Keywords:"Awake and Sing!"; "Yidl mitn fidl (Yidl and her fiddle)"; acting styles; American theater; Bronx, New York; Cheryl Crawford; Chicago, Illinois; cultural heritage; directors; Edward G. Robinson; family; Group Theatre; Harold Clurman; Jewish community; John Garfield; Jules Garfinkle; Konstantin Stanislavski; Lee Strasberg; Manhattan, New York; Muni Weisenfreund; Paul Muni; political beliefs; political commentary; political themes; politics; Second Avenue Theater; social awareness; social issues; social responsibilities; Yiddish actors; Yiddish actresses; Yiddish community; Yiddish theater; Yiddish theatre
Keywords:cultural heritage; Eastern Europe; German language; grandparents; Joel Grey; Mickey Katz; Old Country; Old World; opera composers; Richard Wagner; WEVD; Yiddish culture; Yiddish humor; Yiddish language; Yiddish music; Yiddish radio stations
Keywords:"Awake and Sing!"; "Lies Like Truth"; "The Fervent Years"; "The Glass Menagerie"; actors; adolescence; American theater; careers; Clifford Odets; cultural legacy; directing classes; directors; family traditions; father; Group Theatre; Harold Clurman; influences; inspirations; Isidore Cashier; Jennie Cashier; lighting design; Los Angeles, California; Luther Adler; Maurice Schwartz; mother; New York City, New York; Off-Broadway shows; parents; productions; professions; role models; Sandy Meisner; Stella Adler; teenage years; teenagers; Whittier College; Yiddish theater; Yiddish theatre
Keywords:activism; activists; Clarence Darrow; concentration camps; correspondence; death; Democratic Party; Democrats; Eastern European Jews; genocide; grandmother; grandparents; Hebrew Actors Union; Holocaust; Isidore Cashier; labor movement; labor unionism; labor unionists; liberalism; liberals; military; newspapers; political beliefs; political ideology; politics; relatives; social consciousness; social justice values; theaters; troops; U.S. Army; United States Army; US Army; World War 2; World War II; WW2; WWII
Keywords:"Awake and Sing!"; "Death of a Salesman"; "Waiting for Lefty"; actors; actresses; adolescence; anti-Communists; anticommunists; Bertolt Brecht; blacklisting; Columbia University School of Journalism; Communist Party; Communists; editorials; Group Theatre; high schools; Hollywood Blacklist; House Un-American Activities Committee; Iris Whitney; Jewish community; Jews; John Garfield; Joseph McCarthy; labor movement; labor politics; Lee Grant; left-wing politics; leftists; LGBTQ; liberalism; liberals; McCarthyism; Morris High School; naming names; political beliefs; political consciousness; political values; queer community; Red Scare; Sandy Meisner; school newspapers; social consciousness; social justice values; subversive beliefs; teenage years; teenagers; theater audiences; Whittier College
Keywords:"Awake and Sing!"; "The Fervent Years"; "Waiting for Lefty"; acting styles; actors; actresses; American theater; Belasco Theatre; Cheryl Crawford; Elia Kazan; FDR; Federal Theatre Project; Franklin Delano Roosevelt; Great Depression; Group Theatre; Harold Clurman; Hollywood studios; Jacob Adler; James Dean; Jewish studio executives; John Garfield; Jules Garfinkle; Konstantin Stanislavski; labor movements; labor politics; labor unionism; Lee Strasberg; left-wing politics; Luther Adler; Maria Ouspenskaya; Marlon Brando; Montgomery Clift; performances; performers; political awakenings; political beliefs; political ideology; realism; realistic acting; repertory theaters; Sandy Meisner; social awakenings; social consciousness; social justice values; social movements; Stella Adler; theater audiences; theater movements; theater schools; theater training; Warner Brothers; Yiddish language; Yiddish theater; Yiddish theatre
Keywords:"Awake and Sing!"; American films; American theater; artistic connections; blacklisting; Edward G. Robinson; Elia Kazan; English language; Group Theatre; Hollywood Blacklist; House Un-American Activities Committee; HUAC; influences; inspirations; Jacob Adler; John Garfield; Joseph McCarthy; Jules Garfinkle; Lee Strasberg; left-wing politics; Luther Adler; McCarthyism; Morris Carnovsky; Morris Strassberg; naming names; Phoebe Brand; political beliefs; political themes; Red Scare; Sandy Meisner; social justice values; social movements; social relevance; Stella Adler; theater movements; Yiddish language; Yiddish theater; Yiddish theatre
CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney and today is November 30th, 2017. I am
here in Los Angeles with Arthur Allan Seidelman. We're going to record aninterview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Do Ihave your permission to record?
ARTHUR ALLAN SEIDELMAN: You certainly do.
CW:Great. So, I want to start with your family background. What do you know
about your grandparents' generation or earlier?
AAS:I know that my family came from two places in Eastern Europe. One was Latvia
and the other was southern Russian or what was then the USSR. And they met 1:00somewhere in the middle. My grandfather on my mother's side left the Ukraine.And he was a rabbi; both grandfathers were rabbis. My mother's father left theUkraine and literally walked across Europe to France, where he was able to get aboat to the United States. He spent a couple of years laying a foundation inPhiladelphia, actually, for my family and then sent for my grandmother. And shewas one of, I believe, nine children. I don't know much about his family, but mygrandmother was one of nine children, three of whom were able to come to theUnited States during that period of immigration in the early twentieth century.The rest did not and were lost in the Holocaust. My father's family was from 2:00Riga, Latvia. His father, also, was a rabbi. My father actually was born in Rigaand came over when he was a child. I don't know much about that. I don't know asmuch about that side of the family as I know about my mother's side of thefamily, because my grandparents on my mother's side lived with us. Mygrandfather on my mother's side, the Greenberg family, he had a synagogue in theBronx, eventually, which he lost during the Depression. And from that point on,they lived with my mother and father and their two children, one of whom is me.My grandfather's family on my father's side, those grandparents both died when Iwas quite young. They had four children. My father was one of four children. He 3:00had two brothers, one of whom was a cantor, the other was a professor. Thesister of the family, Jennie Cashier, Jennie Greenberg -- Jennie SeidelmanCashier married Isidore Cashier. She was an actress; he was an actor. He becamea leading member of the Yiddish Art Theater, the company that Maurice Schwartzfounded in the early 1900s. That was my introduction to theater -- was my uncleIzzy, and --
CW:So, before we get to that --
AAS:Sure.
