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JACQUES BERGSON2,
by
Victor Felder
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At the
time of its production by Maurice
Schwartz's Yiddish Art Theatre on 30
October 1936, “Jacques Bergson" was
a new play in two acts and fifteen
scenes by Victor Felder, and it was
translated from the French by Jacob
Nadler.
The production took place at
the Forty-Ninth Street Theatre,
Forty-Ninth Street, W. of Broadway
in New York City.
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photo: Maurice Schwartz, in the
leading role in "Jacques Bergson",
1935.
Photograph courtesy of
the New York Times (via ProQuest). |
There was a
controversy as to whether the author of this
play, Victor Felder, was simply a nom de plume
of Maurice Schwartz. According to author Martin
Boris, in his unpublished biography about
Maurice Schwartz: "There is some controversy
over the play Schwartz brought back with him
from Paris. Jacques Bergson was supposedly
written by Victor Felder, a French playwright.
Everything points to Felder actually being none
other than Maurice Schwartz, hiding behind yet
another stick figure. Indeed, Schwartz was an
experienced dramatist, three of his complete
manuscripts slumbering in YIVO’s archives,
including 'The Cloud', the play he’d written for
Celia Adler when they were together in
Philadelphia. There is sufficient evidence
pointing to Schwartz and Felder being one in the
same. On December 5, 1936, Maurice received a
letter from the U.S. copyright office in
Washington, D.C., denying his application to
register Jacques Bergson, 'an unpublished
dramatic composition [which] gives as the author
Victor Felder, a citizen of France. Is not Mr.
Felder the author of the original version? It is
understood that the copy deposited is not the
original version, but a Yiddish translation and
adaptation for the Yiddish stage' (Bouve, 5 Dec
1936). On the surface, it appears that there is
no original copy of the Felder manuscript,
because there is no original Mr. Felder. And
yet, the play that opened on October 31, 1936,
credited Jacob Nadler with the translation from
the French. Nadler was a real enough person, a
bit player at the Art Theatre, who spoke not a
word of French. But real or trumped up, Felder’s
name appeared in the credits, his play directed
by Schwartz, who took the main role, followed by
his core of steady players. William Schack liked
the piece, comparing it to previous Art Theatre
selections and complimenting Maurice for 'one of
the most full-bodied performances of his career'
(Times, 31 Oct 1936). Schwartz played the
right-wing Jewish father of two socialist sons
during the turbulent 1930s in Paris. American
Jews however seemed less than sympathetic over
the plight of French Jews. The play ran for
eight uninspired weeks, then was replaced on
Christmas Day by something completely different,
Jacob Prager’s ''The Water Carrier. (Prager
would perish later with fellow playwrights Mark
Arnstein and Alter Katzine in the Warsaw
Ghetto.)"2
This Yiddish Art
Theatre production had the following cast:
Maurice Schwartz, Alex Tenenholtz, Zvi Scooler,
Herschel Bernardi, Anna Teitelbaum, Berta
Gerstin, Lazar Freed, Anna Appel, Judith
Abarbanel, Michel Rosenberg, Aaron Kier, Anatole
Winogradoff, Bronia Newman, Samuel Lehrer, Louis
Hyman, Morris Silberkasten, Charlotte Arnon,
Solomon Krause, Wolf Goldfaden, Max
Friedlander, Ben Besenko, Wolf Goldfaden, Robert
Harris, Rosetta Bialis and Eva Franklin.
Workers, Chalutzim, Fascists, Police, played by
the Studio Group: D. Alexander, A. Golub, E.
Rubin, I. Sanik, M. Toby, B. Metz, J. Buxbaum,
H. Hochstein, L. Siegel, Z. Freedman, I. Herman,
E. Freedlander, L. Bialy, B. Basin, Miriam
Nuvia.
The action takes
place in Paris. Time: The present.
So, here then, is the
synopsis of Felder's "Jacques Bergson". The
name of the actor or actress who portrayed a particular
role is listed in parentheses):
SYNOPSIS
ACT ONE
Jacques Bergson
(Maurice Schwartz), a widower for fifteen years,
toils untiringly at the bar in his small cafe in
Paris to save every sou for the education of his
children. He is a typical French petit
bourgeois, proud of his fatherland and of
Napoleon, whose portrait hangs conspicuously in
his home. A Republican and anti-Communist, he is
at odds with his eldest son, Philippe (Alex
Tenenholtz), who has become a radical. His
second son, Anatole (Zvi Scooler), who is about
to be graduated as a jurist, is his chief
solace. It is the father's dream that some day
the boy will become President of France.
A veteran of the
world war, Jacques Bergson has a wooden leg to
show for his bravery in the trenches. And it is
because he is above all a Frenchman, that he has
taken no interest in the Jewish life of the
community, a precedent established by his sires
before him. Both his daughter, Marianne (Anna Teitelbaum), and his youngest son, Michel
(Herschel Bernardi), do not share this viewpoint
and there is a studied estrangement. But it is
Louise (Berta Gerstin), the housekeeper who has
mothered his brood, who manages to maintain a
semblance of family life.
The rise of Nazism
has caused an influx of refugees from Germany.
