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The term “Regietheater” (director’s theatre), which has been used since the 1970s in theatre criticism, refers to a director’s choice to design a staging as opposed to the idea of faithfulness to the original. The practice of Regietheater emerged in the early 20th century with the increased appreciation of the director’s role and was decisively shaped by Leopold Jessner (1878–1945). As Intendant (general director) of the Preußisches Staatstheater in Berlin, Jessner, with his stagings of classics, above all opposed the cultural conservative practices…

Iconic role of the actor and director of the Moscow State Yiddish Theatre (GosET) Solomon Mikhoels (1890–1948). His production of Shakespeare’s  King Lear is considered one of the outstanding interpretations of the piece; it is distinctive in its ambiguity between the affirmation of socialist realism and the critique of Stalinism. Mikhoels’s roles and productions cover a spectrum from classical drama to the shtetl-film  Yidishe glikn. In their diversity and ambivalent interpretive compositions, they reflect the varieties of Jewish existence in the Soviet Union. 1. Solomon M…

Despite its relatively brief existence between 1927 and 1931, the Piscator Stage became the paradigm of avant-garde political theatre in the Weimar Republic. Since the end of the First World War, Jewish artists were involved in modernist theatrical forms, which became increasingly politicized from the mid-1920s. Through their theatrical work, they advocated social conceptions that promised an existence beyond the confines of their Jewish background. Many of them collaborated with Erwin Piscator.…

Since the Middle Ages, the city on the Vltava was among the most important centers of Jewish life in Central Europe. In the 19th century, the Jewish population of Prague increased considerably through the influx from rural areas of Bohemia, and underwent a process of acculturation. Beginning in the 1870s, the Jews of Prague found themselves increasingly confronted by antisemitism, as well as by the nationality conflict between Czechs and German Bohemians. Marked by experiences of rejection, secu…