| A review from the New York
Times, November 20, 1963.
'SAGE OF ROTTENBURG,' YIDDISH
PLAY, OPENS
by Richard F. Shepard
"The
Sage of Rottenburg," written in 1945 by H. Leivick, was
performed in New York for the first time last night by the
Folksbiene Theatre, and it was easily the best Yiddish
production seen in this city for several years.
Mr. Leivick, who died here last
winter, covers a number of scenes in his play and he binds them
into a unity that makes for a dramatic, if somber, evening. His
play starts in Dachau, where a young inmate, played by Marvin
Schwartz, is visited by the "Eternal Jew," who leads him back in
history to the German city of Mainz to witness the martyrdom of
the Sage Reb Meir in the 13th century.
In the telling, the story couples
a powerful universal call for all to fight tyranny with the
equally poignant and stirring reassertion that the Jew always
survives his oppression. "To live in Mainz is to live in
Dachau," says the Eternal Jew.
In the role of the Sage, Harry
Rubin has mastered the technique of portraying a leader who must
be authoritative, benevolent, dignified and principled despite
the personal confusions and considerations that assailed his
mind. Young Mr. Schwartz is fine as the young man, while Joshua
Zeldis conveys the sense of rock-bottom faith and endurance as
the Eternal Jew. Anna France, as the Sage's daughter, is pretty
and fresh a young talent as the Yiddish stage has seen in a long
while.
As a production, the play, to be
presented weekends, owes much of its success to the beautiful
sets and costumes designed with painstaking care by Lidia
Pincus-Gani and brought to faithful reality by Eleanor Knowles.
David Licht's direction, as always in the Folksbiene, was most
effective in maneuvering the large cast of twenty-five about the
stage without impeding the action.
A group of Israeli diplomats, led
by Mrs. Golda Meir, the Foreign Minister, attended the showing.
Although Yiddish runs strong among many Israelis who came from
Europe, it is, of course, second to the official language,
Hebrew. The two tongues had struggled bitterly for dominance in
Jewish affairs for many years, and the appearance of Israelis at
one of New York's oldest and most respected Yiddish institutions
evoked applause and pleasure from the audience, indicating,
perhaps, that at least a tolerance, if not a rapprochement, has
been established.
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The Cast of Characters: |
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The Synopsis
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"We are not alone in sorrow,
in
Jewish torment; over us --
the living agonies of generations."
The action
takes place in Dachau in 1943 and in Mainz, Germany,
from 1286 to 1293.
In the concentration camp at Dachau we see a
young man, Daniel, wracked with pain and fever. He
thinks he hears the voice of his bride, Esther,
from the women's camp where she is being tortured
and crying out for help. In his feverish
hallucinations he sees his departed parents. He is
seized with grief and anguish.
The symbolic prototype of the eternal Jew then
appears and leads him along the path of the martyrs
of past generations. They arrive in the German city
of Mainz, where the Gaon (intellectual leader), Reb
Meir b. R. Baruch, lives with his daughters, Esther
and Rachel. Known as the Maharam, or Sage, Reb Meir
was the Chief Rabbi and the Master of the Mainz
Yeshiva. At the moment when we arrive to Mainz it
is shortly after a pogrom.
Among those who had instigated the pogrom, is
also the proselyte, Knup, whom the Maharam had
excommunicated, whom he had rejected as suitor for
his daughter, Esther's hand, and on whom he had put
a curse. Knup, seeking revenge from all Jews, vows
to destroy the Maharam.
An emissary arrives from Palestine at this
time, and he urges the Jews to leave Mainz for
Palestine where he claims the Messiah has already
revealed himself. But the Maharam asks him to leave
the city, forbidding him to mislead the folk with
talk of a false Messiah. Daniel, meanwhile, sees
Reb Meir's daughter, Esther and is entranced by her
resemblance to his bride.
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