As a young man he studied to become a pharmacist (druggist), and he had an interest in Yiddish literature and with literature in general. A Mogulesco he wasn't. However he had a good pronunciation and brought out every word clearly and distinctly. He was from the actors who had sought the natural, both in his acting, as well as in the play. In his first time in Jacob Gordin's plays, an actor once told him, "Why do you think you're so big and proud of your acting? You're talking on stage the way people talk at home, talking like you're talking on stage, you can also be my grandmother."

In that time there was an English-Jewish manager Al Woods. He staged cheap English melodramas, where thousands of miracles have happened: where people have been shot, hanged, killed. Today one is a beggar, and tomorrow a great millionaire -- and the cheap, American public used to fill the theatre for Al Woods' melodramas.

In those melodramas there was a "Jew comic." Samuel Tornberg's pure pronunciation and Jewish appearance, with his large, Jewish eyes, was as desired as the Jew-comedian for these melodramas, and he played for years on the English stage in the melodramas, and it was really well deserved, because the Yiddish theatre then paid very miserable wages.

Later Berta Kalich went off to England to play in English. This was a great blow to the Yiddish theatre. With her the Yiddish theatre had lost such a majestic figure, like two great cherries, and her diction had given her the opportunity to surrender to the noblest shades and transition into her roles.

With her leaving, the Yiddish theatre lost not only a great power, a great star, but she took with her a great repertoire of plays, and without her the plays lost their charm, its force.

The English theatre embraced Berta Kalich. At that time the English theatre had built a large arts temple -- the Century Theatre. It indeed was seen as an art temple. They opened the Century Theatre with the Greek drama, "Sappho," with the accompaniment of the New York Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of the great conductor Walter Damrosch.

When I saw that production, I did not want to believe it, that this was the young, Lemberg-born Jewish girl who had sung so wonderfully and sweetly on the Yiddish stage. She was under the management of the aristocratic director Mr. Pisk, who had a wife who was also a great dramatic artist, Mrs. Pisk. When I used to see Berta Kalich on the English stage, I had one comfort, that we Jews had the best, the most natural actress, because in English theatre she used to play with the Hamlet-like, dramatic, unnatural tenor. Her every word was as on notes, not natural and not human. But meanwhile the Yiddish theatre lost a great force.

Many times Jacob Adler wanted to take on the English stage, but he stood in the way of the language. He was in no way able to learn the English language correctly. Also Adler was a specific Yiddish actor. They staged "Shylock" with Adler on the English stage, but the actors spoke a Shakespearean English, and Adler played the main role of "Shylock" in Yiddish. He received no great applause, and that ended his career on the English stage.