CW:-- do you have a sense from any of these people who grew up in Europe of what
life was like for them?
AAS:Yes. Shtetl [small Eastern European town with a Jewish community] life was
4:00very tightly-knit communities. Very -- not just family, but extended family. Butdefined by community. Defined by a unit that they actually carried with themwhen they came to the United States. The village units, the shtetl units thatdeveloped in Europe were brought with the émigrés to America, so that therewere organizations in each part of New York, where I grew up, that were based onwhat community you came from in Romania or Ukraine or Latvia. And the samecommunity came with you. Your social activities were defined by the samecommunity. Your cemetery plot was defined by the same community. So, it was a 5:00very tightly-knit community that, in the Diaspora, you carried with you on your back.
CW:The landsmanshaft [association of immigrants originally from the same region] --
AAS:Yes.
CW:-- groups? Yeah.
AAS:Yes.
CW:And then, did anyone talk about why they wanted to come to America?
AAS:It was a combination of wanting to come to America and having to come to
America. (laughs) I think that were any of the émigrés given a choice, theywould have stayed in their home country, 'cause it was home. And I think that isa situation with refugees then, now, and always. Refugees don't want to berefugees. Refugees want to create a happy home and have a happy home in the landof their birth, the land of their heritage. So, it wasn't a question of wanting 6:00to come to America. They had to come to America because of poverty. They had tocome to America because of pogroms. They were forced to leave -- it's the"Fiddler on the Roof" story. It's Anatevka. The departure from the home shtetlwas not a desired departure. It was a necessary departure. So, if you're goingto leave and become a wanderer, where do you want to wander to other than a landthat promises -- well, one of two places: either a land that promises prosperityand health, or a land that speaks to your heritage, eretz yisroel [Hebrew:Israel]. So, either you want to come to America or you want to go to Palestine.Where else are you gonna go? Ireland? (laughs) So, I think that was the decisionthat they made in having to leave their homes because of poverty or because of 7:00the prejudice, the harshness of that life -- was made for them. And the choicewas between America and Palestine.
CW:So, can you describe the home that you grew up in? First of all, just
physically, where was it?
AAS:Was a tenement apartment at 976 Tiffany Street in the Bronx. Third floor
front. Was a railroad apartment. You walked in the front door -- I love thisquestion. You walk in the front door and there's a long hallway. To your left isthe front room, which was my parents' bedroom. It also became our sitting room.You walk down the hall and right in the corner, there's a second bedroom thatwas my sister's until she got married and then I inherited it. You walk downfurther, there's a bathroom. Then you walk down further and there's another 8:00small bedroom that was my grandparents' room when they lived with us. When mygrandfather died, it was my grandmother's room. You continue down the railroadcorridor and there's the living room, which is really just the introduction tothe kitchen. (laughs) And the end of the hallway is the kitchen with a windowlooking out over the backyard and the street, the back of the houses and thestreet next door, Fox Street. And it's like a set from "Rear Window," theHitchcock film. (laughs)
CW:So, before your sister got married, where did you sleep?
AAS:I had a bed in my parents' room. But my sister was nine years older than I
and she got married very young, (laughs) so I got use of her bedroom quite early.
CW:And what was Jewish about your home?
AAS:Everything. (laughs) What wasn't Jewish about my home? It was a home totally
9:00created out of Jewish tradition. It was very different -- not very different ornot different at all from the way the home would have been if it had been inBudapest or Vienna or Prague. It was a Jewish home. We were kosher. Friday nightand Saturday were Friday night and Saturday. (laughs) Everything, every Jewishholiday was celebrated. My grandfather was a rabbi. He conducted weddings in theapartment, in the living room. My job was to wrap the glass and then to pick upthe pieces after it was stomped on. Everything about the home was just filled 10:00with Jewish tradition.
CW:So, what was Friday night like?
AAS:Shabbos. Chicken soup. (laughs) Candles. A brokhe [blessing], too.
Everything you would expect.
CW:Nigunim [melodies]?
AAS:Yes. And my parents were not as religious as my grandparents. And their
children were not as religious as they were, so there is the all-too-commonfalling off of religiosity, but not a falling off of tradition. Again, I soundlike the opening number of "Fiddler." (laughs) But there was a falling off ofritual. I mean, my sister did not light candles on Friday night. My 11:00mother-in-law certainly did through her entire life. But we knew what Fridaynight was and we knew what Shabbos was and we knew what every holiday was. So,there was a falling off of the acts of religiousness but not the tradition orthe understanding or the meaning of it. I mean, I went to kheyder [traditionalreligious school]. I studied diligently for my bar mitzvah with an elderlyrabbi. He used to fall asleep while I was (laughs) reciting. He was a sweet man,but he would doze off. (laughs) But, I mean, the thought that I would not be bar 12:00mitzvahed was, I mean, not even to be discussed. Of course I was gonna be barmitzvahed and of course I had to study. Of course I went to kheyder and hadarguments with the rabbi. It was all ordained.
CW:Did you have a favorite yontev [holiday] growing up?
AAS:Simchas Torah.
CW:Why?
AAS:So happy! (laughs) It's a joyous holiday and there's joyous music and
there's a celebratory sense of the excitement of life, the excitement ofcelebration, the joyousness in living your tradition. And I was always 13:00fascinated by the Torah and taking the Torah down from the ark and walking theTorah around the congregation and greeting the Torah and blessing -- beingblessed by the Torah just seemed mystical and marvelous.
[BREAK IN RECORDING]
CW:And Simchas Torah is fun for kids, too.
AAS:Absolutely. I mean, any holiday, any of the holidays where there were gifts
and game-- Purim. Purim is probably a close second. But Simchas Torah, just thethought of it makes me smile.
