Photographers
unknown

Sitter
Boris Thomashefsky, May 12, 1968 - July 9, 1939

Date
unknown

Type
Portrait

Medium
Photograph

Credit Line
The Library of Congress

Testimony
"Thomashefsky told me about the reasons for his success. For the Jewish worker at home it is always dark, he told me, because the "quarter-meter" brings light only for the first few minutes, but the light soon reached the new quarter. Thus he sees that the stage has more light. Many lamps of various colors -- a wedding canopy, a sukkah, a shul, all in rich colors.

Speaking with me, I looked a him, this handsome man, and I understood why women, young girls and wives drag their husbands and their fiancé to the People's Theatre. They want to see Thomashefsky.

Thomashefsky explained to me what he should not play -- whether it was a play by a famous writer, or by a beginner -- and that he takes his theatrical playing seriously.

And it was indeed felt in his performances, and it played a serious relationship with the public.

He performed very light operettas, but he was jealous of Adler and Kessler, who played mostly Jacob Gordin's plays. He appeared in Jacob Gordin's "Devorah'le meyukheses (Devorile Mechaisis [Proud Jewess])" and "Dovid'l meshoyrer (David the Choir Singer)," and Leon Kobrin's "Tserisene keytn (Broken Chains).""

Source of Testimony
Joseph Rumshinsky -- "Joseph Rumshinsky Tells About Fifty Years of Yiddish Theatre," Forward, December 29, 1952.