Sara Adler | |
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סערע אַדלער | |
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| Born | Sara Levitskaya (1858-05-26)26 May 1858 |
| Died | 28 April 1953(1953-04-28) (aged 94) New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1866–1928 |
| Spouses |
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| Children | 6; includingJay,Julia,Stella,Luther |
Sara Adler (néeLevitskaya, some sources giveLevitsky orLevitzky, changed toLewis;[1] 26 May 1858 – 28 April 1953) was aRussian actress inYiddish theater who made her career mainly in theUnited States. She was known as the "mother" or "duchess" of Yiddish theater.[2]
She was the third wife ofJacob Adler and the mother of prominent actorsLuther andStella Adler, and lesser-known actorsJay,Julia,Frances, andFlorence Adler.[3] The most famous of her 300 or so leading roles included the redeemed prostitute Katusha Maslova inJacob Gordin's play based onTolstoy'sResurrection[4] and Batsheva in Gordin'sThe Homeless.[5][1] She introduced "realism" in acting before it became an American movement.[1]
Sara Levitzky was born to merchant parents, Ellye and Pessye Levitzky, inOdessa,Russian Empire (currently inUkraine).[6] Her father was a well-to-do merchant.[2] Levitzky attended a Russian school, where she first performed on the stage at eight years old as Emilia inThe Robbers.[5] She trained in voice at theOdesa Conservatory before transitioning to a career in Yiddish theater.[7] During her teens, she performed in local amateur productions. She grew up speakingRussian, only learningYiddish through her participation in Yiddish theater.[citation needed]
When Adler joined a Yiddish troupe at seventeen,[2] she was hired to sing Russian songs after the play as a part of thedivertissement due to her lack of fluency in Yiddish.[a][6]
In Russia, she marriedMaurice Heine (born Haimovitz),[6] the leader of a provincial Yiddish theater troupe.[2]
After the ban on Yiddish theater inImperial Russia, Maurice and Sara Heine left in 1881 for London, whenAlexander II of Russia's assassination led to a Russian ban on Yiddish theater.[1] There, Heine's troupe joined with Jacob Adler's and then in 1883 for New York City.[7] As "Madam Heine," Sara was the leading lady inShomer'sThe Orphans.[5]
In 1890, Maurice and Sara divorced. She joined Adler's Finkel-Feinman-Mogulesko troupe as its principal actor for both dramatic and operetta roles.[5] In 1891 she married Adler, himself recently divorced from a brief second marriage toDinah Shtettin. She and Adler would be among the most prominent actors in Yiddish theater in New York for the next three decades.[6] According toHarold Clurman, who married their daughter Stella, Sara taught Jacob about acting and helped him gain confidence on the stage.[1]
In 1891, Adler acted in a production ofSiberia byJacob Gordin that her husband directed, which was seen as the beginning of serious Yiddish theater (in contrast to the previous vaudeville and melodrama). The next year, she acted inThe Yiddish King Lear as Teitele, a role she reprised for the next thirty years. She went on to create many serious character roles in plays by Gordin,H. Leivick, andPeretz Hirschbein. She also portrayed characters from plays written in other languages in Yiddish translations, such as Nora inA Doll's House.[5] She and Jacob became professionally and financially successful, at the center of the community of Jewish artists and intellectuals.[7]
Both she and Jacob starred in the 1908 playThe Worthless written byJacob Gordin. In 1911, she appeared in Gordin's playElisha Ben Abuyah (originally staged in 1906). In 1914, she starred in the silent filmSins of the Parents directed byIvan Abramson.[4] The film was one of only two movies in which she appeared. After her husband's 1920 stroke and 1926 death, she performed infrequently. On March 14, 1939, her 50 years of work were honored at the National Theater, where she performed the third act ofResurrection.[7]
Although probably most remembered for her lead roles opposite her husband, Sara Adler also set out on her own with the Novelty Theater inBrooklyn, where she presented (in Yiddish) works ofIbsen andShaw well before they were familiar to an English-language audience. She also presented works of theFrenchfeministEugène Brieux. AfterRudolph Schildkraut quarreled withMax Reinhardt inVienna, Sara Adler brought him to Brooklyn to play the husband in Gordin's stage adaptation ofLeo Tolstoy'sThe Kreutzer Sonata. That production also includedJacob Ben-Ami (associated with theVilna Troupe, as well as Adler offspringStella andLuther Adler.[3]
Though she did not act much in her old age, Adler remained active. In her 70's, she began learning to tango, and stayed out past midnight with friends every night until her last illness.[1] Adler died in New York City on April 28, 1953 following a long illness.[6][2]
Adler had two sons with Heine, Joseph and Max Heine.[2]
The Adlers had five children together, Frances (1892),Jay (1896),Julia (1899),Stella (1902), andLuther (1903), all of whom acted. They had a tumultuous marriage, with many infidelities, separations, and reconciliations. At one point, Sara entered a sanatorium after one of her husband's infidelities; at another, she took a lover and planned to establish a rival theater before a bout of tuberculosis led her to abandon those plans and return to her husband.[7] Once, when Jacob Adler left her to live with a mistress, Sara Adler andRudolph Schildkraut formed their own company, with Sara doing everything from acting and directing to designing and sewing costumes and polishing the fruit sold at intermission.[1]
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