Books &Theater 08 Sep 2007 08:44 am
Aronson & the Yiddish Theater
Eddie Fitzgerald had an excellent piece on his site this week about the Yiddish Theater. Most people have forgotten the theatrical heritage that came out of that form. The immigrants to America brought a theatrical treasure with them. In New York, Second Avenue housed dozens of theaters that entertained a very large audience with hundreds of plays. The shows, of course, were all performed in Yiddish. These shows were not only in Manhattan but in the outer boroughs as well.
Many performers stepped out of Yiddish Theater into stardom, but there were also many directors, writers, composers and designers that emerged as well to create the history of the mainstream theater.
My favorite set designer, Boris Aronson, a Russian immigrant, designed for the Yiddish Unser Theater in the Bronx. He took his position as an opportunity to introduce Constructivist designs to audiences. New art was entering America at the popular level, and it was accepted.
Aronson did quite a number of set pieces and costume designs before moving over to the mainstream, English-speaking theater. He became the foremost designer on Broadway designing the original productions of many shows such as Cabin In The Sky, Bus Stop, The Crucible, and Awake and Sing. His later work included Cabaret, Fiddler On The Roof, Company, Follies and Zorba.
Here are a few examples of the work he did for the Yiddish Theater.
(Click any image to enlarge.)
The above three images are from Aronson’s first production. The Constructivist designs were for Ansky’s production of Day and Night (1924).
The allegorical plays of the Yiddish theater often featured Heaven and Hell. Here, Aronson designed a “a concert hall in the skies of hell.” The show was Maurice Schwartz’ production of “Angels on Earth” for the Yiddish Theater in 1929.
The show “The Bronx Express” required a subway car (pictured left) with advertising cards. A tired buttonmaker on his way home from work dreams that these ads come to life. (pictured right)
In the same show, the buttonmaker dreams of a beach resort boardwalk. Aronson keeps the ceiling of the subway car intact for this set.
on 08 Sep 2007 at 4:28 pm 1.Eddie Fitzgerald said …
Woooow! Thanks for posting those! Aranson was indeed a genius! The constructivist sets you put up were great and the tiny subway set really made me want to see the play. I’d have given a lot to see the “Angels on Earth” set before it was struck.
Thanks too for mentioning my own post, which I sort of muffed. I attempted to give a history of the Yiddish Theater, a feel for what was going on in English-speaking vaudeville at the time, and an analysis of Yiddish-influenced story structure…all in a few short paragraphs. It was just too all-over-the-place. I should have given each subject its own post.
I compounded the problem by getting mad at readers who didn’t respond. It wasn’t my finest moment.
Anyway, thanks for the kind words. Somebody like Ken Burns should do something on this subject someday.
on 09 Sep 2007 at 10:15 am 2.Zalmen Mlotek said …
What a beautiful collection! Where is it. I knew Sam Leve, great set designer -Yiddish Theater- and Broadway- worked with Aronson, and saw his dioramas at his West side apartment. As the Director of the only Yiddish theater in America- with reverence to the past and with an eye to the future, as we project English and Russian supertitles at all our performances, I’m very interested to hear where these were found ,and perhaps the original dioramas of Aronson and Leve are around as well.
As far as the idea of Ken Burns doing something on the subject of the Yiddish Theater and its influences on the American Theater- it would be a great documentary-
See my program on Oct.11th where I present music of the yiddish theater at the Museum of the City of New York
thanks again for this great post.