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ROAMING STARS1,
by Sholem Aleichem
(Yiddish: Blondzende shtern)
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Introductory note -- "The present
play is a dramatization by Maurice
Schwartz of Sholom Aleichem's novel
of the same name. It portrays the
life of the Yiddish stage folk--their
wanderings, adventures, rivalries,
intrigues, peccadilloes, loves--and
traces the development of the
Yiddish theatre from its cradle in
the South of Russia, where a stable
often served [as the] playhouse, and
where both managers and actors
were forced to live by their wits,
rather than the all too meager
box-office receipts, to New York,
scene of its maturity and splendor.
A strange story, preposterous,
pathetic, incredible, yet true in
its essentials. The reader will
understand that this is not a
synopsis of Sholom Aleichem's novel,
but of the play which Mr. Maurice
Schwartz has fashioned from it."
(note prepared by Maximilian
Hurwitz).
"Roaming Stars"
opened on 23 January 1930 at the Yiddish Art
Theatre, Broadway and Twenty-Eighth Street, New
York, a romantic comedy in three acts and sixteen
scenes by Maurice Schwartz, based on the novel
of the same name by Sholom Aleichem, with
incidental music by G. Thuler. Staged by Maurice
Schwartz; settings by Boris Aronson. Executive
Staff: Martin Schwartz, Manager; Oliver M.
Sayler, English Press Agent; Leon Hoffman,
Yiddish Press Agent; Lewis Kasten and Irving L.
Cone, Treasurers, Anne Bordofsky, Manager
Subscription Dept. Stage staff: Boris Aronson,
Scenic Director; Jacob Mestel and Ben-Zion Katz,
Stage Managers; Joseph Schwartzberg, Librarian;
George Teuller, Musical Director. Technical
Staff: William Mensching, Master Carpenter;
Chris. Logan, Master Electrician; Rudolph
Pfeiffer, Master Properties; Israel Misbin,
Superintendent.
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photo: Maurice Schwartz, as "Hotzmach".
Courtesy of the New York Public
Library. |
The cast of this
production included:
Louis Weisberg,
Mark Schweid, Michael Gibson, Joseph Greenberg,
Lazar Freed, Anna Appel, Maurice Schwartz, Adella Lamdon, H. Frank, Pincus Sherman, Bina
Abramowitz, Judith Abarbanel, Stella Adler,
Ben Zion Katz, Berta Gerstin,
Sonia Gurskaya, Sonia Cutler, Jacob Mestel, Gershon Rubin,
Izidore Casher, Joseph Greenberg, Misha Gibson, Morris Strassberg, Hyman Wolkoff,
Boris Weiner, and M. Nussbaum.
According to the
play program, the action takes place in the
first decade of the current century.
So, here is the
synopsis of Sholom Aleichem's "Roaming
Stars". The
name of the actor or actress who portrayed a particular
role is indicated in parentheses:
SYNOPSIS
ACT ONE
A company of
strolling Yiddish players arrives at Holoneshti,
a small town in the then Russian province of
Bessarabia, not far from the Romanian border.
The director of the troupe is Albert Shtchupak
(Louis Weisberg),
a crafty, tight-fisted and unscrupulous man,
while the star (and also master of properties)
is, despite his chronic cough, Bernard Holtzman
(Maurice Schwartz),
better known as "Hotzmach", because of his
brilliant impersonation of the Figaro-like
character of that name in Goldfaden's operetta
"The Witch", -- a character, be it added, with
whom he has much in common. There is little love
wasted between director and star, Shtchupak
planning to get rid of Hotzmach at the first
opportunity, and the latter threatening to form
a troupe of his own.
For [a] playhouse
Shtchupak hires the stable of Rafalovitch
(Michael Gibson), the
local Croessus, and preparations are begun for a
number of performances. As might be expected in
a town so small and so poor, the advance sale of
tickets is practically nil, and the actors are
forced to live pretty much by their wits.
Hotzmach soon ingratiates himself with
Rafalovitch's youngest son Laybel (Joseph
Greenberg), a
stage-struck lad, who thereupon plunders his
father's pantry and purse and keeps the star in
comfort. Realizing that the boy has the makings
of a great actor, Hotzmach persuades him to
steal a large sum of money from his father and
to run away with the troupe.
Now Laybel is in
love with the local cantor's pretty daughter
Raisel (Judith Abarbanel), a girl with a beautiful voice who is
likewise stage-struck. The girl's talents and
stage possibilities do not escape the eyes of
Shtchupak and of his assistant Sholom Mayer
(Mark Schweid); but
when they ask her parents to let Raisel join the
troupe, her pious folks would not hear of it.
When, however, Laybel reveals to her his
intention to run away with the actors and begs
her to go with him, she consents and the two
youthful lovers vow never to part.
But fate wills it
otherwise. When the troupe leaves town with the
two runaway children, the boy is put in the same
wagon, while the girl is put in the wagon that
carries the director. And too late Hotzmach
discovers that Shtchupak has "red-lighted" him--i.e.
cast him of and fled to parts unknown.
ACT TWO
A number of years
later Hotzmach has made a great actor of Laybel
(Lazar Freed),
now known as Leon Rafalesco, the greatest star
on the Yiddish stage in Europe. Hotzmach has
given up acting and become Rafalesco's manager.
