History
The Jewish Theatre in Romania has a tradition stretching back 150 years, inaugurated on 19 August 1876 in Iași, in the celebrated "Green Tree" summer garden, when the artist and writer Avram Goldfaden (1840-1908) founded the world's first professional Jewish theatre, presenting a performance with his own company. One of the earliest reviews of Goldfaden's performances was signed by Romania's foremost poet, Mihai Eminescu, who judged the acting "very good". After a run of performances, Goldfaden and his company moved to Bucharest, playing along the way in the towns they passed through: Botoșani, Galați, Brăila. This success spurred Goldfaden to write new plays - among them the historical dramas Shulamit, Joseph in Egypt and Judith and Holofernes - bound up with the most deeply rooted Jewish cultural traditions, from which he drew almost every element that held even a seed of theatricality.
Ever since, the Jewish Theatre has been a continuous presence in Romanian culture. The director Iacob Sternberg began his career in 1917, working above all in revue. A decisive impulse for Jewish artists in Romania came from their encounter with the celebrated Vilna Troupe, which gave an extensive tour in Bucharest in 1923; its ensemble playing and the evenness of its acting were qualities they took up with enthusiasm.
A very hard period in the history of the Jewish theatre came with the years of Nazi-style dictatorship during the Second World War, when Jewish artists were allowed neither to perform in their own language nor to appear on Romanian stages. It was then that the Barașeum Theatre was founded in Bucharest, its performances - mostly revues, much enjoyed by audiences, Romanian ones included - given in Romanian.
In 1948 the Jewish Theatre in Bucharest became a state institution. From then until today, the stage on Dr. Iuliu Barasch Street has presented more than 200 premieres. A rich repertoire - stage adaptations of the great writers of Yiddish literature (Sholem Aleichem, I. L. Peretz, Mendele Mocher Sforim, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Ephraim Kishon), plays by classics of Jewish drama (S. Ansky, Jacob Gordin, H. Leivick), by Jewish playwrights from Romania (Mihail Sebastian, Aurel Baranga, Alexandru Sever, Dumitru Solomon) and from abroad (Arthur Miller, Israel Horovitz, Mario Diament), as well as by illustrious authors of world drama (Molière, Lessing, Ibsen, Bertolt Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger, Max Frisch, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Arnold Wesker) - has given ample scope to remarkable actors. Sevilla Pastor, Beniamin Sadigursky, Dina König, Lia König, Mauriciu Sekler, Isac Havis, Samuel Fischler, Mano Rippel, Benno Popliker, Seidy Glück, Sonia Gurman, Eugenia Balaure, Leonie Waldman Eliad and Theodor Danetti were important names of the State Jewish Theatre, who showed their rich interpretative resources not only in drama and comedy but also in musical productions - for by tradition the Jewish actor acts, dances and sings. That tradition is carried on today by Maia Morgenstern, joined by Roxana Guttman, Nicolae Călugărița, Andrei Finți, Natalie Ester, Geni Brenda Vexler, Mihai Ciucă, Luana Stoica, Mircea Drîmbăreanu and Marius Călugărița.
A great deal of interesting material about the theatre, and not only about it, can be found in the reference work "A Hundred Years of Jewish Theatre in Romania", by the late man of letters Israil Bercovici, who was the theatre's literary manager for more than three decades.
Over the past quarter-century the State Jewish Theatre has made a number of well-received tours to the United States, Canada, Israel, Germany, Austria, Russia, Switzerland, France and Greece, and has taken part in a series of international events. In 2000, for instance, the theatre produced An die Musik by Pip Simmons as an international co-production, after an original idea by Rudy Engelander and with music by Chris Jordan, playing among other places in Nancy, Avignon, Salzburg, Zurich, London, Berlin, Copenhagen and Rotterdam.
