{"id":1288,"date":"2018-02-27T12:48:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T18:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/yiddish-stage\/?p=1288"},"modified":"2023-05-12T13:03:31","modified_gmt":"2023-05-12T18:03:31","slug":"the-yiddish-dramatic-repertoire-a-users-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/yiddish-stage\/the-yiddish-dramatic-repertoire-a-users-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"The Yiddish Dramatic Repertoire: A User\u2019s Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The narrator of Thomas Wolfe\u2019s 1935 story \u201cOnly the Dead Know Brooklyn\u201d<\/a> begins his snarky account of an encounter with a man exploring the borough by proclaiming, \u201cDere\u2019s no guy livin\u2019 dat knows Brooklyn t\u2019roo an\u2019 t\u2019roo, because it\u2019d take a guy a lifetime just to find his way aroun\u2019 duh goddam town.\u201d Replace \u201cBrooklyn\u201d with \u201cthe Yiddish dramatic repertoire,\u201d and you end up with part of the rationale for our new initiative, Plotting Yiddish Drama, a searchable, interactive database of the plot synopses of Yiddish plays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Digital Yiddish Theatre Project itself came about to help bring attention to the richness and complexity of Yiddish theatre and drama. Over its centuries-long, international history, Yiddish drama has tackled all the major challenges modern Jewry has faced, including the tension between tradition and modernity; political movements within and beyond the Jewish community; changes in family structures and gender roles; violent cataclysms, including wars and pogroms; mass emigration; and debates over the creation of a Jewish nation-state. Familiarity with Yiddish drama therefore serves as an important tool to better understand Jewish history and culture. And many Yiddish plays deserve our attention for aesthetic reasons as well. There\u2019s much, much more to the repertoire than The Dybbuk<\/a>, The Golem<\/a>, <\/em>and God of Vengeance<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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A placard advertising the 1920 premiere of the Vilna Troupe\u2019s Der dibuk<\/em> (The Dybbuk).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Enter \u201cPlotting Yiddish Drama\u201d<\/a> (PYD), a new initiative you can begin to sample now, which will gradually expand in terms of both the content it covers and the tools we create to help us better understand connections among many different Yiddish plays. At PYD\u2019s core are searchable plot synopses of Yiddish plays. We\u2019ve gotten you started with just a dozen: all of them historically important, but with no suggestion that they are the<\/em> twelve most important Yiddish plays. Sonia Gollance, PYD\u2019s Managing Editor, working closely with several other DYTP members, will steadily add to the database of synopses. Over time, we plan to build PYD into an interactive, mappable, searchable database containing the synopses of hundreds of Yiddish plays that offer windows not only into the details of specific dramas, but also of the richness, complexity, and variety of the Yiddish dramatic repertoire as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n