Yiddish theatre, in the 1890’s, turned to what they called shund (trash) while respecting Elizabethan culture with poorly translated interpretations of Shakespeare, Goeth, and Schiller.  Most of these productions were failures, but when translated into Yiddish culture, these classic plays flourished in the Lower East Side.

The Jewish King Lear by Jacob Gordin (1892):

A pamphlet from "The Jewish King Lear" (Dorot Jewish Collection: NYPL)

Gordin twisted Shakespeare’s plot into a Jewish setting.  Set in Russia, King Lear becomes David Mesheles, who makes the same mistakes with his three daughters as in Shakespeare’s version.  This play is especially popular with Jewish audiences because the play’s themes –the torments of parents and the ingratitude of children– were especially prevalent in the Jewish environment, according to Howe.  Gordin also worked with the varied intellect and knowledge of his audience.  In the play, Mesheles is told the story of Shakespeare’s play and warned of following in Lear’s footsteps, which shows that Gordin is telling his audience exactly what he is doing so that everyone can understand, no matter their intellect. Jacob Adler played the leading character, which catapulted him to stardom.

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare.  This play is incredibly important for Jewish culture because it’s main character, Shylock, is full of Jewish stereotypes of Shakespeare’s time.  Jacob Adler played a powerful version of this character in a Yiddish production in 1901 and again on Broadway where Alder spoke his lines in Yiddish and the other actors stuck to English. It was required to Alder to bend the Elizabethan text for his own purposes.  However, according to a Yiddish critic from the New York Times, it is impossible to make Shylock fully sympathetic to a Jewish audience.  However, Adler was praised for his natural and unaffected interpretation of the character.  A Theatre Magazine critic wrote a review of Adler and the play in 1903, stating “The opportunity [Shylock’s] for one moment of ineffable triumph and scorn, holding in his hands the very life of his former insolent persecutor…Having purchased so dearly the right to his contemptuous opinion of his Christian fellow townsmen, is it not certain that he will consummate his brief triumph by walking out of the court with his head held erect, the very apotheosis of defiant hatred and scorn? That is the way I see Shylock” (Howe 475).

A production of "The Merchant of Venice" with Shylock at right, center. (The Pageant of America Collection: NYPL)

William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was converted to a Shtetl setting, transforming the Capulets and Montague family feud into a religious feud with the Mithnagdim as rationalist and the Hasidim as pietist.  Romeo, now as Raphael, Juliet as Shaindele, and Friar Lawrence as a Reform rabbi, the balcony scene was set in a synagogue, with Raphael exclaiming “Look yonder! See the Eternal Light it is a sign that the Jewish love of God is everlasting”.

Romeo and Juliet key sheet, 1912 (White Studio Theatrical Photographs: NYPL)

Other plays included Yiddish versions of Death of a Salesman and Medea.

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