CW:And can you describe a little more about what you would do as a kid? What
images come to mind when you think about that?
AAS:About Simchas Torah? Just going to the synagogue and dancing (laughs) and
14:00kissing the Torah as it was walked by just was pure celebration. And there wasno great -- I mean, so many of the holidays have a design, story, and ritual,and meaning, and a weight that they bring with them. Simchas Torah had noweight. It just had joy. Just -- well, the simkhes [joy]. (laughs)
CW:And what were the languages you heard growing up?
AAS:Yiddish! Yiddish, Yiddish, Yiddish, and more Yiddish. My grandmother spoke
five languages, none of which was English. There was a dear friend of hers -- ofours, actually -- my uncle's wife's mother, who we referred to as bobe 15:00[grandmother] Rubin. Bobe Rubin would come by. Bobe Rubin lived -- was awonderful, grand woman who lived by herself in an apartment in Harlem and shewould come once a week and bring the most delicious potato latkes known to man.But she and my grandmother would sit -- they came from the same village. Theywould sit and talk, and I never knew whether it was Hungarian or Polish orGerman or Czech or Yiddish, but it wasn't English. (laughs) That I knew. Yeah,my grandmother conversed with the rest of the members of the family in Yiddish.And that was, other than English, that was the language that I heard. When I wasyoung, I spoke it. And that's been lost. And before I leave this planet, I planon regaining it. But Yiddish was spoken not just because of my grandmother, but 16:00relatives would come over and the conversation would be in Yiddish. I was neversurprised to hear -- my mother spoke Yiddish fluently. My father, less so. Butit was very common to hear Yiddish in the house.
[BREAK IN RECORDING]
CW:Can you talk a little bit about the neighborhood? Where it was --
AAS:The South Bronx was a neighborhood in transition. It had been a
middle-class, even perhaps slightly upper-middle-class neighborhood. It wasgoing through a racial, ethnic transition from primarily Jewish to primarilyPuerto Rican to significantly African American. The apartment building we lived 17:00in, the tenement we lived in -- there was a family from Poland, a family fromCuba, a family from Greece, and a Puerto Rican family, and two Jewish families.That's typical of what the neighborhood was. Right across the border -- I mean,these are not real borders but there were -- where the stickball team from thenext block came was largely Puerto Rican. When I would walk from my home to myhigh school, Morris High School, Boston Road and 166th Street, 65th Street, Icrossed through a very rough black neighborhood. And the situation in the SouthBronx was getting worse and worse in terms of crime, in terms of juvenile gangs. 18:00By the time we left, when I came to California at sixteen to go to college --when I left the Bronx, it was a pretty damn rough neighborhood. In fact, I kidabout it: I say our high school sport was "run for your life." But it was a veryrough neighborhood and the South Bronx went to be one of the toughestneighborhoods in the country.
CW:So, what was it like to be a -- observant Jewish kid growing up there then?
AAS:I got beat up at least once a week. I would literally, at least once a week,
once every two weeks, every two weeks feel a knife in my back or a blackjack infront of my eyes reached from behind me. And I'd take off whatever my cheapwatch was or my fountain pen, I'd just hand it over, (laughs) which didn'tprevent me from getting my head smacked periodically. But it was rough. And for 19:00a period of years in my youth, I was -- what's a softer term to use thancrippled? I had polio when I was a child. And so, I had braces for a while. Iwas not speedy of foot, put it that way. (laughs) So, I would have some roughtimes. But if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger. (laughs)
CW:So, your uncle Izzy --
AAS:Yes.
CW:-- what do you know -- Isidore Cashier, what do you know about his early life?
AAS:Not much. That's a challenging -- I know he was born, I believe, in Romania.
I knew he started acting in Europe when he was very young, that he came over andjoined with Maurice Schwartz, was one of the founding members of the Yiddish ArtTheater and became one of their leading actors. I don't know very much about his 20:00childhood or his -- or at all. I knew him through my aunt Jennie, who lived --they lived at 8 Fifty-Seventh Avenue. And Jennie, she played small parts. Shewas a chorus girl, she -- so, my earliest memories of -- is going to the theaterand seeing them onstage and just being bewitched by the fact that there was myaunt and uncle onstage. And I have one very vivid memory of my aunt, when -- sheand Molly Picon had had a night-- not a nightclub, a club act together called"The Four Seasons" that they toured in. So, she and Miss Picon remained closefriends throughout her life. And she would always, whenever Miss Picon had ashow, there was always a part for Jennie. And one of my earliest memories isJennie, as I was in the third or fourth row on the end, on the aisle -- and as 21:00she was exiting offstage after a number, she waved at me. And that wasemblazoned in my mind. I can see that to this day, my aunt just giving me thislittle wave as she exited. But I remember seeing my uncle in "Yoshe Kalb." Iremember seeing him in the Yiddish "King Lear." I mean, he was important. He hada great voice. He had a very strong, powerful voice and just was a greatpresence. And I remember being enchanted by him onstage. I also remember partiesthat I would be allowed to attend at their home where Aaron Lebedeff would sing"Rumanye, Rumanye" just for a group of six or seven or eight people there. Being 22:00behind the scenes, being able to visit with Menasha Skulnik, with Molly Picon,with Aaron Lebedeff, with Jacob Ben-Ami was just a great wonderland for me as a child.
CW:Any of those people that you had a special relationship with or who you have
strong, specific memories of?
AAS:Well, I have -- they each made a very strong impression on me. And I was a
kid, so they would not stop and have philosophical discussions with me. But Iwas a kid and, as a kid, being able to see Menasha Skulnik in a show and hearhim sing songs and be funny and then meet him at a restaurant for a meal after 23:00the show was just a great treat. Going to Rapoport's afterward and the membersof the cast of the show I just saw would come and sit with us, that was heavenon Earth.
CW:Where would you see the plays?
AAS:At Second Avenue. The Yiddish Art Theater had its own theater. Skulnik and
Picon and people like that rented theaters on Second Avenue. But just SecondAvenue was -- I didn't know -- it was much later I discovered Broadway. (laughs)The theater for me was Second Avenue.
CW:And what did it look like then?
