FROM Clayton Hamilton's Seen on the Stage, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1920:

THE JEWISH ART THEATRE

During the last three decades, New York has developed from an essentially American city to a cosmopolitan metropolis. In addition to many other elements, it now contains within itself the largest Jewish population that has ever been assembled in one place within the compass of recorded time. More than a million Jews, most of whom are recent immigrants from eastern Europe, are now congregated in that section of Manhattan which bulges eastward from the Bowery and stretches an arm across the bridge to Williamsburg; and this is a bigger population than Jerusalem could boast of in the heyday of its glory. In the political sense, these people are Americans; for most of them have been naturalized as citizens of the United States, and their votes, as individuals, count just as heavily in a popular election as the votes of Woodrow Wilson, William Howard Taft, or any of the sons of Theodore Roosevelt. But these newcomers to the melting-pot are alien in race, in religion, in language, in customs, and in culture; and a critic of the arts, while not denying the validity of their participation in our body politic, will find it most convenient to consider them as foreigners. They print their own newspapers, and they conduct their own theatre, in a language that can neither be read nor understood by Americans whose ancestors were born in this country; and, for the average citizen of the older stock, a study of the Ghetto of New York will be just as revelatory of other times and lands as a visit to the most foreign of foreign cities overseas.

The language of this gigantic community of congregated Jews is not Hebrew, but Yiddish. Hebrew is a scholarly and ancient language, like Greek or Latin, that has to be studied from books; but Yiddish is a comparatively recent speech that is still in the making. It is derived from old high German; but the grammar has been debased, the vowel sounds have been vulgarized, and the vocabulary has been cluttered with accretions from the slang of every country to which, in recent centuries, the Jews have wandered. Yiddish has no historic standing as a learned language; and, to foreign ears, it sounds acidulous and sharp. It would seem to be unsuited for literary purposes; yet a considerable Yiddish literature has sprung into existence within the last quarter of a century, both for the library and for the stage; and the geographical center of this new creation is New York. Many of our citizens of older stock may be surprised to learn that, in several communities of Europe which we have never heard of, New York is now revered as the center of Yiddish culture in the current world.

It is an old joke of ours to regard the Jews as primarily avid for money, whereas they are not nearly so penurious as certain races, like the Scots, nor so thrifty as certain other races, like the French. The fact is that the Jews are primarily avid for culture. They will go to any effort to educate themselves. In New York, they crowd the City College and overflow into Columbia. They are voracious readers and large listeners: they are more like Goethe's Faust, who desired a monopoly of learning, than like Marlowe's Barabbas, who desired a monopoly of wealth. Man to man, they are better educated than their Anglo-Saxon fellow-citizens of equal station; and this fact is proved by their artistic undertakings and accomplishments.

The greatest glory of the largest Jewish city of all time is the Yiddish theatre; and this theatre, though young in years, demands the serious consideration of disinterested critics. The first important Yiddish dramatist to win a place in history was the late Jacob Gordin, whose career attained its climax about twenty years ago. Of Gordin and his works I may speak with a certain authority, for this author was an intimate friend of mine, and I adapted into English - with the valuable assistance of Mr. Samuel Shipman - a play of Gordin's, entitled The Kreutzer Sonata, which subsequently served as a vehicle, for several seasons, for the late Blanche Walsh. Gordin was a Russian Jew, and, when he came to this country, he was obliged to learn the Yiddish language, which was new to him. He was an enormous, bearded creature, with large eyes; and he looked as if he might be carrying a bomb in the pocket of his overcoat. Yet, in reality, he was a kindly and domestic person. He lived, when I first knew him, in the Bronx; and afterwards, he lived in Brooklyn. He was the prolific author of a hundred plays in Yiddish, a thousand stories and articles in Russian and German and Yiddish, and fourteen children, who have become Americans; and several evenings a week, he used to deliver lectures on learned subjects, in German or in Yiddish, to educate his people. He made money from his plays; but he always gave his lectures for nothing. His plays were written in pencil, in three-cent copy books, beginning at the back and working forward to the front. He would write you a play, whenever it was needed, in a week or two. The plots were seldom original. Like Moliere, Gordin "took his own where he found it," but he would easily domesticate an old plot from Shakespeare, or from Plautus, or from Alphonse Daudet, among the Jewish people, and employ it as a framework for an authentic study of Jewish characters. His plays were always veritably Yiddish before he was through with them.

