Vilna Troupe - Early Years

Early Years

Founded in 1915 or 1916 during World War I, the troupe began with the deserted Vilna State Theatre as their base, toured Kovno, Białystok and Grodno, and soon moved to Warsaw. Their repertoire epitomized the second golden age of Yiddish theater, with works by Ansky, Sholom Aleichem and Sholem Asch, as well as Molière, Maxim Gorky, Henrik Ibsen, plus some Jewish-themed plays by non-Jews, notably Karl Gutzkow's Uriel Acosta. Their uniform Lithuanian Yiddish stood in contrast to the mix of dialects often heard in Yiddish theater at the time.

They were the first to stage Ansky's The Dybbuk. Early versions of the play were written variously in Russian and Yiddish, but Russian director and method acting pioneer Stanislavski (who first encountered the work in Russian) made several suggestions to Ansky. One of these was that for the sake of authenticity the piece should be in Yiddish. Stanislavski's death prevented the play from being produced at the Moscow Art Theater. At the time of Ansky's death, on November 8, 1920, the play was complete but had never been professionally produced. As a tribute to Ansky, the Vilna troupe, under the direction of David Herman, utilised the 30-day period of mourning after his death to prepare the play, which opened December 9, 1920, at the Elysium Theatre in Warsaw. Its unanticipated success established the play as a classic of modern Yiddish theater.

They toured extensively; they played in New York City, London and Paris. Their 1923 London production of Sholem Asch's The God of Vengeance at the Pavilion Theatre in London's Whitechapel district was shut down by the censor (who had originally passed it based on an English-language synopsis). The play includes a portrayal of a lesbian relationship, which is the most favorably portrayed relationship in this rather dark play. Among the members of the troupe was Joseph Green, later a Yiddish-language filmmaker.