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Peretz Hirschbein | |
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| Born | (1880-11-07)November 7, 1880 Kleszczele,Grodno Governorate |
| Died | August 16, 1948(1948-08-16) (aged 67) Los Angeles |
| Spouse | Esther Shumiatcher-Hirschbein |
| Children | 1 |
 | PleaseaddYiddish script to this article, where needed. |
Peretz Hirshbein (Yiddish:פרץ הירשביין); 7 November 1880,Kleszczele,Grodno Governorate – 16 August 1948,Los Angeles) was aYiddish-language playwright, novelist, journalist, travel writer, and theater director. Because his work focused more on mood than plot, he became known as "the YiddishMaeterlinck". His work as a playwright and through his own short-lived but influential troupe, laid much of the groundwork for the second golden age of Yiddish theater that began shortly after the end ofWorld War I. The dialogue of his plays is consistently vivid, terse, and naturalistic. Unusually for a Yiddish playwright, most of his works have pastoral settings: he had grown up the son of a miller, and made several attempts at farming.
He was born in Kleszczele inGrodno Governorate (present-dayPodlaskie Voivodeship,Poland) where he was educated initially by local tutors, before he eventually made his way to Grodno and thenVilna, where he joined a circle of yeshiva students who studied the Bible, Hebrew grammar, and Jewish history together. Hirshbein began giving Hebrew lessons to support himself while publishing Hebrew poetry and writing Yiddish stories. He also began to shift from writing lyrical poetry to naturalist drama, starting withMiryam (1905), which he first wrote in Hebrew, later translated into Yiddish, and later still revised in Yiddish under the titleBarg arop (Downhill). During the early 1900s, Hirshbein continued writing naturalist dramas in Hebrew, includingNevelah (Carcass), which in Yiddish (Di neveyle) became one of Hirshbein's most successful works.Olamot bodedim (Lonely Worlds; 1906) marked a new symbolist phase in his career, as well as the end of his practice of writing originally in Hebrew. His symbolist Yiddish plays of this period include the one-actKvorim-blumen (Grave Blossoms),Di erd (The Earth),In der finster (In the Dark), andDer tkies-kaf (The Handshake). He was instrumental in the revival ofYiddish theater inRussia shortly after the 1904 lifting of the 1883 ban on theatrical performances in that language. Prior to his involvement in Yiddish theater, he wrote several plays inHebrew; these were published in the periodicalHazman, but there was no audience at that time for Hebrew-language theater.
In 1908 Hirshbein moved toOdessa, where he wrote the dramaYoyel (Joel). Soon afterward,Af yener zayt taykh (On the Other Side of the River), his first Yiddish drama, was produced in Russian in Odessa. In autumn of the same year, Hirshbein, encouraged byBialik and by students from an acting conservatory in Odessa, founded the theater company that became known as the Hirshbein Troupe. It was the first Yiddish company to devote itself exclusively to "better" Yiddish theater. The troupe toured throughImperial Russia for two years, staging his own plays, as well as works bySholem Asch,David Pinski,Sholem Aleichem, andJacob Gordin, as well as translations of plays bySemen Iushkevich andHerman Heijermans. The troupe's high literary standards and high standards of ensemble acting strongly influenced the laterVilna Troupe andMaurice Schwartz'sNew York-basedYiddish Art Theater.
The troupe disbanded in 1910 for financial reasons, at which point Hirschbein published what Jacob Glatshteyn (In tokh genumen [Sum and Substance], 1976, p. 77) has called "the four greatest plays in the Yiddish repertoire":A farvorfn vinkl (A Forsaken Corner; 1912),Di puste kretshme (The Empty [Deserted] Inn; 1913, written in America),Dem shmids tekhter (The Blacksmith's Daughters; 1918) andGrine felder (Green Fields; 1916). In these and other dramas, Hirshbein abandoned symbolism and returned to his rural roots, dramatizing the lives and loves of rural Jews. The understated quality of these works appealed to directors includingMaurice Schwartz andJacob Ben-Ami, and they became regular productions in the repertoire of artistically ambitious Yiddish theaters. His popularity extended to other cultures and genres, and his plays were performed in Russian, Hebrew, English, German, Spanish, and French. Indeed, the 1937 American filmGrine felder (Green Fields), based on Hirshbein's play, is among the most beloved of all Yiddish films, and the play continues to be often anthologized and staged.
Hirshbein traveled extensively; in 1911 alone, he visitedVienna,Paris,London, andNew York City. For a while in 1912, he tried farming inNew York'sCatskills (later, home to theBorscht Belt); he then returned briefly to Russia, and went from there toArgentina for another attempt at farming, this time in a Jewish agricultural colony. At the start ofWorld War I he wasen route to New York on aBritish ship, which was sunk by aGerman cruiser. He was briefly taken captive, then let off inBrazil, from where he eventually reached New York. He spent the succeeding decades traveling, accompanied by his wife, Yiddish poetEsther Shumiatcher-Hirschbein, and publishing both fiction and nonfiction based on his trips.
Hirschbein's son, Omus Hirschbein, a classical music administrator, was born in New York in 1934 just before the family moved to Los Angeles. Hirschbein suffered fromamyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease) for the last three years of his life. He died August 16, 1948, in Los Angeles.
Yiddish-language plays, unless otherwise noted.
