Photographers
unknown

Sitter
Samuel Goldenberg, February 8, 1886 - October 31, 1945

Date
unknown

Type
Portrait

Medium
Photograph

Credit Line
The Jewish Forward

Testimony
"In those days the Yiddish theatre world began to look to the heavens for a new star for the Yiddish theatre. And as did once the great Italian maestro Toscanini answer a prima donna for the Metropolitan Opera House, when they were both confused. "I am a star," she wrote, and he answered: "Stars are only in heaven, and you spin around on the boards of a stage."

But a star is a star, and as clouds began to arrive on the stars of contemporary Yiddish theatre, the Yiddish theatre looked for a new star. Without violence, without shouting, there was announced in a mid-week performance the appearance of an unknown, foreign actor, in an unknown, foreign play. But one saw for oneself an elegant, unpretentious figure, with a tasteful, elegant and elastic, flexible, a European attitude; one who has who to sell to the public, and mostly how to sell the art. Overnight there came a new star from the heavens for the Yiddish theatre, Samuel Goldenberg.

In Yiddish theatre there began a great debate and argument, which became a new theme -- Goldenberg.

The play in which Goldenberg performed in for the first time in America was a Spanish drama by Gimari, in Yiddish it was called, "Oyf der zindiger erd (On the Sinful Earth)." Many actors felt that Goldenberg was indeed very good in the play, but they wanted to see him in a Yiddish play from our repertoire.

The second play in which Goldenberg appeared was Anshel Schorr's "Shir hashirim (Song of Songs)," with my music. In "Shir hashirim" Goldenberg had already convinced the "patriots", the critics, the actors, mainly the constant, non-forgivers, that he could act in a play from our repertoire, and that he is one of us, a Yiddish actor with all the virtues, and one virtue, an addition who was well-received in the play, "Shir hashirim": like the role from "Shir hashirim" is that of a music professor who has to play the piano on stage.

When they performed the play for the first time in New York, with Morris Moshkowitz as the music professor, I used to play the piano from behind the stage, and Moshkowitz used to sit at the piano on the stage, like he was really playing it. But Samuel Goldenberg appeared that beyond the magnificent acting of the romantic, passionate, elegant, noble music professor Oppenheim, that only Samuel Goldenberg knew how to play, that indeed he alone was playing the piano, and it appeared that besides a great actor, he was a good pianist and very musical.

The first play in which Goldenberg performed was a Spanish one; the second, "Shir hashirim," he had seen Morris Moshkowitz play in London (He indeed acted in the London Pavilion Theatre, where  Morris Moshkowitz was a star and manager), and the patriots (i.e. fans) of Adler and Kessler, with the entire theatre family, had proposed that they wanted to see Samuel Goldenberg in a new play, in which he alone would play the role and play this type.

During that time, patriots or critics had plenty of sway over who would be performing.

They staged a drama of New York life, written by Osip Dymow, "Der shtot gayst (The Town Spirit)," in which Goldenberg played Mephisto, a type of Uriel Acosta, and although the play did not have the wished-for success, Goldenberg however showed that they could rely on him.

In two months' time, Goldenberg stood on the star pedestal as a "full-fledged star" of the Yiddish theatre."

Source of Testimony
Joseph Rumshinsky, "Joseph Rumshinsky Tells About Fifty Years of Yiddish Theatre," Forward, March 16, 1953.