Abraham Goldfaden - The Search For A Theater

The Search For A Theater

As the season for outdoor performances was coming to a close, Goldfaden tried and failed to rent an appropriate theater in Iaşi. A theater owner named Reicher, presumably Jewish himself, told him that "a troupe of Jewish singers" would be "too dirty". Goldfaden, Grodner, and Goldstein headed first to Botoşani, where they lived in a garret and Goldfaden continued to churn out songs and plays. An initial successful performance of Di Rekruten (The Recruits) in an indoor theater ("with loges!" as Goldfaden wrote) was followed by days of rain so torrential that no one would come out to the theater; they pawned some possessions and left for Galaţi, which was to prove a bit more auspicious, with a successful three-week run.

In Galaţi they acquired their first serious set designer, a housepainter known as Reb Moishe Bas. He had no formal artistic training, but he proved to be good at the job, and joined the troupe, as did Sara Segal, their first actress. She was not yet out of her teens. After seeing her perform in their Galaţi premiere, her mother objected to her unmarried daughter cavorting on a stage like that; Goldstein (unlike Goldfaden and Grodner) was single; he promptly married her and she remained with the troupe. (Besides being known as Sara Segal and Sofia Goldstein, she became best known as Sofia Karp, after a second marriage to actor Max Karp).

After the successful run in Galaţi came a less successful attempt in Brăila, but by now the company had honed its act and it was time to go to the capital, Bucharest.