AAS:The theaters were not as big as theaters I learned to inhabit on Broadway.
24:00But they were big theaters. Actually, I was thinking the other day, I wonder howmany seats there were. It's hard for a kid to -- five hundred seats would haveseemed like an enormous theater to me. So, they were beautiful theaters. Theywere not what we would typically think of as an Off-Broadway theater today. Theywere like small Broadway theaters and just as opulent and just as well furnishedand just as well cared for. And I never remember seeing a show with less than avery large audience. I mean, I've done shows on Broadway with smaller audiences(laughs) than the shows I saw as a kid on Second Avenue. But they were majortheaters. They weren't village theaters. They were competing in the New York 25:00theatrical environment and were well aware of that.
CW:So, do you know anything about Jennie's background?
AAS:Only that she was my father's sister. And she had married Izzy, Isidore,
when she was quite young. She was interested in the theater, but mostly asmusicals. She was interested in singing before she met Izzy. She was already inthe theater when she met Izzy. I can't really fill in more than that.
CW:And what was the relationship between your family and the actors in the family?
AAS:Oh my gosh. (laughs) My mother had very distinct feelings about my aunt.
(laughs) My aunt and uncle had more money than we did and lived in a manner thatmade that evident. (laughs) And my mother would have distinct views of that.They were not religious and my mother and grandparents would have distinct viewsof that. But it was the usual family politics. But we visited regularly. Wealways went to their home; they rarely came to our home. We would go toManhattan. Manhattan would not come to the Bronx. (laughs) But we would alwaysaccept their invitations to go to the theater and to meet them on Second Avenue. 27:00It was a warm, very warm Yiddish family relationship. But the usual competitionsand jealousies and gossip and -- the stuff that makes drama. (laughs)
CW:So, for you growing up, what was it like coming from the Bronx, going into
Manhattan to go to the Second Avenue Theatre personally? What was your sense ofthat world in relation to your home and the religious environment you grew up in?
AAS:It was very positive. The Yiddish theater -- and this carries on to what the
Yiddish theater brought to the American theater -- the Yiddish theater was more 28:00than just a place to see plays. It was a place of community. It was a place toreaffirm the fact that you were a member of a family. And that was the spiritthat you visited when you went to the theater and that's the spirit that wastransferred into the American theater through the Group Theatre, the foundingmembers of which were all created by the Yiddish theater. So, the theater wasn'tjust a place to have fun. Yes, having fun was a major part of your experience.But it was also a place to remind oneself of one's social responsibilities,one's political responsibilities. It was a place to remind yourself where youcame from, what your aspirations were. And it was a breeding ground for 29:00activity. It was a breeding ground for social awareness. As I recall, most ofthe plays that I saw in Yiddish had one of two themes: either remembering thehomeland, remembering where we came from, or the difficulty, the challenge ofcreating a home in a new land. Those were the oft-visited themes. And it wasthose themes that carried over into plays like "Awake and Sing!" and into -- Imean, it's not a coincidence that the creators of the modern Jewish theater,modern American theater -- perhaps I'm getting ahead of you here -- it's not a 30:00coincidence that the creators of the modern American theater are by and largeJewish. And I don't say that out of any pride, but out of factual awareness thatthe founders of the Group Theatre, which changed the nature of American theater,were Lee Strasberg, Harold Clurman, and Cheryl Crawford. And how Cheryl got inthere, I don't know. But Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman were both brought upin the Yiddish theater. American acting was changed by John Garfield, Edward G.Robinson, and Paul Muni. Paul Muni first, John Garfield and Edward G. Robinsonlater. No American actor could become a movie star if he did not follow in some 31:00way in the footprints of John Garfield. John Garfield changed the style ofAmerican acting. Edward G. Robinson changed the style of American acting. PaulMuni before them, even, changed the style of American acting. Each three ofthose actors did their first acting in Yiddish on Second Avenue or, in somecases, Chicago, 'cause there was very vibrant Yiddish theater in Chicago, aswell. Paul Muni was Muni Weisenfreund. John Garfield was Jules Garfinkle. EdwardG. Robinson was -- I forget what his original name was. Think Goldman orsomething like that. But they each started in the Yiddish theater and they eachbrought that awareness of the social relevance of theater and the fact that inorder to be socially relevant, you had to be real. That great tradition wasbrought to American theater by the inheritors of Stanislavski and by the Yiddish 32:00theater. So, going to the theater, going back -- long answer to a shortquestion, going back to your question, going to the theater was having fun andenjoying yourself but also becoming involved in social issues, caring, creatingout of a sense of responsibility. The plight of the refugee was a common theme.In a strange way, even a musical like "Yidl mitn fidl [Yidl and her fiddle]" wasabout women's rights. (laughs) So, there was a tremendous sense of the theater'splace in society. So, when you went to the theater, you were with yourcommunity, you were with your family. And that made a tremendous impression on me. 33:00
CW:People sometimes talk about how Yiddish theater is different than American
theater in the way that actors related to the audience, in the set-up of thetheater. And do you have memories of any of that?
AAS:I don't think it was that different. There was a very personal relationship
with the audience, but that's missing in American theater only by default, notby purpose. I've been lucky enough to run repertory theaters. I had a theaternear Philadelphia for a number of years with a wonderful company with peoplelike Viveca Lindfors and Sylvia Sidney and Roy Scheider and Lee Grant. 34:00
[BREAK IN RECORDING]
AAS: Yes, there was a very personal relationship. They were friends and you
came to visit them on a regular basis. If that's missing from the Americantheater, it's by default, not by purpose. I was talking about the fact that whenyou have -- I had a repertory theater near Philadelphia for a number of yearswith a wonderful company of people like Sylvia Sidney and John Beal and VivecaLindfors and Lee Grant and Roy Scheider and lots of blacklisted actors. (laughs)And we had that kind of relationship with our audience. I mean, Sylvia wouldcome back once every few months to do a play. Mercedes McCambridge would comeback once every few months to do a play. John Beal, other superb artists. Andthat kind of friendship, if I may call it that, grew up between those actors and 35:00our audience. That's not dissimilar from what existed in the Yiddish theater. Ifit's missing from the American theater, it's only because we have not createdregional theaters. We have not created -- I presume in Germany, every city ofany size has a municipal theater. I presume that that kind of friendlyrelationship exists between that theater and its community or those theaters andtheir communities. If it's missing here, it's our fault, not our accomplishment.
