company wanted to rent the Roxy Theater in the central Lipscani

Lipscani

Lipscani is a street and a district of Bucharest, Romania, which in the Middle Ages was the most important commercial center of Bucharest and the whole Wallachia...

district, but were told that they would only be allowed to perform in the Jewish ghetto

Ghetto

A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...

; the Baraşeum in the Văcăreşti

Vacaresti, Bucharest

Văcăreşti is a neighbourhood in south-eastern Bucharest, located near Dâmboviţa River and the Văcăreşti Lake. Nearby neighbourhoods include Vitan, Olteniţei and Berceni. Originally a village, it was included in Bucharest as it expanded...

neighborhood met this requirement.

Over the next six months, the company would struggle with the authorities over the conditions under which they could open, while awaiting the elusive permission from the Military Commander. A January 17, 1941 document from the Minister of Culture and from Director General of Theaters and Operas Liviu Rebreanu

Liviu Rebreanu

Liviu Rebreanu was a Romanian novelist, playwright, short story writer, and journalist.- Life :Born in Târlișua , Transylvania, then part of Austria-Hungary, he was the second of thirteen children born to Vasile Rebreanu, a schoolteacher, and Ludovica Diuganu, descendants of peasants...

added new requirements: each individual artist would need approval from the Director General of Theaters; no plays could be performed on major Christian holidays, nor on the three "legionary holidays"; they could use only the front door of the Baraşeum on str. Ionescu de la Brad, not the stage door on str. Udricani; and they could not open until May 31, 1941, four and a half months away. Days after these requirements were put in place, the Iron Guard attempted a coup against Antonescu

Legionnaires' Rebellion and Bucharest Pogrom

The Legionnaires' rebellion and the Bucharest pogrom occurred in Bucharest, Romania, between 21 and 23 January 1941.As the privileges of the Iron Guard were being cut off by Conducător Ion Antonescu, members of the Iron Guard, also known as the Legionnaires, revolted...

; the Guard's defeat resulted in a government less actively hostile to Jews. These new requirements were relaxed after the defeat of the Iron Guard, and Rebreanu wrote on February 19 that "in view of the current situation" they could open on March 1. The Military Commander never did give formal permission, but that requirement seems to have been ignored.

Baraşeum Jewish Theater

On March 1, 1941 Teatrul Evreiesc Baraşeum (the Baraşeum Jewish Theater) opened with a revue, Ce faci astă seară? (What are you doing this evening?). Five days later they premiered a production of The Brothers Sanger by Margereth Kennedy. They changed the name to Gema and also substituted a different author's name (since they were only allowed to do plays by Jews).

During the war years, the Baraşeum Jewish Theater premiered over thirty productions, about half of them directed by Sandru Eliad. Although officially exclusively Jewish, at times various Gentile intellectuals helped the company illegally, especially with translations; this was well enough known to provoke indignation from at least one antisemitic newspaper. Some Gentiles, mostly intellectuals, showed support for the theater by coming to performances.

At times their plays were heavily censored. For example, on one occasion they were required to drop the lines "Je sais bien que demain tout peut changer" ("I know that tomorrow everything could change") and "L'histoire est a tournant" ("The story/history is at a turning point") from a French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

love song, lest they be understood politically. At other times, though, they sneaked in the occasional Yiddish-language joke or refrain.

Israil Bercovici

Israil Bercovici

Israil Bercovici was a Jewish Romanian dramaturg, playwright, director, biographer, and memoirist, who served the State Jewish Theater of Romania between 1955 to 1982; he also wrote Yiddish-language poetry.-Biography:...

, later a key figure in the State Jewish Theater, has said of this period that Jewish theater was pushed to the periphery, but "turned that periphery into a center of Jewish culture and art". Their included Romanian-language translations of classic Yiddish theater pieces such as the bittersweet Dos Groise Ghivens (The Big Lottery Ticket, a musical based on a story by Sholom Aleichem

Sholom Aleichem

Sholem Aleichem was the pen name of Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, a leading Yiddish author and playwright...

) and S. Ansky

S. Ansky

Shloyme Zanvl Rappoport , known by his pseudonym S. Ansky , was a Russian Jewish author, playwright, and researcher of Jewish folklore....

's The Dybbuk as well as new pieces, and performances of works by the acceptably Jewish Jacques Offenbach

Jacques Offenbach

Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....

and Louis Verneuil

Louis Verneuil

Louis Jacques Marie Collin du Bocage , better known by the pen name Louis Verneuil, was a French playwright, screenwriter, and actor....

.