His sole fear is that some other manager may
lure the star away from him. In order to
strengthen his hold upon Rafalesco, Hotzmach
tries to make a match between his sister Zlutke
(Sonia Cutler)
and the great actor. As a step in this direction
he trains Zlutke in the art of acting and has
her play opposite Rafalesco; but poor Zlutke,
for all her pathetic efforts, has neither the
talent to become a leading lady, not the charms
to make the star forget his beautiful Raisel,
whose loss has left him disconsolate.
Hotzmach and
Rafalesco are now in Lemberg, where the latter's
acting is the rage of the town. In the same city
there is a theatrical manager named Isik (Pincus
Sherman), whose
sister Henrietta (Berta Gerstin) is a beautiful and gifted
actress. Each manager tries to steal the other's
star, Isik relying on his sister's beauty to
captivate Rafalesco, between the two of whom he
would like to make a match. Finally, Isik and
Hotzmach form a partnership, each investing the
only thing he has to invest, namely his star,
and it is decided that they all go to London,
where Isik has a brother, Nissel (Izidore
Casher), a fortune
awaits the appearance of two such great stars as
Rafalesco and Henrietta.
Rafalesco readily
agrees to go to London, for he has just learned
that his long-lost Raisel is in that city.
Raisel, it turns out, had become a great Yiddish
actress. One day a rich man named Mayer Stelmak
(Gershon Rubin),
father of the renowned violinist Grischa Stelmak
(Misha Gibson),
saw her act and was so captivated by her
beautiful voice and loveliness that he provided
for her musical education under the celebrated
Mme. Sembrich. Now Raphael, known as Rosa Spevak
(Stella Adler),
is a famous singer and appears in joint recitals
with Grischa, whom his father would very much
like to marry Rosa.
The new theatrical
company duly arrives in London only to discover
that the financial backing Nissel had been
counting on did not materialize. Everybody is
disappointed. Henrietta, because her affair with
Rafalesco has not made any headway; Zlutke--now
with child by the actor--for that same reason;
Rafalesco, because by the time he came to
London, Rosa and Grischa had already left for
London. Rosa and Grischa had already left for
America, and Hotzmach, whose lung trouble has
been aggravated by the London climate, because
he suspects his partners of plotting to deprive
him of Rafalesco. After the company is thus
stranded in London for six weeks, Nissel and
Isik inveigle...
Mr. Clummel
(Joseph Greenberg), a
kosher restaurant keeper, to invest his
hard-earned money in their venture and to go
with them to America, where they are sure such a
team as Rafalesco and Henrietta will coin money.
They put the proposition up to Rafalesco in the
presence of Hotzmach, now far gone to
consumption. The latter, realizing his
theatrical days are over, urges his former
protégé to accept the offer. Whereupon all save
Hotzmach and the self-sacrificing Zlutke sail
for New York.
ACT THREE
Rosa Spevak, after
she and the Stelmaks settle down in New York,
sends for her Old World, widowed mother and
installs her in an East Side apartment with all
the appurtenances of an orthodox Jewish home.
The elder Stelmak, overcoming the objections of
Rosa's mother, who does not like the idea of her
daughter marrying a
fiddler, and the
reluctance of Rosa herself, who cannot forget
the truth she plighted to her childhood lover
Laybel, is overjoyed when Rosa, with her
mother's consent, finally agrees to marry
Grischa. To celebrate the occasion, and to
please Rosa's mother, the Stelmaks and Rosa
decide to dine that day in an East Side
restaurant and to polish off the evening by
attending a performance at a Yiddish theatre
where a celebrated European star, Leon Rafalesco,
is to make his American debut that night.
Nissel and Isik
and Clummel, accompanied by their stars, arrive
in New York and soon after enter into
partnership with one Nickels, who has a theatre
on the Bowery. Having settled that Nissel and
Isik get Rafalesco drunk, and while he is in a
state of intoxication, formally announce
Henrietta's' betrothal to him.
The night of
Rafalesco' s first appearance in America. In a
box, watching him act, are Rosa and the Stelmaks,
and Rosa, who was once a Yiddish actress
herself, can hardly believe that the art of
acting has attained such perfection on the
Yiddish stage. In the neighboring box sits
Henrietta, who does not play that night. During
the intermission the two women get into a
conversation, and Rosa soon learns that the
great actor Rafalesco is none other than her
long-lost Laybel. But she and the Stelmaks are
forced to flee from the theatre a moment later
when Nickels, bent on publicity, tactlessly
announces her name and Grischa's among the
celebrities present; for Gnscha, who sniffs at
everything Jewish, fears that it will hurt their
artistic careers if it gets to be known that
they go to see Yiddish plays.
Rafalesco's grief
upon learning of Rosa's precipitate flight from
the theatre can easily be imagined. He becomes
so wrought up that he botches the rest of the
play, and what promised to be a great artistic
triumph ends as a miserable failure. The anger
of the producers and financial backers know no
bounds.
But Rafalesco is
indifferent to their anger and threats. He can
think only of his Rosa, lost and found and lost
again! But the next day a liveried footman
brings him a letter from Rosa which breathes of
love for him and summons him to a tryst in the
Bronx Park. And there, in the house of the
lions, the lovers are at last reunited.
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