I used to admire Gordin mainly for his copiousness; for he was a giant, like old Dumas, who never grew tired at all and always got things done. In detail, he was a realist; his observation was meticulous, and his records were exact. I could never judge his dialogue, because I was too lazy to learn Yiddish or even to study out the Hebrew alphabet with which Yiddish is recorded. Twenty years ago, when Gordin ruled the Yiddish stage, his innumerable plays were illustrated, up and down the Bowery, by many able actors -Adler, Kessler, Moskowitz, Mrs. Kalich - all of whom I knew and valued in the adventurous early days of the Yiddish drama. For instance, I was one of the many people from "uptown" whose pleadings finally persuaded Mrs. Kalich to learn the English language and to transfer her activities to the American stage.

Since Jacob Gordin's day, the Yiddish theatre has developed. It was always true in its report of life, but, latterly, it has grown beautiful as well. An obvious improvement has been made in the departments of scenery and lighting, which were neglected by the busy Gordin as subsidiary matters. New authors, like David Pinski, who have come to us from Europe, are more poetical than Gordin; new actors, like Ben-Ami, are more poetical than Kessler, the Yiddish theatre mounts and mounts.

How does it now stand in comparison with our " American " theatre, which is controlled by Mr. Shubert and Mr. Erlanger,-both of whom are Jews? This question, when submitted to a disinterested critic, may be answered very quickly. The Yiddish theatre in New York is now superior to the "American" theatre in New York at nearly every point. The American theatre is aimed at money-making, but the Yiddish theatre is aimed at art. The Yiddish theatre is more cultivated and more cultured; and this achievement has been registered by a group of people who have been resident among us for only a quarter of a century. If we choose to regard these people as foreigners, we are condemned to take our hats off to them. But to remove the hat is a salutary exercise; for it reminds us to respect "the grand old name of gentleman."

The marvelous growth of New York along lines that have been indicated has recently been emphasized by the taking over of the Garden Theatre by an incorporated company entitled The Jewish Art Theatre. Many of us who have not yet attained the dignity of middle age remember the old Garden Theatre as the place where we used to go to see the unforgotten Mansfield and the unforgettable Irving. Now this auditorium is raucous with the sharp and acid accents of the Yiddish language; yet, undeniably, the panorama that is exhibited upon the stage is more beautiful, from the artistic point of view, than most of the visions of life that are offered nightly in the newer theatres that are clustered in the region of Times Square. The growing tendency of the Yiddish people to overflow their foregone boundaries might, imaginably, have been resented, if their advent in Madison Square had not been marked by an appreciable contribution to the art-life of the metropolis. But it would be absurdly uncritical to entertain a prejudice against the Jews, so long as the Jews are able to equal or excel us in the art of the theatre.

The first artistic director of The Jewish Art Theatre was Emanuel Reicher. Mr. Reicher has long been recognized as one of the ablest actors and most progressive directors of the German stage. He was the original exponent - by arrangement with the author - of several leading parts in the plays of Ibsen; and he was one of the initiators of the important movement which resulted in the organization of the Deutsche Freie Buhne. In his direction of The Jewish Art Theatre, he has shown us something which requires a salutation.

The Idle Inn [Die Puste Kretchme] is a romantic folk-comedy by Peretz Hirshbein, a Russian Jew who has recently been allured to migrate to New York as the Mecca of Yiddish culture in the current world. The play itself is singularly simple. The name of the heroine is Maite; and Maite loves her cousin, Itzik. But Maite's father, named Bendet, abhors his nephew Itzik, because he suspects him of being a horse-stealer. Bendet formally arranges a marriage between his daughter, Maite, and Laibish; but Itzik spirits Maite away and elopes with her. Then ensues a primordial scene, set in a lonely place in a forest, in which the passionate love of these two fugitants approaches its fruition. They are separated by a bevy of pursuers, led by their parents; but subsequently, in the end of all, they are reunited.

The whole play is admirably acted. The leading man, Ben-Ami, reveals a sculptural sense in the handling of his body that reminds us of the Graeco-Roman; the leading woman, Celia Adler, is passionate and appealing; and a female veteran, named Binah Abramowitz, contributes a mellow performance of the mother of the heroine. The scenery is positively beautiful, and the lighting is impeccable. But the hand of a great directive artist - Emanuel Reicher - is most clearly shown in the second act. This act exhibits the wedding ceremony which celebrates the undesired linking of Maite to Laibish. Throughout my long experience of going to the theatre, I have never seen a crowd so admirably handled. Everybody seemed alive at every moment; and I was reminded, by this ensemble scene, of the lasting reputation left behind them by the Saxe-Meiningen performers, whom I never saw, because their work was done before my time. No group acting so generally excellent as that of the second act of The Idle Inn has been shown, within my memory, at least, upon the American stage.