On August 23, 1944 the overthrow of Antonescu in a coup led immediately to the re-legalization of the use of the Yiddish language. The Baraşeum returned to performing in Yiddish, presenting Sholom Aleichem's Mentshn (Men) on September 15. This Baraşeum production was not, however, the first Yiddish play after of the new period. On the very evening of August 23 an improvised Yiddish performance Nacht-Tog (Night-Day) took place in Botoşani

Botosani

Botoșani is the capital city of Botoșani County, in northern Moldavia, Romania. Today, it is best known as the birthplace of many celebrated Romanians, including Mihai Eminescu and Nicolae Iorga.- Origin of the name :...

— the town where, in 1876, Avram Goldfaden

Abraham Goldfaden

had presented one of the first professional Yiddish language productions, the first ever in an indoor theater.

IKUF

This group who had improvised the play in Botoşani were part of the Yiddisher Kultur Ferband (IKUF). They would evolve and repeat their performance of Nacht-Tog. This performance was sharply divided into two parts, Nacht being the dark past and Tog expressing a belief in life. The play used songs both from the forced labor camps and from Yiddish theater before the war.

IKUF would become a key institution in the next few years, publishing a magazine IKUF Bleter, organizing libraries and conferences, and evolving Teatrul IKUF, a new Yiddish theater led initially by Iacob Mansdorf. Drawing its mostly young, professional actors from cities around Romania, their production of Moşe Pincevski's new play Ich Leb (I Live) about resistance in a forced labor camp put them on the map in a Bucharest where the Communist Party was moving toward hegemony. Ceremonies for the play's opening included a number of speakers, including Minister of Art Mihail Ralea and Iosif Eselaohn of the socialist

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

party Ihud

Ihud

Ihud was a small binationalist Zionist political party founded by Judah Leon Magnes, Martin Buber, Ernst Simon and Henrietta Szold, former supporters of Brit Shalom, in 1942 following the Biltmore Conference. The party was dedicated to Arab–Jewish reconciliation, and advocated an Arab–Jewish state...

.

Mansdorf, according to Bercovici, tired of leading a theater troupe after only two years; some of his actors left with him. Others, including Sevilla Pastor, Dina König, Seidy Glück, Moris Siegler and Marcu Glückman, reorganized under Bernard Lebli, and became the new permanent company of the Baraşeum, with an unprecedented subsidy from the government. They began their new season January 11, 1948 with Dos Groise Ghivens; this was followed by Nekomenemer (The Song of War) by French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

Yiddish writer Haim Sloves.

The State Jewish Theater

After the rise of Communism in Romania

Communist Romania

Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...

, the IKUF theater was nationalized August 1, 1948 as the State Jewish Theater (Teatrul Evreiesc de Stat, TES). This made it the first state-operated Yiddish theater in the world; a second Romanian State Jewish Theater was established in Iaşi

Iasi

in 1949, but went out of existence in 1964.

TES has operated in the former Baraşeum building almost continually since that time. In 1954–1956 the theater building was rebuilt with a modern stage; the company appeared on a number of other Bucharest stages during that time. In 1955 Franz Auerbach became head of the theater with Israil Bercovici as literary secretary. Over the next two decades, these two would doubtless do as much as anyone in the world to keep the flame of Yiddish theater alive. (Auerbach's successor, Harry Eliad, continues to run the theater .)

The first production on the new stage in their building (now called, like the company, Teatrul Evreiesc de Stat, but still sometimes referred to as the Baraşeum) was The Diary of Anne Frank
The Diary of Anne Frank (play)
The Diary of Anne Frank is a stage adaptation of the book The Diary of a Young Girl. The play is a dramatization by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. It opened at the Cort Theatre, Broadway, on October 5, 1955, in a production by Kermit Bloomgarden, directed by Garson Kanin and designed by Boris...

, with Samuel Fischler as Otto Frank

Otto Frank

Otto Heinrich "Pim" Frank was a German-born businessman and the father of Anne Frank and Margot Frank...

. For four years (1957–1961), TES also operated a studio theater to train young actors and stage technicians, in which some of the surviving greats of Yiddish theater taught their crafts to a new generation.

The company toured to Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

in 1968, to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

in 1972, and to East Berlin

East Berlin

East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...

in 1977.

The repertoire of TES has included many works with music by their own Haim Schwartzman. They have performed traditional works of the Yiddish theater, and new plays by Ludovic Bruckstein,
(or I.L. or Leibush Brukstein, 1920-1988)
who wrote between 1948 and 1969 a series of plays both in Yiddish and Romanian. Bruckstein, a survivor of
Auschwitz and several other concentration-camps, wrote in 1948 a play entitled "Night-Shift"
(Nachtshicht, in Yiddish) describing the revolt of the Auschwitz sonderkommando towards
the end of the Second World-War, and the play had a huge success over the years 1949-1958.
Subsequently, TES, The Yiddish Theater in Iaşi, and other Theaters in Romania played a series of his plays,
(The Grunwald Family in 1952, The Return of Christopher Columbus, 1955, Dor Hamidbar, or The Desert Generation in 1957,
An Unfinished Trial in 1961, White Night, 1963, and Meeting on the Mountain in 1969), and Bruckstein became, before his 1972 emigration to Israel, the most important Yiddish playwright of post-war Romania, as mentioned in the Encyclopaedia Judaica

Encyclopaedia Judaica

The Encyclopaedia Judaica is a 26-volume English-language encyclopedia of the Jewish people and their faith, Judaism. It covers diverse areas of the Jewish world and civilization, including Jewish history of all eras, culture, holidays, language, scripture, and religious teachings...

