From the author of the best-selling and critically acclaimed biographies Groucho and Ball of Fire comes a definitive look back at the Yiddish Theater. In this soulful and entertaining elegy Stefan Kanfer traces its meteoric rise, its precipitous fall, and its lasting mark on American theater, film, and culture in general. The Yiddish Theater's star seems to have burned out. The venues in New York City have all gone. So have the performers and their immigrant audiences. But in Stardust Lost they live again as Kanfer brings the colorful stage roaring back to life. Meticulously unraveling the history of Jewish theater, he begins with the drama of the Old Testament and moves through time and space to the cultural explosions of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, the oppressions of nineteenth-century Eastern Europe, and the pogroms of early twentieth-century czarist Russia. Fleeing anti-Semitic edicts, the Jews of Eastern Europe push westward, migrating first to England and then to America. With them come the extravagant personages who bring drama--in every sense of the word--to Manhattan's Lower East Side. Stardust Lost invokes the energy, belief, and pure chutzpah it took to establish and run the thriving, influential theaters. En route, Kanfer reveals the nightly drama and comedy that played out behind the scenes as well as onstage, and introduces all the players--actors, divas, playwrights, directors, designers, and producers--who made it possible. Along with the beating pulse of the Yiddish tradition come the larger-than-life stars: Boris Thomashefsky, Jacob P. Adler, Molly Picon, Paul Muni, Bertha Kalisch, David Kessler, Maurice Schwartz, and many others, most with libidos to match their oversized egos. The book grants us views of genuine artistic achievement along with tales of cutthroat competition, adulterous liaisons, and hilarious wrangles. As we see in detail, assimilation, world events, and great shifts in American entertainment--the very entertainment that the Yiddish Theater encouraged by providing talent to uptown stages and film studios--lead to a poignant finale. From the daring Yiddish interpretation of The Merchant of Venice to Stella Adler's influence on young actors to John Garfield's and Marlon Brando's impact on the screen, Kanfer traverses lower Manhattan, Broadway, and Hollywood to give us the tumultuous birth, flourishing, and decline of a great art form. It is a richly evocative chronicle that resurrects the forgotten landmarks and the vital personalities of the Yiddish Theater, whose work has gone but whose achievements can never be lost.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0
Lively and entertaining, but wildly inaccurate:
Yes, he writes with flair, but it would be nice if he got it right more often. I'm no expert, but a lot of what Kanfer writes just doesn't jibe with what other writers on this subject have been saying in recent years (folks like Sandrow, Berkowitz, Nahshon, that is). Take a look if you like, but don't accept any of this as gospel.
American life of the Yiddish theatre:
This is a well written and extensively researched history of the
Yiddish theatre in America. None of the major performers or their
work is missed. Even the relationship of the Yiddish theatre to the regular
American theatre and the motion picture industry is touched upon.
Marvellous- but not quite scholarly enough:
It's a marvellously entertaining book. However, I would have loved more on the musicals/operettas that the author merely refered to as shund (well, he was quoting the general attitude of the day). Secondly, I would have really like the occasional footnotes.
