Jargon theaters were, in more ways than one, very typical of popular theaters at the time. Appreciated as a welcome distraction for many Gentile and Jewish middle-class families, they nevertheless were subjected to the common bürgerlichen biases. Jargon theaters could never deny their burlesque roots in variety theater. Their celebration of the grotesque and their open irreverence for bourgeois proprieties drew large crowds but also fueled the acid commentary of critics. As folk theaters, they underwent a considerable transformation and embourgeoisement; on stage, protagonists muted their shrill tones in the hope that Jargon theater could be included within more “honorable” theater circles. Despite their “ordinary” flair, and their obsession with the treacherous pitfalls of middle-class sociability, these theaters were also original and daring in their inscription of Jewish life into the domesticity of the German middle classes, the self-proclaimed pillars of civic society.

Given the great contemporary demand for light entertainment, choosing to stage one-act comedies might not appear all that exceptional; choosing to use German-Jewish family life as a setting, however, was extraordinary. This choice cannot be fully explained by the commercial or aesthetic considerations of the main actors. Folkloric comedy did cater most effectively to the interpretative talents of the performers in Jargon theaters, to be true, but it was the combination of the performers' individual aspirations as actors and as German-speaking Jews that allowed them to find their own niche in Berlin's theater world.