The State Jewish Theatre also organised and hosted the International Yiddish Theatre Festival in 1991 and 1996. In 2002 it was co-organiser of the National Festival of Minority Theatres in Romania, and in 2003 it was co-organiser and host of the first Yiddish Culture Festival in Europe. In 2016 the State Jewish Theatre organised and hosted the first edition of the TES FEST International Yiddish Theatre Festival, now in its eleventh year.
With 150 years of history behind it and almost eight decades as a state institution - the only company of its kind in continuous existence - the State Jewish Theatre in Bucharest has a distinct profile, representative both of theatre in Romania and of the contemporary landscape of Yiddish-language stage art.
The TES building
The building of the State Jewish Theatre in Bucharest dates from the last decade of the nineteenth century. Doctor Iuliu Barasch, who had bought the land, originally intended to build a clinic here. The plot lay in the heart of a Jewish quarter of Bucharest, home to some 300,000 Jews around the turn of the twentieth century. A few years later, however, what rose on the site was not a clinic but a house of culture.
The years of fascist dictatorship during the Second World War were a hard time for Jewish artists, who were denied the right to perform in their mother tongue and removed from every Romanian stage.
In the early 1940s a group of artists, writers and musicians founded the Barașeum Jewish Theatre, on whose stage a number of well-known Jewish actors performed in Romanian, among them Alexandru Finți, Beate Fredanov, Willy Ronea, M. Bradu, N. Stroe and Mircea Crișan. At that time the building had two auditoriums: one on the ground floor for plays, and another on the first floor for revues.
The State Jewish Theatre was founded in 1948, and in 1954-1955 the building was renovated into the form it keeps to this day. The auditorium seats 200 and has sound and air-conditioning systems and surtitling equipment for translation; it also serves as a conference and symposium hall. The theatre foyer frequently hosts art exhibition openings, book launches and similar events.
The building of the State Jewish Theatre in Bucharest - the only theatre of a national minority operating in the Romanian capital - is a landmark visited by many tourists, foreign politicians, members of the diplomatic corps and delegations from abroad.
The Yiddish language
For almost two hundred years Yiddish has been declared dead or dying. Humiliated and pushed into the most hidden corner of Jewish consciousness, this language has been, and remains, a refuge for Jews everywhere. Born in the ghettos of the early Middle Ages, Yiddish managed to distil into its own music all the joy of belonging to a people and all the misfortunes of exile; it passed through the fires of the Inquisition and through pogroms, and today it stands undaunted before globalisation and assimilation of every kind.
What is Yiddish, beyond what any encyclopaedia will tell you? It is a way of thinking, a way of perceiving life; it is the Jewish people's way of being. It is not scorching and unsparing like Hebrew, with its imperious moods… It is sweet, melodious, cheerful - but with a tear in the corner of the eye. From its curses, reputed to be the most lavish in the world, to its tender diminutives, Yiddish is an amalgam of feeling.
An old Jewish saying has it that Yiddish is not spoken but sung. Those who do not speak it are moved by the musicality of the language, and those who do call it fondly: mame-lushn - the mother tongue.
The Nobel laureate in literature Isaac Bashevis Singer said: "Some will find in Yiddish the truest expression of joy and of piety, of the love of life, of the waiting for the Messiah, of patience and understanding for the failings of human beings. The humour particular to Yiddish is anchored in gratitude for every day lived, in thankfulness for every success and in love of people. It was the language of martyrs, of kabbalists, of cobblers and of rabbis - rich in memories that humankind will never forget. Humble and dreaming Yiddish is the idiom of optimists."
The State Jewish Theatre (TES), heir to the world's first professional Jewish theatre, founded by Avram Goldfaden in Iași in 1876, is committed to preserving and giving new life to the Yiddish-language Jewish cultural heritage.
Through its productions, TES seeks out new ways of expressing the spirit of the Yiddish language, and works to develop and spread the unique and incomparable image of Jewish culture.
Yiddish is an instrument the company turns to with all its affection and warmth, striving to gather and pass on as much as it can of the boundless admiration we hold for it.
(Andrei Munteanu, Manager of the State Jewish Theatre)