lager/aaron

Lives in the Yiddish Theatre
SHORT BIOGRAPHIES OF THOSE INVOLVED IN THE Yiddish THEATRE
aS DESCRIBED IN zALMEN zYLBERCWEIG'S "lEKSIKON FUN YIDISHN TEATER"
1931-1969

Aaron Lager

L. was born in 1869 in Brody, Galicia. His father was a poor hat maker.

L. was a choir boy for a cantor. In 1888 he debuted as a "prima donna" in the provincial troupe of Moshe Goldvurm, then with Gimpel in Lemberg. Later he was in the Tsugerman-Avraham Goldfaden troupe, and L. had the opportunity to act in Goldfaden- repertoire ("Peretz" in "La tkhmud", "Hotzmakh" in "Di kishufmakherin", "Klmn shadkhan" and "Kuni lemel" in "Di beyde kuni lemels") as well as "Falek" in Lateiner's "Dybuk".

In 1896 he acted across the Galician province under the direction of Avraham Axelrad and Itsik Mendl Berman. Then for about two years in Hungary, mainly in Budapest (with the "Polnishe gezelshaft" company in the cafe of Shnekendorf), also in Temeshver and Grosvardayn.

In 1898 he acted in Iasi (Rumania), then he returned to Budapest and in the same season still acted in Bukovina. In 1899 he returned to Galicia, and from here he went to his brother-in-law, the theatre director David Sabsey, with whom he acted in Bessarabia and then eight to ten years in Odessa, where he also was regisseur of the troupe, until he parted from Sabsey and organized a troupe with Sh. Krause (and the prima donna Miriam Gurevitsh), who acted for two months in Constantinople, and in

1911 for several months was in Bucharest. After the departure of Krause-Gurevitsh to America, L. led the troupe by himself, with whom he acted in Braila, again in Bucharest, guest-starring in Austria and in 1912 he immigrated to Argentina.

In Argentina L. acted with B. Abramowitz, Mr. and Mrs. Gutentag, Kalmen Juvelier and Morris Moshkovitsh, taking a proper place in the troupe as a character actor. Since 1926 L. has withdrawn from the stage, for a certain time maintaining a restaurant and acting only from time to time for purposes of pleasure.

L.'s main genre was: comical character roles.

From 1 January 1930--16 January 1931-- L. published in "Di idishe tseytung" (Buenos Aires) his memoirs under the title of "Memoirs of a Buenos Aires Actor, 40 Years in Yiddish Theatre", that included [45 chapters] a piece sent from the traveling...Yiddish actors across Eastern Europe, instead of Yiddish theatre in each country.

Sh. E. from Jacob Botoshansky and M. E. from Jacob Mestel.

Aaron Lager -- Memoirs of a Buenos Aires Actor, "Idishe tseytung", 1 January 1930-16 January 1931.

Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 2, page 958.