INTRODUCTORY ESSAY: WHAT IS JEWISH THEATRE?

Edna Nahshon

The essays included in this volume were originally presented at an aca- demic conference titled “Jewish Theatre,” sponsored by the Institute of Jewish Studies in June 2002 at University College London. The term “Jewish theatre” was used by the organizers as convenient shorthand for a richly heterogeneous array of topics: Yiddish, Israeli, European and American theatres; playtexts written in Hebrew and Yiddish; others, dealing with Jewish topics in non-Jewish languages, works by Jews and Gentiles, some composed for Jews and others for distinctly non-Jew- ish audiences (at times even to the detriment of Jewish interests); folk theatre; popular theatre and cabaret. At the conference, the quagmire of defi ning the precise meaning and boundaries of its title was sidestepped, possibly as a result of academic prudence, for pinpointing the precise nature of “Jewish theatre” and arriving at a consensus as to what to include or preclude in this category is practically a hopeless task. This is so fi rst and foremost because the very complexity of the term “theatre,” which encompasses practitioners (i.e. performers, directors, playwrights, designers, and producers), play- scripts and textual material, non-literary elements of performance such as music, costumes and set design, physical spaces where performance take place, and the audiences assembled for a performance. Not only can these be theorized from literary, performative, historical, political, anthropological and sociological perspectives, but although most theatre scholars see the very core of the theatrical enterprise as the transac- tion between live performer and spectator, in effect most theatrical events are the result of a collaborative effort that cannot claim a single “author,” and they use a multiple syntax of mixed media that refl ect their materiality and mutability. Add to this the problematic nature of the designation “Jewish,” which can be interpreted as pertaining to religious, national, ethnic and cultural identities, and you realize that the intersection of the broad, slippery, and continuously evolving con- cepts of “theatre” and “Jewishness” or “Judaism”, both of which refl ect 2 edna nahshon changing realities, perceptions and agendas, presents a confounding construct that palpitates with defi nitional uncertainties. As mentioned, the designation “Jewish theatre” is used as an inclusive and accommodating tent. Though hard to pin down, it is convenient and familiar, inherited from previous generations for whom “Yiddish” and “Jewish” were practically interchangeable. The playwrights, performers and audiences of the Yiddish theatre, located in a somewhat mythi- cal “Yiddishland,” an imagined place whose homogeneity is open to debate, may have indeed shared similar ethical, religious and cultural values, yet clearly, this theatre is largely a phenomenon of the past. The physical, linguistic and cultural topographies of the Jewish world have changed, re-shaped by acculturation, assimilation, genocide and political sovereignty. Today, most of what seems to belong inarguably to the rubric “Jewish theatre” comprises two distinct bodies. The fi rst includes works in non-Jewish languages that are essentially considered part of the theatrical culture of the respective countries within which they were created and which occasionally enter our global theatrical culture. The second group consists of works of the Israeli stage, mostly, though not solely, performed in Hebrew. These are produced primarily (though not exclusively) by Jews for Jews and are strongly connected to various concerns and issues of Zionism and Israeli reality. Given the porous nature of cultural boundaries, works created within these separate spheres often travel in translation, though their transfer nearly always impacts their Jewish (and other) meaning. Given the complexity of the term, it may be instructive to examine defi nitions of “Jewish theatre” offered by encyclopedias and theatre dictionaries whose organizational system requires precise categorization. Normally, in addition to personal biographies and professional specifi cs (proscenium arch, props), the two dominant organizational principles of theatre dictionaries and encyclopedias are either genre (farce, romantic theatre), or historic/national/linguistic (Greek theatre, French theatre). Since Jewish theatre is clearly not a genre, one would assume it would be discussed within the “national” rubric. This, however, presents a problem, for while defi nitions of Russian or German theatre are essen- tially grounded in territorial domains—“Italian theatre” is, ultimately, understood as theatre made in Italy—the term “Jewish theatre” lacks both geographic and linguistic underpinnings. As a result, both theatre and Jewish studies encyclopedias shy away from the fuzziness inherent in the term and either avoid it altogether or, when offering an entry, tend to immediately subdivide it into separate units such as “Hebrew