CW:So, looking back, do you remember having any feelings about -- what was your
relationship or thoughts about Yiddish itself as a kid?
AAS:It was one of my languages. I became aware, because of the war, that -- how
36:00similar some words were to German. And I had, because of the war, because I wasgrowing up during the war, I had an aversion to German. I mean, I could notlisten to Wagner. I still have a problem listening to Wagner, but for otherreasons. (laughs) But I literally could not listen to German. It frightened me.But I became aware that Yiddish had something akin to German, but in softerclothing. Yiddish never frightened me. I also became aware that there werethings that could be said in Yiddish that you just could not find any other wayof saying, which is extremely true. It was a warm blanket in which to express 37:00yourself. I loved the music that also was part of the language. Yiddish andYiddish music are one, and you could not love the music without loving thelanguage. You could not love the language without loving the music. I mean, WEVDwas our home radio station. (laughs) And also, became aware of the fun thatYiddish brought with it, with people like Mickey Katz. By the way, have youinterviewed Joel Grey?
CW:Not yet.
AAS:You must. But people like Mickey Katz who used Yiddish unashamedly as a
source of laughter. It was the language of my grandparents. I knew it was the 38:00language they brought with them from Europe. I knew it was the language I wasnot gonna speak in my school, but I also knew that it was something -- it was home.
CW:At what point did you know you wanted to get involved in theater?
AAS:I knew I wanted to get involved in theater very early, but I wasn't brave
enough to admit it to myself. I went through various phases. I was gonna be awriter, I was gonna be an actor, I was gonna -- and then, it wasn't until I wasin college, actually, at Whittier College, and I was about seventeen, sixteen orseventeen, and I had taken a directing class. And I remember -- I actually cananswer that question in horrible specific. (laughs) I had taken a directingclass and I was directing a scene from "Glass Menagerie." And I was up in thebalcony of this theater. There's a scene where Tom has just broken his sister's 39:00glass animals. And he goes out on the porch, on the veranda, and talks about, "Ileft St. Louis but I --" -- has one of his soliloquies while his sister ispicking up the pieces of the broken animals. And I had designed this littlecross-fade of lights as this moment occurred. And I was in the balcony watchingthis, and as the lights cross-faded, this beautiful blue haze was created on thestage. And the young man playing Tom and the girl playing the sister werelovely, really very sensitive young actors. But as this blue haze occurred, Ihad this sense of: I did that. Whatever it was that I did, whatever those 40:00elements I put together created that moment. And I had a sense of fulfillment Ihad never experienced before. And I've been chasing that blue haze ever since.(laughs) But that's the moment I knew what I wanted to do.
CW:And what did your parents think about that?
AAS:My parents were always very supportive. I mean, early on, first I went
through the acting phase and they said, Uh-huh. But when I told them that Iwanted to direct, that made more sense. But then, I would always kid with them.I said, "Don't worry, I'll have a profession to fall back on. I'll be a poet."(laughs) But they were always totally supportive, I think because there weremembers of our family that actually had made a living in the theater, so it 41:00wasn't impossible. So, I think that my uncle Izzy laid the foundation for myparents' support of my theater career. But they were always very supportive.They never said, Are you sure? If that's what you wanna do, we're behind you andwe'll support you in every way. But I think, now that I think of it, I think itwas because of Izzy and Jennie. I think if I had not had members of my familywho had been in the theater and done well at it, they would have had, perhaps, adifferent response.
CW:Were there people in that milieu that were models for you? I mean, let's say --
AAS:Yes.
CW:-- in your acting phase. (laughs)
AAS:Yes, oh, many. Many. I could name so many. My great teacher and inspiration
and guide was Sandy Meisner. Sandy Meisner was a member of the Group Theatre. 42:00Sandy Meisner was in the original company of "Awake and Sing!" When I did "Awakeand Sing!" Off-Broadway, my audience included Harold Clurman, who had directedthe original production. And Sandy Meisner had been in the original production.I was nervous as could be. My first job in New York was working for HaroldClurman. But Sandy was my great teacher, my inspiration. Still my guide. Iadmired Harold Clurman enormously. He was a great theatrician. His book, "TheFervent Years," is one of the great chronicles of the American theater. Hisbook, "Lies Like Truth" is -- collection of wonderful essays about theater. Hisunderstanding of theater was extraordinary. I admired the Adler family. And when 43:00I told Sandy that I wanted to do "Awake and Sing!" Off-Broadway, he arranged forme to meet -- we rented a hotel room at the Paramount Hotel on Forty-SixthStreet, I think it is. And he invited Stella, Luther, Harold, and I was astage-struck puppy. I mean, when Stella and Luther Adler began to argue aboutwhose idea was it first that they would produce Clifford Odets' play for theGroup Theatre, I was just in awe because they were my gods, my idols. CliffordOdets, when I had a theater in Los Angeles -- even prior to that, I ran a 44:00theater in Los Angeles for a number of years and Clifford Odets was asubscriber. And so, these were all my models. These were all the people whosecommitment to theater, whose understanding of the value of theater was of majorimportance to me. Theirs was the theater I wanted to inhabit. Theirs was thetheater I wanted to carry forward. And they're all children of the Yiddishtheater. So, there's a direct line for me from Maurice Schwartz and IsidoreCashier to the work I do today.
CW:I want to go back a little bit and ask you about what was going on in the
CW:So, exactly. So, were you aware of what was going on to the Jewish population
of Europe as the war was going on?
