- The actor Avrom Morewsky was a rare guest in the film business.
- He had first appearances in front of the camera for the silent movies "Das alte Gesetz" (1923) and "Der Turm des Schweigens" (1925). Afterwards it lasted till 1936 before he took part again in few movies. He played a rabbi in the Polish production "Al khet" (1936). To his co-actors belonged Rachel Holzer and Shimen Dzigan. The movie was shot in Yiddish.
- In addition to the Miropolyer Tsadik, Morevski's roles included the circus clown in Leonid Andre'ev's Der vos krigt di petsh (He Who Gets Slapped; 1919); Uriel Acosta in Karl Gutzkow's play of the same name (1922); the lonely factory worker in H. Leyvik's Shmates (Rags; 1922); the old count in Alter Kacyzne's Der dukus (The Count; 1925), about a Polish aristocrat who converted to Judaism; the title role in Georg Büchner's Dantons toyt (Dantons Tod [Danton's Death]; 1930); and Prospero in Arn Zeitlin's translation of Shakespeare's The Tempest (Der shturem; 1938), staged by the Polish director Leon Schiller.
- Between theater productions, Morevski toured with lectures and readings.
- He also formed his own companies (1931, 1934, 1935), the first of which performed in 55 towns over the course of 60 days.
- He received both a traditional Jewish and a secular education.
- Morevski's uncompromising, sometimes capricious personality made it difficult for him to work steadily with any single company.
- Drawn to theater and Russian literature, in 1905 he began performing on the Russian stage and in 1910 graduated from the Russian-language Suvorin Theater School in Saint Petersburg.
- He performed in Vilna, Warsaw, Lódz, Riga, Argentina, New York (1928, under the direction of Maurice Schwartz), Chicago (1929), and Paris (1930).
- Most of his career was devoted to performing as a visiting star, at a time when this tradition was already somewhat old-fashioned.
- His memoirs appeared in four volumes in postwar Poland.
- Morevski's translations into Yiddish included Andreyev's Tot, kto poluchaet poshchechiny (as Der vos krigt di petsh; 1921), Gutzkow's Uriel Acosta (1922), and Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (Shaylok; completed in 1926).
- Morevski spent World War II in the Soviet Union, returned to Poland in 1956, and became the leading actor in the State Yiddish Theater directed by Ida Kaminska.
- During one season, he directed the communally funded Krokever Yidish Teater (Kraków Yiddish Theater, 1927-1928).
- His last movie was "Der Dibuk" (1937), a Polish production shot in Yiddish. Here he played the rabbi Ezeriel ben Hodos.
- He performed in Russian until 1918 when he turned to the Yiddish stage, first in Vilna and then in Lódz.
- In 1919, Morevski joined the Vilner Trupe, for which he created the role of the charismatic Miropolyer Tsadik in Dovid Herman's production of S. An-ski's Der dibek (The Dybbuk). He worked on and off with that theater company (1920, 1922, 1927), enriching its repertoire with his own translations and acting in Yiddish versions of classic European plays.
- Morevski also wrote polemics and essays on theater and other matters for the Yiddish press, and subsequently he published a book about Shylock (The Merchant of Venice).
- Avrom Morewsky was a Yiddish actor, director, translator, and essayist.
- Through his acting and his translations of European classics, he greatly contributed to the shaping of a Yiddish dramatic theater on a par with those of other European national theaters.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content