It is already a rule that people live with the past, neglect the present and look with regret to the future.

"Oh, the past, the past! This is not the past." -- We often hear people regret with weeping palms, especially in our Yiddish theatre world. "Once they sang, once they played theatre, once they spoke on the stage -- it was language, there were actors, tall, strong, healthy. Oh, the past, the past! Not the former times, no more the Adlers, the Kesslers, the Mogulescos!"

Just like people complain now about the "past" in the Yiddish theatre world, in the past they also complained. Then the people complained about it:

"Oh, the past, the past! No more the Gradners, the Shlifersteins, the Goldsteins, the Karps."

We Jews especially long for this time, even moreso the American Jews, and it is quite natural. No matter how much we may not have lived in this country, we carry in our hearts a constant feeling of home, because they are the cornerstone of our lives. We are still lying there, on the other side of the sea. Up until the twenty years we spent there, those years call out a permanent feeling of home, and this home feeling calls out a longing for that time.

Whatever it is and from where it may have come, it is a fact that we lament and long for this once and especially for the former Yiddish theatre. Well, let's actually try to discuss the question of how right we are with our concern about the former Yiddish theatre.

A certain community in New York has not been able to support a cantor for years. When they had a cantor in their synagogue, they used to always shout: This is not our cantor from the old country, it is not Sender Gorgel. The older people used to have on in every Sabbath and every holiday and at every prayer without a Sender Gorgel, without his "Kol Nidre," his "Sabbath blessings," his Lamentations, --- how do today's cantors come to this ?! 

Until it was decided at a meeting to send for another Sender Gorgel, and a letter was written to Sender Gorgel. He was asked how he feels, does he still have the voice, and he answered immediately that then when they had heard him it wasn't so great, that only now does he have the right voice, and he will simply transform America with it.

The association sent for Sender Gorgel, and he came to transform America. The community was full of joy -- first now they will have a true cantor from the old country, and they prepared their American children for the pleasure that they will enjoy.

The synagogue was packed, and Sender Gorgel gurgled himself: he turned here and there, turning over one word twenty times -- here in America, who has time for that? And moreover all the melodies (nigunim) are in one intonation. The Jews had phonographs and radios, and hearing all the good [melodies] in his own home, their hearing and taste became quite different for the time. In short, they became dark in the eyes. They were still ashamed for the American children. It goes without saying that Sender Gorgel became a second sexton in the same synagogue, because the first sexton must be an Americanized ideal ...

Oh, the past, the past! Once upon a time they played Yiddish theatre, once upon a time there were actors! -- so we often heard the older actors complain, as well as the same from the older followers of the Yiddish theatre.

The longing once again is a sign of antiquity. Perhaps the longing for the former Yiddish theatre has the same face as the longing for the synagogue of the old-country and Cantor Sender Gorgel?

The mirror of theatre is the intelligence of the actors, because they know how high the theatre stands. Let's see how intelligent the actors are, their cultural development, because it goes hand in hand with the theatre. It is worth comparing the cultural development and the relation to the theatre in general of the past and present actors.

When the writer of this article came to the Yiddish theatre, this Yiddish theatre was then thirty-some-odd years old. I remember when I came to the first rehearsal some twenty years ago. I had to study a duet with two actresses. One of them had played the role of a boy, and the second -- a girl. I wrote the name, and under the name the words, as is usually done. Handing them the pages, I noticed that they had become both restless and confused. One who was then almost a star, replied: "What do we need the name with the words? You sing and we will sing to you."

It did not take me long to find out that one of them could not read any language at all; about the name it had already been settled, and the other knew a little Yiddish, and there was also a printout that your grandmother taught you from the Chumash.

It is a fact, perhaps a sadder fact, that one of them who has figured in Gordin's plays as the greatest star of that time, could not read or write any language. She used to learn her roles externally --- someone used to speak, and she used to imitate them for so long until the words broke in her head.

About piano playing and singing, learning is still undeniable. They did not need it and did not know it. There was absolutely no piano on the stage. The piano was quite a dummy, that is, a piece of furniture made like a piano, the keys painted black and white, so that it should look like a true piano. In short, seventy-five percent of the former Yiddish actresses could not read or write. They were simply ignorant ... (I'm not talking about talent here.) Now it's worth comparing them to the actresses of today's theatre.

About reading and writing, it is nevertheless agreed. There is virtually no one who can not only speak Yiddish, but good English and a few other languages. (Usually, now there are other omissions, but as it should not be, fact remains fact.) It is worth noting that when I went to a rehearsal, I had been away for a while from the piano. They clinged to the piano, as we do in cheder, the boys to their buttons [kneplekh] when the Rebbe goes out for a while. And they not only played ragtime, but Beethoven, Chopin and Mozart. Many of the current Yiddish actresses before they came to the Yiddish theatre were piano musicians. The best singing teachers of New York have in the young Yiddish actors and actresses the best students and indeed the best customers. More than once my Yiddish song was being studied by an actor or actress with an Italian or French singing teacher. I do have arguments with some of them about this, because they showed the character of the song. But it is nevertheless a fact that when it comes to better cultural work, both in music and in literature, there is no comparison between the past and the present. Rehearsals in Yiddish theatre are often hampered by the fact that actors and actresses come with a book under their arm and are interested in their reading, and when it comes to their "next," they are aroused from reading.