AAS:As much as any of us were aware. I don't think in the early years of the war
we recognized how horrible it was. But I have vivid memories of getting newsabout relatives who had perished. I have a vivid memory of our greeting -- thiswas toward the end of the war, maybe even after the war, but a vivid memory ofour greeting a relative who had just arrived and him showing us the number onhis arm. That's a very vivid memory. I have vivid memories of my grandmother 46:00getting letters that so-and-so was missing or so-and-so was thought to be deador so-and-so was in a camp. So, yes. There were two wars going on. There was thewar I read about in the newspaper with the maps of where our troops were and thebattle lines. And there was the war that I heard about at home. There were twodifferent wars. Somehow, they weren't connected because what happened to myrelatives, the news that would make my grandmother cry, the news that would makemy grandfather pray, was not the news of the 6th Army or the 8th Army or whatwas happening in North Africa. They seemed to be separate. 47:00
CW:Looking back at that time and sort of your growing up with that all around,
how did that affect you?
AAS:I became determined to do something about it. That sounds naïve and
simplistic, but it is naïve and simplistic. But I became determined to beinvolved somehow. That's where I went through the stages. I was gonna be awriter, I was gonna write the works that change the world. Or then I was gonnabe a lawyer and I was gonna be Clarence Darrow and fight for every right cause.I never was gonna be a fireman, although God knows I admire firemen. But I was 48:00never gonna be a forest ranger. I was always gonna be something that would havean effect on what was happening in the world. And that stayed true in terms ofmy ambitions for the theater, because the theater I wanted to become part of wasthe theater that would have an effect on the world. So, it was all one, becausethe theater that I would see on Second Avenue was -- sure, there were delightfulmusical comedies and there were funny comedies, but there was a social passionalways alive there. The labor movement was very important. Izzy was, I believe,the first president of the Hebrew Actors Union. So, the labor movement was 49:00always part and parcel of what our life was. We were liberal Democrats, we werelabor unionists, we were politically active.
CW:Did you have contact with people that were further left --
AAS:Yes.
CW:-- growing up?
AAS:Yeah, there was -- it's the whole blacklist period. You never really knew
how left people were 'cause you never questioned because when the HouseUn-American Activities Committee was active, even more so when McCarthy was 50:00active -- I was in high school during the McCarthy years. I was the editor ofthe school paper. I wrote a very strong anti-McCarthy editorial in the schoolpaper for which I was roundly chastised. And Miss Ryan, the English teacher,bless her soul, made me stand up in front of the class and read the essay andderided me for being a communist. And here I was a fourteen-year-old communist,(laughs) and when I -- it's a quick personal story -- I went off to college, Iwas at Whittier College, and I got a letter from the new principal at MorrisHigh School saying that I had been awarded a journalism prize by ColumbiaUniversity School of Journalism for that editorial. And he said, withoutcomment, he said, "And I have framed a copy of it and posted it in front of Miss 51:00Ryan's classroom." (laughs) So, vengeance is mine. (laughs) At any rate, therewere shades of left-ness, but you never questioned them. And I think thequestioning of them destroyed many a good heart and a good soul. I think itkilled John Garfield. I think his agony -- and he didn't give names -- the agonyof what he was forced to do killed him. The lady who was his dear friend in hishome -- he died, Iris Whitney, became a dear friend of mine and had -- after hisdeath and the publicity surrounding it, she had retired from the stage but was abrilliant actress. And Sandy Meisner encouraged me and her to bring her back 52:00onto the stage. And I ended up doing many, many shows with Iris, who was agorgeous, wonderful actress. But she was just one of the lives that had beendestroyed by McCarthy and by that whole House Un-American Activities Committeewhich led to McCarthy. Lee Grant, who played Saint Joan for me, was a brilliantactress whose career was never put back on track. So many, many stories. But wewere all politically active. You never stopped to question, How far left areyou? You were fighting for social values. You were fighting for a better world,and you found allegiance with your fellow artists, many of whom were Jewish, alot of whom were not. Many of the people in the Group Theatre ended up being 53:00blacklisted, et cetera. The theater was always a home for you, though. Thetheater never blacklisted anyone. That's the reason so many of the people whowere blacklisted came back to the theater and found a creative home again there.
CW:So, can you explain, just to give a little context for people nowadays who
didn't live through that time what -- why it was that people performed -- had ahome in the theater?
AAS:Because the patrons of the theater were by and large of the same political
persuasion. (laughs) I mean, the theater has always been supported by Jews andgays. If you took the Jews and the gays away from the theater audience, therewouldn't be any theater. So, the theater has always been a home for liberal 54:00thinking, a home where ideas were welcomed. And if ideas are welcomed onstage,then why would they be ruled out from the minds of the people creating the stagework? The theater is a place of ideas. The theater is a place; at its best, atheater is a place to challenge ideas. "Death of a Salesman" was considered asubversive play. "Awake and Sing!" was a very subversive play. Just lines like,"Life should not be written on dollar bills" was called communist propaganda. 55:00But the theater has always welcomed -- "Waiting for Lefty," the play that putthe Group Theatre into the headlines for the first time was a verylabor-oriented, labor movement-oriented play. This is the purpose of theater.The purpose of theater is to challenge, is to create, is to stir up. The purposeof the theater isn't to put you to sleep. It's to wake you up. And when youstart detailing the messages that are gonna wake you up, some are gonna betroubling. But they are welcome. I mean, Bertolt Brecht was questioned by theAmerican House on -- Activities Committee. He left the committee hearing roomand, I think, went right to the airport and flew back to Europe. (laughs) 56:00
CW:Sort of in the same vein of sort of giving context to this --
AAS:Yes.
CW:-- for people in other sectors who might see this interview, can you just --
how would you explain what the Group Theatre is?