Anatole, touched by their misery, helps
ameliorate their pitiful condition through
social service work. Thus he meets Gertrude
(Judith Abarbanel), refugee daughter of the
distinguished Professor Hertz (Lazar Freed). He
shares the bitterness of Gertrude's position and
finds a growing hatred toward the smug,
complacent Susanne (Charlotte Arnon), his
wealthy fiancée, and toward her uncompromising
banker father (Morris Silberkasten). The sudden
awakening that life's cruelties to others has
made him a Socialist has also made his
engagement to Susanne an impossibility.
Anatole, at a time
when his father is having a party in honor of
his graduation, is arrested for his part in a
street brawl with Fascists who are provoking
disorders against the German immigrants.
Gertrude notifies Bergson of the arrest and the
startled father demands the release of his son
by virtue of the sacrifices he has made on the
battlefield for the fatherland. The police
release Anatole, but the youth, instead of
coming to his own party where his rich fiancée
awaits him, escorts Gertrude to her home. The
dazed Bergson accompanies them.
Here the father
see a number of refugees assembled in Professor
Hertz's apartment. Each bears his own tragic
burden. One insists that salvation lies in
Palestine; a second prefers America, while a
third argues that the League of Nations should
espouse their cause; they are German citizens
and entitled to their rights as human beings. Anatole finds solace in the thought that France
will shelter these unfortunate refugees. Bergson
insists that his son leaves the apartment. Anatole departs, but once in the street, he
scouts the idea of meeting his rich fiancée; he
prefers to stay with the poor refugees. Crushed
by this pronouncement, the desperate Bergson
tells of his toils and sacrifices to educate him,
so that one day he might become a man of high
office. Indeed, he cites his own tragic life,
the bitterness that has been his since the death
of their mother, but the tears are in vain.
Fiercely he curses the Nazis for having driven
these alien Jews to Paris, thereby wrecking his
life. Angrily he pounds at Professor Hertz's
door, shouting "Open foreigners! A French
citizen calls you to account for having robbed
him of his hope in life!"
Philippe, at work
against his will in his father's cafe, manages
to hold communist meetings in the old man's
absence. Bergson learns of the secret meetings
in his shop and summarily dismisses his son,
further engendering the hatred of the boy. Meanwhile, Michel's youngest son becomes interested
in the Chalutzim (pioneers) who are training to
go to Palestine where they can have their own
fatherland. Bergson is perplexed and cannot
understand such alien feelings in his son: He
calls upon Michel to remember he is a Frenchman,
but the boy is inspired only by the thought of a
Jewish homeland. To add to poor Bergson's
burden, Marianne, his daughter, announces she is
going to marry out of her faith and wants the
father's consent to a church wedding. Thus the
conflict between the father and children grows
sharper. And as the curtain descends upon the
first act, Bergson is hopefully writing to the
President of France to advise him how to bring
peace and tranquility to his home.
ACT TWO
Happily married to
Gertrude, Anatole's party puts him up as a
candidate for Parliament. Comes then news of
Arab riots in Palestine. Even their homeland is
to be denied them now, and Professor Hertz asks:
"Whither shall we go? Whither shall we wend our
way? Where shall we lay our weary bodies?" The
only answer is a pistol shot fired by a refugee
driven by despair to suicide.
The Popular Front
has united the two, Philippe and Anatole, in the
battle for social freedom. The Rightist
Republican party is the only one Jacques
believes in, and Susanne's banker father and
Marianne's fiancée, Gravel (Wolf Goldfaden),
prevail upon him to agitate against his sons and
turn his cafe into a Rightest center to combat
his revolutionary sons. Jacques is no orator;
but in simple words that come from his heart, he
appeals to his neighbors not to vote for those
who have robbed him of his children. He does not
know Karl Marx, but he does know that he has
alienated his children from him. Both sons enter
and try to impress upon their father that he is
fighting for the forces of darkness. He orders
them to leave his house; the freedom of Napoleon
is the only freedom left him and he will fight
to the last for the Republic. A Fascist yells
out, "Both father and sons are accursed Jews!"
and hurls a stone at Jacques, who falls to the
floor with a deep gash in his head. The sons
lift up their old father and try to revive him. Anatole arouses him -- with these comforting
words: "Open your eyes, father; a new France is
being born!"
The Chalutzim,
deprived of the possibility of going to
Palestine, are desperate. Pessimism pervades
their hearts. These young people want to live,
and labor on their own soil, but the Arab
rioter, knife in hand, insists that the doors of
the land be closed to Jews. Michel brings them
money and food. He has lost his heart to the
Chalutzim. Their revived hope finds expression
in national dances and songs.
Jacques' injured
head is healing up, but the stone has left an
everlasting mark, He now views life in a
different light; no longer will he fight on the
field of battle. Gertrude brings him the news
that Anatole and Philippe have both been elected
to Parliament. She begs him to make peace with
his sons. Michel asks him for permission to go
to Palestine and become a Chalutz there. Jacques
gives his consent. He cannot go there himself --
he wants his ashes to rest beside his wife's
grave on French soil. On hearing the band of the
victorious Popular Front strike up a march, he
asks for his old uniform and goes off to parade
with his sons in the march of freedom.
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