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SHOW NOTES: ONE OF THREE
by Barry Robinson
Asbury (NJ) Park Press, May 11, 1966


“If only I had a parking lot,” Ben Bonus mused, “then I wouldn’t have any problems at all.” He was exaggerating, of course, but not that much. When you’re producing Yiddish theater on New York’s Second Avenue these days, there will always be problems. Bonus, however, has had less than most, his biggest one being that prospective patrons can’t find a place to park their cars, which is something impresarios never had to worry about during the Yiddish theater’s prime in the early days of this century.

Back then New York's Jewish population was pretty well concentrated in a shtetl of sorts known as the Lower East Side, of which Second Avenue was a cultural main stream. In the years since, affluence and assimilation have turned the neighborhood into a ghost-like relic of its previous vitality as Jews and gentiles alike joined the suburban migration. Once a gourmet's delight, the area now boasts only two dairy restaurants, the famed Moscowitz and Lupowitz (which served a flaishadich or meat menu), having closed its doors within the past few weeks. Where once there were twenty theatres mounting plays in Yiddish, there are now three.

What he is selling, at this point, is closer to Yiddish vaudeville than theater, but he plans to go legitimate in October with an original vehicle, depicting European shtetl life. The show, which will have music, is expected to run through the entire week, instead of just on weekends as his current offerings are.

The basic theme of his variety shows is to speak Yiddish, and to have a recognizably Jewish flavor. Although a singer will occasionally work in English (or, as on the night we were there, in French), all dialogue is in Yiddish. Since Yiddish is a rather impressionistic tongue, it’s relatively easy—assuming the knowledge of a healthy handful of Yiddishisms—to grasp the general gist of the conversation. The specifics are something else, and that is where Bonus may run into trouble in the less-than-immediate future as less and less Jews find it necessary to know even Yiddishisms, much less the language itself. How will a show urging one to speak Yiddish fare then?

In typical Yiddish fashion, bonus answers the question with—what else?—a question. “How many people who go to the opera speak Italian? They go because they enjoy the music and the flavor of the performance, a flavor that would be lost if it should be translated into English. ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ is not ‘Tevye.’ You can’t translate Yiddish into English without losing something.”

His shows are written by men whose words flow with ease only in Yiddish. Wolf Yunin, M. Nudelman and I. Shulman are the last of a breed of poet-journalists, writers for the dwindling Yiddish language papers, The Day and the Daily Forward. I. Kishon wrote the movie, “Sallah”; Itzhak Yonasovich is a Polish Jew living in Argentina, where Yiddish theater still flourishes strongly, and Mordecai Gebertig is a Jewish folk writer. When the time comes that Jewish generations don’t comprehend Yiddish, Bonus will have a narrator translate what’s to come at the beginning of each scene, but his writers will continue in their mother tongue.

The role of Yiddish theatre in this country is best reflected in one of its most golden moments—when either Jacob Adler or Maurice Schwartz played Shakespeare in Yiddish, bringing the drama of the Bard to immigrants who could not speak English fluently, much les understand Shakespearean usage. The existence of Yiddish theater was then a necessity; now, it is at best a luxury—a good luxury—but nonetheless a luxury.

Still, the crowds are coming to the Village Theatre and will probably continue to do so for some years. Not only old people, whose faces glow with nostalgia from hearing their mother tongue spoken, but young people in search of someday when assimilation has become so thorough that young Jews no longer seek their Yiddish roots. Will the Yiddish theater be able to survive as a cultural entity then as opera no doubt will? Ben Bonus thinks so, but the chances are that, when that day comes, Yiddish theater impresarios will be faced with problems far more difficult than finding a place for their patrons to park.

The role of Yiddish theatre in this country is best reflected in one of its most golden moments—when either Jacob Adler or Maurice Schwartz played Shakespeare in Yiddish, bringing the drama of the Bard to immigrants who could not speak English fluently, much les understand

 

Shakespearean usage. The existence of Yiddish theater was then a necessity; now, it is at best a luxury—a good luxury—but nonetheless a luxury.

Still, the crowds are coming to the Village Theatre and will probably continue to do so for some years. Not only old people, whose faces glow with nostalgia from hearing their mother tongue spoken, but young people in search of someday when assimilation has become so thorough that young Jews no longer seek their Yiddish roots. Will the Yiddish theater be able to survive as a cultural entity then as opera no doubt will? Ben Bonus thinks so, but the chances are that, when that day comes, Yiddish theater impresarios will be faced with problems far more difficult than finding a place for their patrons to park.
 

 

 




 

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