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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 March 2016
This article continues “The Bibliography of the Theatrical Movement of Western Asia and North Africa,”Peter V. Chelkowski, editor, started in the MESA Bulletin XVI. 1 (July 1982), pp. 9–23.
Today’s Hebrew theater is almost as multifaceted and varied as the number of individuals and institutions which comprise it. It is quite a complicated matter to trace its origin, since the cultural roots of modern Israeli society are a multiplicity of ethnic cultures from all over the world. And it is only natural that this ethnic and cultural diversity should be expressed in the theater in general, and in all of its linguistic, pictorial, and gestural components in particular.
The research for this paper has been carried out within the framework of the research project on the development of the Hebrew theater in Palestine, 1890–1948, at the Department of Theatre History, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem. The research was sponsored by the Israel Academy of Sciences, Jerusalem, and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, New York.
1 See Sandrow, Nahma, Vagabond Stars (New York, 1977).Google Scholar An absurd comment on this condition is seen in present-day Poland where there are virtually no Jews, but where there is a Yiddish state theater, the actors of which are almost all non-Jews who learn to perform in Yiddish in the theater’s school.
2 Shmeruk, Rhone, Yiddish Literature: Aspects of its History (Tel Aviv, 1978) [in Hebrew].Google Scholar
3 Shaked, Gershon, The Hebrew Historical Play at the Time of the Revival (Jerusalem, 1970) [in Hebrew].Google Scholar
4 “Hebrew” is in this context not restricted to the language alone; at the time of the first important steps towards the development of the theater, it was often used to point at the general cultural revival taking place in Palestine.
5 See, for example, Calandra, Denis, “Jessner’s Hiutertreppe’: A semiotic Approach to Expressionist Performance,” Theatre Quarterly 9 (1979), pp. 31–42 Google Scholar; and Gordon, Mel, “German Expressionist Acting,” The Drama Review 19 (1975), pp. 34–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6 For more detailed descriptions of the early development of Habima, see, for example, Levy, E., The Habitna—Israel’s National Theatre 1917–1917 (New York, 1979)Google Scholar; and Kohansky, M., The Hebrew Theatre—The First Fifty Years (Jerusalem, 1969).Google Scholar
7 Fishman, pearl, “Vakhtangov’s The Dybbuk ,” Modern Drama 24 (1980), 51–52.Google Scholar
8 According to Haklai, Uri, “The Life of Nahum Zemach Against the Background of Jewish Culture in Russia” (dissertation, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1974), p. 164 [in Hebrew].Google Scholar
9 ln various articles in the Journal, Hebrew, Teatron ve-Omanut [Theatre and art] 1 (June 17, 1925), p. 13; 4–5 (October 15, 1925), p. 7.Google Scholar
10 In an interview in his home in Tel Aviv, January 6, 1981.
11 The Hassidic dance, which was, of course, also influenced by Eastern European local traditions, won acceptance in Palestine; it was more formal and regular and much less aggressive than the theatrical expressionism of the beggars’ dance in Vakntangov’s production of The Dybbuk. See “Dance,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 5, p. 1270. There had also been a famous Yiddish production of The Dybbuk produced by the Vilna Troupe in Poland (première December 1920), which stressed the folkloristic aspects of the play. A copy of this production had also been staged in Hebrew in Palestine, directed by Michael Gov (première June 1922). See also Rokem, Freddie, “The Reception of The Dybbuk in Palestine 1922–1928,” Katedra [in print, in Hebrew].Google Scholar
12 M. Kohansky, op. cit. (f.n. 6), p. 104, according to Ha-Levy’s memoirs, Darki ale bamot [My road on stages] (Tel Aviv, 1955–1956) [in Hebrew].
13 Photographs from the 1920s, as evidence for movement patterns in dance and in the theater, are often not completely reliable, because the dancers and actors often posed for the photographers while in the performance itself they were never frozen in this manner.