David Kessler had told us once: I read few Yiddish papers. I once used to read the German "Herald," because it was me [tsunutz] who came to my roles. (Daytshmerish [Germanified] was then spoken on the Yiddish stage.)

Mogulesco used to read the "American Journal," and his greatest interest was in prize fights. He was a passionate follower of prize fights.

However, Jacob P. Adler used to read only plays, and not such plays as roles (This weakness is still present in some of our current stars as well.) Once I remarked that Jacob Adler had respect for the intelligent, especially for those who spoke Russian and wore long hair.

When Sholem Aleichem came twenty years ago, people treated him like a Hasidim. Over the course of three weeks, two theatres killed two of his best plays and perhaps twenty of his finest types. This was due to the fact that very few of the actors at the time who read them to him, and the transition from the Germanified historical operettas, and from Jacob Gordin's large-scale homage to monologues to his lively types, were quite simply difficult for the actors. Going into the specific Yiddish short words and allusions of Sholem Aleichem's types was for them a parting of the Red Sea. And that is why he had such a short number of years in the Yiddish theatre back then.

It is fact that Peretz Hirshbein's play, "A Faraway Corner," had been in a certain theatre for eleven years until Maurice Schwartz staged it. As was said, the actors and producers back then simply could not get into the short, authentic Yiddish phrases.

Oh, the past, oh, in the past they played Yiddish theatre!

Yes, once upon a time the actors and their managers used to depart for their summer dwellings, where they had a great time and completely forgot about the theatre. And when they came back two weeks in order to act, it was: For heaven's sake, where do you get a play? It has never happened that in the last rehearsal, that is, in the general rehearsal, it was not yet known what happened in the last act; and not only at the general rehearsal, but when they already have played the first two acts, the writer of the play sat behind the stage and wrote the last act, and the star wrote to him: Tell me, dr'erd areyn, what happens to me (that is, in the play) -- I die, whether I married her, dr'erd areyn! ... It was irresponsible because the public was considered to be Moses. It took many years to convince the Yiddish actor that the Jewish public was not Moses. It is a fact, however, that the current Yiddish theatre has a great deal of respect and responsibility for its audience.

Already by the third or fourth rehearsal, now the actors had completely learned their roles.

When it comes to playing now and then, it is nevertheless detached from the operettas. Their former Daytshmerish eyes, with three instruments of singing, one can never compare it to the actual forgetfulness of the operetta. And as for the drama -- we have those who shout violently -- Jacob Gordin! Why don't the non-Jews shout violently -- Sudermann, Hauptmann! The Sudermann's and the Hauptmann's are so played out on the world stage, as with us the drapes.

I do not believe that the former actors could have participated in a "Shabse Tsvi" or "Wolves," mainly in the entire current repertoire of the Yiddish Art Theatre. As was already said, years ago they tried one written by Sholem Aleichem, and it was killed in three weeks' time.

Oh, the past, oh, the past! It is true that once upon a time one went to the theatre with the consciousness that they are going to see a drama, and when they arrived in the theatre, a historical operetta took place, or vice versa. Boos then reigned supreme.

I remember that in one theatre they played on Saturday afternoon "Joseph with his Brothers," and at night in the same theatre they played Shakespeare's "Shylock." And in a second theatre they played on the same Saturday "Hinke Pinke" in the afternoon and at night played "Hamlet." The intelligent actors then, like Moskowitz and Tornberg, had hoped that there would come a time when the operetta and drama would be separated. And now, when we already have virtually reached our goal, we hear complaints, "Oh, the past, oh, the past!"

Let us be fair to some of the former, most intelligent Yiddish actors, such as Rudolph Marks, Moshkowitz, Tornberg, and Feinman. But it is nevertheless a fact that even with Yiddish and with Yiddish literature, they had virtually no interest at all.

Oh, the past, oh, the past! It is true, once upon a time you went to see this and that star in this and that theatre, because he was advertised. When you arrived at the theatre, you found out that he was playing somewhere else, because an hour before the play he had moved to the theatre, and his picture was already hanging there in the second theatre.

In the past, when a chorus singer or a dresser (someone who dressed the actors) of an actor has been removed, got in trouble with the manager, he called out a strike. Every single unionist man could cause a strike because, as has already been said, there had been tremendous chaos and irresponsibility. Now such a thing is impossible in the theatre. Just as the plays, music, and scenery are provided during the summer, so everything is settled with the current responsible representatives of the theatre unions.

Both from the artistic side, as well as the business side, the current Yiddish theatre is positively a healthier and more responsible one than the one before, which many people long for. But there is something to be said -- we Jews have longed for Egypt as well. And the aforementioned community has longed for Sender Gorgel as well. I'm sure that despite all the mistakes of the current Yiddish theatre (which theatre has no mistakes?), when time can look at it with fresh, young eyes of today, he would not miss it. But it is an old rule that we live with the past, we neglect the present and we regret the future.