AAS:Oh my gosh. The Group Theatre was a combination of movements. A man named
Konstantin Stanislavski had revolutionized theater in Russia by asking forrealism, asking for the theater to relate to life, not to be just whipped creamon top of the cake but to get into the realities of life. In order to do that,he had to create an acting style that was real. Now, real -- there's a quickstory on when he was doing "Lower Depths," he actually brought a real beggar 57:00onstage. And he thought, Well, this will make things -- but that didn't workbecause the reality of the real beggar was different than the reality created bythe actors onstage. But still, the goal was for realism. The goal was fortheater to reflect life, to be a mirror onto life, to misquote Shakespeare. So,that was one movement. At the same time, there was a social awakening, apolitical awakening fueled by the labor movement, fueled by the Depression,fueled by political forces. Those two energies came together in a number ofways. They came together in the Federal Theatre Project, which was funded by theRoosevelt anti-Depression measures, by the influx of people who were trained by 58:00Stanislavski, like Maria Ouspenskaya, who started -- best known to audiences asthe wolf man's mother in "The Wolf Man" movie, but a wonderful Russian actresswho had been trained by Stanislavski, who started a school in New York, and bypeople, American-bred people, most of whom came out of the Yiddish theater, whowanted to create a theater of relevance for the American audience. A theater ofrelevance and a theater of permanence, a theater where you wouldn't have to goout and raise money every time you were gonna do a play. You'd have a companyand the company would produce plays, a repertory theater concept. They cametogether and Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman created -- brought together agroup of artists ranging from people like Sandy Meisner to an apprentice named 59:00Elia Kazan to Luther Adler and Stella Adler whose father, Jacob Adler, had beenone of the mainstays, one of the founders of the Yiddish theater. They created acompany -- and Cheryl Crawford, the third founding member. They created acompany and that company went out to find plays: powerful, meaningful, damn goodtheater, but plays of social relevance. "Waiting for Lefty" was their firstadventure that created excitement because suddenly, audience was seeingsomething about us on that stage, something about the labor movement, somethingabout striking, something -- Should we strike or not? The very questions that wein the audience are trying to decide and debate are being depicted onstage.These are us up there. That was exciting. And their great success, then, was"Awake and Sing!", which was about a family in the Bronx dealing with money, 60:00dealing with the Depression, dealing with a grandfather who sacrifices himselffor his grandson, the grandson being played by John Garfield or Jules Garfinkleas he was called. One of the first translations of "Awake and Sing!" was inYiddish, by the way, and done by the Federal Theatre. So, these forces cametogether to create a theater. That theater found its embodiment in the GroupTheatre and for ten years, with "Awake and Sing!", with "Men in White" by SidneyKingsley, with other powerful plays, they had an impact on the American theaterwhich exists today. If it were not for the Group Theatre, you would not have hadMontgomery Clift, you would not have had Marlon Brando, you would not have hadJames Dean, because John Garfield created something onstage in "Awake and Sing!" 61:00which was revelatory to the audience. He's talking about us. He's talking aboutme. He's talking about my heart, my soul, my life. He's making me cry aboutmyself. He's making me excited about myself. He's making me want to go out andlive a different life than I lived before I came to the theater. Those areextreme views, but movement in that direction. Theater can change your life.Theater can be revelatory. That was a new message that was being sent out fromthe stages of the Group Theatre, from the stage of the Belasco Theatre wherethey did most of their plays. That became the key to acting in Hollywood.Hollywood, again -- most of the studios being founded by Jews -- and I don't saythat patting Jews on the head but, yes, we did create the movie industry. The 62:00Warner brothers became the leading force in socially relevant movies. JohnGarfield became a leading exponent of realistic acting, acting that was notfake, where the goal was to recreate life. The goal was to be real. That changedthe shape of the American film and the American theater. The Group Theatre wasthe highpoint of American creativity in the theater. Read "The Fervent Years."No matter what I say, it's insignificant compared to what Mr. Clurman said in"The Fervent Years."
CW:So, I want to return to this concept that you brought up about the through
line from the Yiddish stage into the Group Theatre and then out --
AAS:Sure. The Group Theatre. Luther Adler, Stella Adler, Morris Strassberg, who
played the grandfather when I did "Awake and Sing!", Phoebe Brand, MorrisCarnovsky, they were all -- literally, two of them (laughs) -- children of theYiddish theater. I mean, Jacob Adler was one of the giants of Yiddish theater.He sent his children to the English language theater in the form of the GroupTheatre. Stella Adler became one of the leading teachers of acting along withSandy Meisner and Lee Strasberg, who were all children of the Yiddish theaterand all children of the Group Theatre. So, that's the connection that leads then 64:00to the people like John Garfield, Edward G. Robinson, who then carried thattradition to the broader American audience. So, it's a very direct through line.Elia Kazan, who regardless of what he did or did not do -- or did do during theMcCarthy period or during the House Un-American Activities Committee period wasstill a director of tremendous importance and tremendous social relevance. Andwe must never lose our admiration of his genius as a director. But he came outof the Group Theatre. So, the Group Theatre found its pillars in the Yiddishtheater and carried it forth into the broader American theater and Americanfilms. There's a direct through line. It's not even one that you have to trace 65:00with hazy lines. It's a very direct line and it continues to influence Americanfilm and American theater.
CW:So, in addition to the human connection, obviously, with the --
AAS:Yes.
CW:-- people, from your perspective, what is the impact or through line, if any,
in terms of a Jewish sensibility or a Jewish approach to theater?
AAS:I would hesitate to call it a Jewish approach. I would call it a humanistic
approach. I wouldn't take possession of it. (laughs) I think there is a -- Imean, Arthur Miller was Jewish but Tennessee Williams wasn't, and they are the 66:00two giants of American theater. So, it's a valuing of the human spirit. It's anhonoring of the human spirit. And more than that, it's a commitment to being ofvalue. It's a commitment to dealing with life on Earth as a constant effort andas a constant challenge. The hallmark of a man like Edward G. Robinson, forexample, who started in the Yiddish theater -- and I think his real name wasGoldfarb? Anyway, it wasn't Edward G. Robinson. But the G stands for what hisoriginal name was. Was not just the depth and the humanity of his portrayals. 67:00Whether he was playing a gangster or an older man in love with a younger woman,he had great humanity and great honesty. The evidence of him as a man was alsothe fact that he was an enormous giver to charity, an enormous supporter ofsocial causes. John Garfield, no matter whether he was playing a gangster or aboxer, always had humanity, always had a warmth of spirit, whether it was aviolinist in that wonderful film with Joan Crawford -- I can't think of the nameof it. "Humoresque"? No. Anyway, whether it's a gangster or a violinist, therewas always a depth of humanity that he brought to -- which has been passed on to 68:00people like Montgomery Clift and people like Marlon Brando and James Dean and awhole myriad of actors who followed in their footsteps. That's what the GroupTheatre -- the sensibility, the challenge that the Group Theatre introduced.After the Group Theatre, you could not get away with not being real. Youcouldn't fake it anymore. But as Edward G. Robinson said, the most importantthing about being an actor is to always be truthful. And once you learn how tofake that, you can get away with anything. (laughs) But the challenge was to bereal. The challenge was to represent the human heart. And that started evenearlier with Paul Muni and what he brought to the films, that degree of honesty. 69:00But it was really epitomized by the Group Theatre. So, it's not really a Jewishtradition. It's a human tradition, which has become the hallmark of Americanacting. The difference between American acting and the cliché British acting,the other acting in English, is that British acting was more surface. Americanacting, whether it was influenced by the Method or whatever you wanted to callit, was always aiming at inner truth. The British, perhaps falsely accused of --would settle for exterior imitation of life. The Americans did not want toimitate life; they wanted to recreate life.
