Program for A shnirel perl
Sholem Asch, 1880–1957 (Author); Maurice Schwartz, 1890–1960 (Director); Robert Van Rosen, 1904–1966 (Artist)
Program for A shnirel perl (A String of Pearls)
New York: Yiddish Art Theatre Players, 1925
The Yiddish Art Theatre Players was founded in 1918 by a famous actor and impresario Maurice Schwartz (1890-1960) in order to present serious Yiddish drama and non-Yiddish works in translation. The drama A shnirel perl (A String of Pearls) by a celebrated Yiddish writer Sholem Asch (1880-1957) depicted a tragedy of the Jewish family in the time of destruction during WWI. Reb Melech, patriarch of the family, played by Schwartz, faced the greatest challenge of his life trying to rescue his fellow Jews and save his beautiful daughter from dishonor. The stage design was created by Joseph Foshko (1892–1971), an Odessa-born artist who studied in Paris before immigrating to the United States and settling in New York in 1912. The avant-garde cover of the program for the performance in December 1925 was designed by a recently immigrated Kiev-born surrealist artist Robert Van Rosen (1904-1966). It features an abstract figure of Reb Melech standing on the shtetl street lit only by the light of the moon in a tragic decisive moment of his life.
Van Rosen left Kiev, Ukraine, in 1921. After two years of studies at the art school in Kishinev, Romania, he came to New York in 1923 where he continued to work as a painter, stage and industrial designer.
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