, see also YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe on Romanian literature.

TES also staged works by Romanian playwrights such as Victor Eftimiu

Victor Eftimiu

Victor Eftimiu was an Albanian-Romanian poet, playwright, and a contributor to Sburătorul, a Romanian literary magazine. His works have been performed in the State Jewish Theater of Romania....

, Victor Ion Popa

Victor Ion Popa

Victor Ion Popa , in Moldavia, Romania – March 30, 1946 in Bucharest) was a Romanian dramatist.He went to primary school in the village of Călmăţui where his father was a teacher. At Iaşi he finished his first five years of junior high/high school and his last two years of high school at the...

, Tudor Arghezi

Tudor Arghezi

Tudor Arghezi was a Romanian writer, best known for his contribution to poetry and children's literature. Born Ion N. Theodorescu in Bucharest , he explained that his pen name was related to Argesis, the Latin name for the Argeş River.-Early life:Along with Mihai Eminescu, Mateiu Caragiale, and...

, and Lucia Demetrius, and but also a vast array of works from world theater: Bertholt Brecht's Threepenny Opera, Reginald Rose

Reginald Rose

Reginald Rose was an American film and television writer most widely known for his work in the early years of television drama. Rose's work is marked by its treatment of controversial social and political issues...

's Twelve Angry Men, Georg Büchner

Georg Büchner

Karl Georg Büchner was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose. He was the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchner. Büchner's talent is generally held in great esteem in Germany...

's Woyzeck
Woyzeck
Woyzeck is a stage play written by Georg Büchner. He left the work incomplete at his death, but it has been variously and posthumously "finished" by a variety of authors, editors and translators. Woyzeck has become one of the most performed and influential plays in the German theatre...

, Lion Feuchtwanger

Lion Feuchtwanger

Lion Feuchtwanger was a German-Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht....

's Raquel, The Jewess of Toledo, and Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Friedrich Dürrenmatt was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author's work included avant-garde dramas, philosophically deep crime novels, and often macabre satire...

's Frank V. More recent additions to their repertoire include works by Israel Horovitz

Israel Horovitz

Israel Horovitz is an American playwright and screenwriter.-Theatre career:An American dramatist, Horovitz has written more than 70 produced plays, many of which have been translated and performed in more than 30 languages worldwide . The 70/70 Horovitz Project was created by NYC Barefoot Theatre...

and Ray Cooney

Ray Cooney

Raymond George Alfred Cooney, OBE is an English playwright and actor. His biggest success, Run for Your Wife, lasted nine years in London's West End and is its longest-running comedy. He has had 17 of his plays performed there....

, and an adaptation by Dorel Dorian of Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...

's Herzog
Herzog (novel)
Herzog is a 1964 novel by Saul Bellow. Letters from the protagonist constitute much of the text.Herzog won the 1965 National Book Award for Fiction and the The Prix International...

.

During the Communist era, TES had some interesting exchanges with other Romanian theaters. TES's Mauriciu Sekler directed Brecht's Mother Courage
Mother Courage
Mother Courage is a character from a Grimmelshausen novel Lebensbeschreibung der Ertzbetrügerin und Landstörtzerin Courasche dating from around 1670...

at the National Theater; Franz Auerbach directed several plays are the State German Theater in Timişoara

Timisoara

Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...

. Conversely, non-Jewish actors such as George Trodorescu, Lucu Andreescu, Ştefan Hablinski, and Dan Jitianu played major roles in productions at TES.

Despite significant repression of Jews during some phases of the Communist regime, despite significant emigration of Romanian Jews, and despite the demolition of much of the Văcăreşti neighborhood in anticipation of a never-finished portion of Centrul Civic, the theater continued to operate until the end of the communist era in the Romanian Revolution of 1989

Romanian Revolution of 1989

The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...

. It still continues today as a public institution, receiving a subsidy from the General Council of the Municipality of Bucharest. Along with the nearby Jewish Museum

Jewish Museum (Bucharest)

The Jewish Museum in Bucharest, Romania is located in the former Templul Unirea Sfântă synagogue, which survived both World War II and Nicolae Ceauşescu unscathed....

, it is one of the two most prominent remaining secular Jewish institutions in Romania, continuing what Bercovici called "a tradition of humanist

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

theater".

External links

Official site

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Prehistory

Baraşeum Jewish Theater

IKUF

The State Jewish Theater

Further reading

External links