CW:Well, going back to your own role in all of this, how do you see the impact
of -- again, going back to these Yiddish actors and your family and growing up 70:00in that world, on your own work?
AAS:Oh, it's the goal I'm chasing. I have tried to do as many works as possible
that send positive messages. Messages is a bad word. Samuel Goldwyn said, "Ifyou have a message, call Western Union." Not messages but positive instincts,positive energy, put it that way, into the world. I've tried to help createcharacters of humanity, characters of depth, characters who shed some light onthe human condition. So, it's part of me. I can't separate it. I'm stuck with 71:00it. The film we're working on now is a film about refugees. The fact that theyare refugees from Mexico is no different. They could be refugees from Lithuania.It's the same story.
CW:So, do you think people are aware of Yiddish theater and its place in the
history of American --
AAS:I think, through efforts of the group you work for, the Yiddish Book Center,
through efforts of people like you, it's becoming aware again. There is Yiddishtheater again in New York. There is Yiddish theater again in Chicago. Yiddish 72:00went through a bad time. When Israel decided that Hebrew should be its nationallanguage, it was a great disservice to Yiddish. When Israel decided that itwanted to divorce itself culturally from the shtetl, it was a great disserviceto the shtetl and a great disservice to the memory of those who had lived anddied in the shtetl. But it is back. Ain't gonna get rid of Yiddish. It speaks totoo many souls. It is too beautiful a language. It is too expressive a language.And the fact that the literature of Yiddish is being rediscovered and has beensaved -- I think it went through a bad period, but it's back and it's gonna get 73:00stronger and stronger. We're dealing, in this film, with an indigenous Mexicanlanguage called Nawat. And Nawat, the fact that we are using Nawat as one of thethree languages in this film -- English, Spanish, and Nawat -- is of greatimportance to the indigenous Mexican community because it's a source of theirpride. And it's a source of the expression of -- you express your soul throughyour language. And if you lose your language, you've used a piece of your soul.So, it's important that Yiddish survive. It's important that all originallanguages survive, and Yiddish is too strong to go away and it's not goinganywhere. And the fact that Yiddish theater is back is important. 74:00
CW:What do you see the role of Yiddish theater today?
AAS:Same as it's always been: educate us, entertain us. Make us laugh, make us
cry, make us think.
CW:And I have one or two more questions, but is there --
AAS:Sure.
CW:-- anything else you want to say about all of this or particularly about your
aunt and uncle?
AAS:They both passed away, particularly Izzy -- uncle Izzy died when I was quite
young. My aunt Jennie died -- I was older but still young. One never gets to sayto one's ancestors everything we should say to them, even to our mothers and ourfathers. You spend the rest of your life trying to make up for what you didn't 75:00say by the way you live. So, I hope I'm saying something to them, not by wordsbut by deeds.
CW:And what does Yiddish mean to you personally?
AAS:Oh, it's music. It's where I came from. I can't hear Aaron Lebedeff sing
"Rumanye, Rumanye" without being back in the Bronx. It speaks to my soul in away that no other language can because it's a language of parts of me I don'tunderstand and never will. I imagine it's what a Mexican child hears when you 76:00hear Nawat. It's my mother's language. It's my grandfather's language. Andthat's what it is for me.
CW:Just curious: has Yiddish ever come up in your career and the people that
you've dealt with or in any of the projects that you've worked on?
AAS:Yeah, I've spoken Yiddish to Ed Asner. (laughs) I've spoken Yiddish to lots
of people. I've spoken Yiddish to Sandy Meisner. I've spoken Yiddish to LeeStrasberg. (laughs) Sure.
CW:Do you have a favorite Yiddish phrase or word?
AAS:Oh, so many. Zay gezunt [Be well]. (laughs) Words I heard a million times as
I was going out the door on the way to go back to school. (laughs) 77:00
CW:And is there any eytse [piece of advice], any piece of advice that you would
want to give to younger people today, looking at you and where you've gotten?
AAS:Not where I've gotten, but stand on the shoulders of those who have gone
before you. Look at their films. Read their plays. Read their lives. They arethere for you. You will stand higher, you will stand taller if you climb ontotheir shoulders.
[BREAK IN RECORDING]
AAS:Now, I actually got to produce a play with Jacob Ben-Ami. He was in his
seventies and he was still working. But he was a -- are we rolling?
CW:Yeah.
AAS:Oh. He discovered John Garfield or Jules Garfinkle, as was his name, and
introduced him to the Federal Theatre and to the Group Theatre. He was a very 78:00pioneering force. He was a young movie star -- oh, I should also mention myuncle Izzy made a number of movies, about six or seven movies. I think the mostfamous one is "Grine felder [Green fields]." But he made a number of othermovies and Jacob Ben-Ami was a young leading man in Yiddish movies in thisperiod. But he was also a great inspiration to a lot of young actors like JohnGarfield. And I was fortunate enough when I was running one of the theaters atLincoln Center, the Mitzi Newhouse is what it's called now, it was called theForum then. I got to produce a play with Jacob Ben-Ami, who was then in hisseventies and a sweet, wonderful, brilliant man. But he sometimes is notmentioned in talking about Yiddish theater and he should be, 'cause he was amajor force.