David Schneider forms Yiddish theatre company

Most people know David Schneider as a comedian and a performer. But David has a secret passion, one that has been with him since his days at Oxford University more than 35 years ago. And now he has decided to go public about his obsession and share it with others.

The topic that he is so passionate about? It is the Yiddish language. So much so that David has been instrumental in creating the Yiddish Shpilers – the first Yiddish company to be formed in 30 years, and its debut performance will be at JW3 next week.

“I’ve always loved Yiddish,” says David. “It is such a wonderfully expressive language. I have a tremendous feeling of liberation when I act in Yiddish; I feel unlocked. Bizarrely it gives me a feeling of homecoming – it is a subliminal release, where I can be as Jewish as I want to be.

“It is something very special. Maybe it is that many people in Anglo Jewry tend to want to supress their Jewishness, whereas in Yiddish theatre you can celebrate it. When I act in these plays I can totally relax. I can be completely Jewish.

“It is not just about the words. It’s the extravagant and melodramatic gestures with expressive arm movements and an abundance of feelings and emotion. I describe it as acting from the waist up, using hand gestures and Talmudic twists of the thumbs.”

Being part of the theatre company is carrying on a family tradition for David. His grandfather Abish Meisels was a much-celebrated Yiddish playwright and his mother Klara Meisels an acclaimed Yiddish theatre performer.

The actors in the Yiddish theatre who performed in venues in London’s Whitechapel were the celebrities of their day. Fêted and adored, they were stars of their time. They had a huge following, with the theatres packed to the rafters every night, as Jewish people living in the east end of London flocked there, to forget about their worries and the life they had left behind in the old country.

The plays were by no means amateur. The sets were extravagant with special effects using tanks of water and trapdoors. The range of performances was diverse. Many of the great works such as Shakespeare were performed in Yiddish – David’s grandfather translated Shakespeare’s the Merchant of Venice into Yiddish- and every genre of performance was celebrated at the theatres.

But it was not David’s family who taught him Yiddish. “I learned to speak Yiddish at Oxford University, after my first degree in Modern languages. You could say I learned to speak ‘proper’ Yiddish”, he laughs.

So great was his love of the language that he started a PhD in Thematics of Jewish Mysticism in Modern Yiddish Drama. But then life got in the way. “I was torn,” he confesses, “as to whether to stay and complete my PhD or become an actor. It was an exciting time, and I chose the latter, but it always was my intention one day to perform in Yiddish.

“Then last year I started inching towards it. Five of us formed a steering committee to speak Yiddish and start workshops in Yiddish theatre. This then formalised into rehearsals and now we meet up every two weeks.

“We are a mix of professional and amateur actors. As well as looking at the wonderful Yiddish plays from the past, I started to write new work in Yiddish.”

David says one challenge has been how to appeal to both Yiddish and non-Yiddish speaking audiences. “We are looking at many options. And Yiddish is so expressive. A curse in Yiddish needs no translation because the meaning is so clear!

“Some of our plays have a mixture. For example, in The Dybbuk the spirit speaks in English.

“ Yiddish theatre was a way of performing that is so different to any other acting technique and I want people today and future generations to understand how special it is. There is such a richness to some of the works and it would be tragic for this to be lost. If we don’t carry on the tradition, it will be gone for ever. It is an inherited style of performance, and I want to transmit the feel of it.”

The theatre company is performing at JW3 on with a “hilarious and moving mishmash of new writing and sketches alongside extracts from Yiddish classics such as Ansky’s The Dybbuk and the works of Sholem Aleykhem, writer of what later became Fiddler On The Roof. Directed by David together with theatre artist/Yiddish educator Tamara Micner and East End historian/singer Vivi Lachs, the company consists of professional and non-professional performers, Yiddish and non-Yiddish speakers.

“We want to appeal to both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences. It is not just about teaching a different acting technique, it is also about encouraging people to enthuse about Yiddish so that the language lives on after the generations that spoke it have died,” he says. Knowledge of Yiddish is necessary to attend and enjoy the show.

The evening is happening thanks to the support of the Yiddish Cafe Trust and its chair Stephen Ogin; UCL’s Department of Hebrew & Jewish Studies and Associate Professor of Yiddish Studies, Sonia Gollance; and the generosity of the Shoresh Charitable Trust.

Now that he is achieving his ambition to perform in Yiddish, maybe one day soon David will be able to complete that PhD he started 35 years ago.

If you are interested in joining the players email trust@yiddishcafe.com

London Yiddish Players: Yiddish Theatre Reboot Wednesday 24 June at JW3. jw3.org.uk