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
 

Aron Merenzon


Born in 1893 in Berislav, Kherson Gubernia, Ukraine. Parents -- tailors, learned in a cheder and privately with a teacher. Through a friend, who parents were known amateurs in a local dramatic circle. M., as a child of eight, was taken into a production of "Shulamis", and felt so that with a friend he organized thirty children and performed "children's productions" every Shabbes evening, in which M. participated. 1907 -- acted in the role of "Joseph" in the "New Kovno" colony, where his family had moved to. Later, traveling through towns to obtain hours, and he used to, in these places, organize dramatic circles in which he would stage-direct and act until 1910. By failing an exam, his studies were cut short, and in 1911 entered Yekaterinoslav with his relatives in a typewriter business, and soon however he went to the typewriter factory, acting at the same time with "amateurs", under the pseudonym "Zomer", but however due to ? , he rejected the work, and he joined the professional Yiddish troupe of Kanievski, which he soon left due to her aumkultureler attitude, returning to the Jewish colonies, where he organized dramatic circles, with whom he performed and worked further as a mechanic, until the World War in which he took part, organizing at the same time Russian theatre productions in Polk and participated in the Yiddish "amateur" productions in the towns near the front.

1917-20 -- participated in a collective of "amateurs" with the Yekaterinoslav union of "stage art activists". 1920 -- toured with the actor Kazhdan to Baku in a collective of "young artists", 1922-23 -- acted in Moscow (director: Brandesko), where he had the opportunity to become familiar with the new Soviet theatre, and 1924 -- joined the troupe under the direction of Zhitomirski, then toured with a collective to Zhitomir (two months), and there he remained as a director of a dramatic circle with a workers' club from Kustarn.

1925 -- joined the Jewish Ukrainian State Theatre in Kharkov, where he created the role of "Mordechai" in "Purim shpiel", "Pnkhsl" in "Di kunilemlekh", "Mekler" inj "Koymenkerer", "HaLevi" in "Shabtai tsvi", and "Fokin" in "Barg arop". M. worked in the same theatre as the regisseur-labarant in the play "Recruits", according to Akesenfeld.

1927 -- participated in the Yiddish film, "Di erd ruft".
 

Sh. E.

  • Z. Zylbercweig -- "Meukhisher yidisher teater in ukraine", pp. 87-89.


 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 2, page 1378.
 

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