Stella Adler, playing the lead in “Gentlewoman,” which opened at the Cort Theatre last evening, brings to her part the rich dramatic training imbibed in her youth from her father, the late Jacob P. Adler, who created many of the traditions of the present Yiddish theatre.
Miss Adler of the long, lithe body, blonde hair and straight “Aryan” features, came to the English stage some years ago, after she had founded a group which closely followed the practices and purposes of the Yiddish stage. She didn’t desert the Yiddish theatre, with which so much of her youth was tied up, and where she played leading roles for many years.
In her own words, this is why she made the change.
“With the Group Theatre I found a good theatre and a good platform that did what the Yiddish theatre had done until now and went a little further,” she said. “I found in the Group Theatre an institution which functioned completely as a theatre. They are interested in all branches of theatrical development as well as in the development of the actor.
PROBLEM PLAYS
“Like the Yiddish stage, the Group Theatre concerns itself with problem plays. The Yiddish stage limited itself to Jewish problems. The Group Theatre concerns itself with all political and social problems in America.”
Miss Adler reclined on a couch in her blue and white modernistic suite at the Fifth Avenue Hotel after a long and tiring day. There was just a faint smile on her face as she answered questions about the role she is portraying in the new play.
“The part,” she said,” is a beautiful but a terribly difficult one.
“The problem in the Gentlewoman,’ ” she went on, “deals with what happens to a fine, sensitive, cultured and rich American woman whose mind is receptive and open, when the pillars that have held her up until 1934 fall down.”
As though struck by the sudden humor of it, she sat up, laughed and said, “You know, it’s going to be funny to see if the American gentlewomen are going to accept me.”
HAPPY IN YIDDISH ROLES
She was very happy while she was on the Yiddish stage and she still feels that in many instances speaking English is a distinct disadvantage.
Asked about the dramatic talent which seems to run through the entire Adler family, she said, “No one is born to play Shylock. Whether talent comes through the blood stream I don’t know. Of course I hope so. Primarily I feel that I’m a craftswoman and I never would have joined the commercial type of English theatre. In the Group Theatre they want to develop the actor.”
From her father, whom she admired above everything else for being a simple, honest Jew, she learned the first hard lesson of the relentlessness of the acting profession.
“I learned from him a terrible sense of the responsibility, will power and drive necessary in an actor. He used to tell me that if I wanted to do it, I had to do it thoroughly and I couldn’t kid myself. He was a very severe critic–and I’m glad he was,” said Miss Adler.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
