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LUDWIG SATZ TELLS ABOUT HIS LAST TRIP

ACROSS THE WORLD*
 

He is Now returning from europe and argentina.

-- What he says about the yiddish theatre in the various countries.
 

August 30, 1935

 

 

Ludwig Satz, the famous comic actor has this day returned from his trip across Europe. He said that he brought a pair of plays, one from ..., and the second from ... writer, who according to his opinion, a little .... New York ... Who the playwright is, he has not mentioned, and he also has not given the names of the plays, as he was afraid that ... will from the ..., will catch on," and ... similar plays ...

... writer of these lines ... comic visit in his ..., he has, Satz, ... satisfaction that he ... return to New York.

... is good -- he has ... -- but in this case is ... .

... "You look at this ..." he said, "with his finger on himself." -- A love of language. Mom and Dad spoke the language after all!

The trouble with Antwerp is that there is no respectable theatre there. One plays Yiddish theatre there in a hall, and the sets are so old that they still remember the times of Abraham.

-- The Jews there are very warm people; they pay homage to a guest, and they make him feel good -- Satz tells.

But, when he speaks with enthusiasm about the Jews in Antwerp, Satz speaks without enthusiasm about the Jews in Kovno.

-- In Kovno -- he said -- I played for eight weeks and played every day. But the Jews did not want to pay the price for tickets. The prices were the usual, but they explained that they will wait until the prices will be cheaper, and do you think they did not win? The prices really had to be made cheaper ...

"Well, who did that?" -- Later many Jews said triumphantly -- "That one waits, one expects!"

-- In Kovno -- Satz continued to tell -- there are many intelligentsia who refrain from speaking Yiddish. They cannot speak Lithuanian fluently. They speak Russian between each other, and they feel good about it. It is "intelligent" ...

-- And this is not fine for them -- Satz tells -- Yiddish is a beautiful language ... I also speak Yiddish, and I was not sent from America for that, and let me tell you another secret: For us in New York there are more Litvaks than in all of Lita (Lithuania), and they are dear people. They never expect tickets to be cheaper. They come to the theatre and pay the prices. They are the right Litvaks ...

From Kovno Satz traveled to Warsaw.

-- In Warsaw -- he said -- Yiddish theatres can be found, but only two of them are successful. The other two also are successful, but  with many guest-actors, who come there to play, who have driven away the theatre visitor with their cheap plays. When the audience gets better plays, they come. But once they are tricked, they stay away from the theatre.

Playing in Warsaw, Satz was in the largest theatre, and according to him he assures that all of the productions were strongly attended. There he appeared in the operettas, "His Wife's Lover" and Kalmanowitz's "Life Marches On." In Warsaw he played for nine weeks. There are mostly "tear-jerkers" and "revues," that said: "A bit of every type of play ... The intellectuals come to the serious plays, and when they feel good about a play, they are not ashamed to applaud.

And here in Warsaw there are plenty of the intelligentsia who can even fill a large theatre, if a good play is put on, and also if they will play well.

For the Jews in Lodz, Satz is enthusiastic. They are the best theatre visitors, he said. The Lodz Jews are not ashamed of Yiddish, and they are not ashamed of one another. In the theatre the rich and the poor come, the intelligentsia and the common people, and they go to the theatre in the middle of the week, just as on Saturday evening.

And if he would not have had to come in time to New York to make rehearsals in the Second Avenue Theatre, where he will play this coming season, he would still be able to play there to full houses, though for three months' time, Satz said.

In Berlin he spent four days. He tells that they went to see the Hakenkreuz. It is not the former Berlin. The guests had lost their former rights. There is no life. They saw no Jews in the streets, and on the train it was very sad, and in restaurants, in which one finds at the stations, very few people sit, and they are like dumb. They speak no words out loud, but it feels that when one looks at them, that through their silence, they are suppressing the tragedy that plays out in their hearts.

-- I also want you to know many more accounts about my trip in the various countries, -- Satz ended the conversation with the "Forward" writer -- but I choose to write several articles in the "Forward" about this. Therefore I will not tell all about that which I now see and hear from that side of the ocean.

 

 * - This translation into English was made from an original, digital copy that was folded and not completely visible, hence some of the copy is missing.
 

 

 



 

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