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

1931-1967
 

Wolf Merkur

 

Born 10 November 1897 in Lemberg, East Galicia. 

His father (also known as Mendel Ritner, a representative of Vienna and Prague Banks in Galicia). He studied at a yeshiva and general studies with a private tutor, then worked as a bookkeeper for a short time.

After playing for a certain time with amateurs, Yakov Pryzament took him into Gimpel's troupe in 1916 as a prompter for a few days, and he made his debut as “Tzemach Lamdan” in Rakow’s “The Batlan”. He stayed with this troupe until 1918 then joined Ber Hart (his brother-in-law’s) troupe and played for one season in the province of Galicia.

In 1919 M. played for two months with the “Freye [folks] bine” and then returned to Hart’s where he stayed until 1920 and then left for America.

From 1921-22 he was engaged as an actor and lyricist by Clara Young at Brooklyn’s Liberty Theatre (especially for Rosenberg’s  “Berele Tramp”). There his play “A Bride and a Groom” (free adaptation of the German operetta “The Dutch Wife”) was performed.

In 1922, he was engaged by Elias Glickman in Chicago as actor, lyricist and played the “fixer”. Here in 1923 M.’s translation of Marianne Davies’s “Slaves” was performed by Joseph Shoengold.

From 1923-24 M. was engaged by Jacob Gertner in Chicago. However, due to family reasons, he left the stage and devoted himself to writing lyrics for various plays produced by other playwrights (among others, M. wrote [the lyrics] for Dymov’s “Jerusalem”, acted by Shoengold in Chicago).

Later M. acted for a short period in Chicago’s drama society.

In 1931 M. was engaged as actor and [incipient?] at New York’s Public Theatre. In the summer of 1932 he drove around America for the “Lexicon of Yiddish Theatre”. From 1932-33, M. played small parts in New York’s Yiddish Art Theatre.


 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 2, page 1379.
 

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