Reviewed by: The Travels of Benjamin Zuskin by Ala Zuskin Perelman Beate Hein Bennett THE TRAVELS OF BENJAMIN ZUSKIN. By Ala Zuskin Perelman, translated by Sharon Blass. Judaic Traditions in Literature, Music, and Art series. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2015; pp. 320. Benjamin Zuskin was one of the most celebrated actors of the Moscow Jewish State Theatre, known by its Russian acronym, GOSET. The author, Zuskin’s daughter, draws the reader into the rise and demise of GOSET during Stalin’s reign of terror through the life of a Jewish theatre artist who survived World War II, only to be executed in 1952 by Stalin’s machinery of anti-Semitic persecution. In her preface, Perelman declares that her book is intended as a portrait of the actor and the theatrical context in which he thrived rather than as a memoir. Through extensive archival research she recovered the documentary evidence of the tragedy that had robbed her of a father. Part 1 of the book depicts the rise and fall of the protagonist Zuskin; it consists of a “Prologue,” five Acts, four Interludes, and an “Epilogue”—a structure honoring his theatrical life. The second part contains Zuskin’s few surviving writings and some personal letters. (Upon Zuskin’s arrest, his apartment was ransacked and hundreds of pages of notes about acting, his roles, and essays were burned by the senior interrogator, according to his own admission.) The author provides copious notes, an impressive bibliography of primary Russian sources and secondary sources in English, an excellent index, and photographs. The foreword by Mordechai Altshuler, “Zuskin in My Mind’s Eye,” was originally delivered at the Cinematheque in Jerusalem on April 28, 1999, on the occasion of Zuskin’s 100th birthday. In the “Prologue,” Perelman sets the tragicomic stage of her father’s life by describing a performance she witnessed as a child in Moscow in July 1945 of Freylekhs in which her father played the comic character Reb Yekl. “Act 1 (1899–1920)” follows her father‘s childhood in Ponievezh, Lithuania, where he was born and developed an early talent for mimicry. Perelman points out that “Zuskin’s childhood was his ego, and it is spun into his life … and into his artistic creation” (8). The vivid description of his youth is interrupted by the first “Interlude,” with short segments of Zuskin’s testimony from the 1949 and 1952 trial transcriptions before Perelman moves to “Act 2 (1921–1928)” and GOSET. GOSET was originally established in Petrograd in 1919 as a Jewish theatre. When Zuskin joined it in 1920, after it had relocated to Moscow, it had become a prominent theatrical institution, with its own theatre school where actors were trained in the demanding new modern dramaturgy that artistic director Alexander Granovsky, a student of Max Reinhardt, adapted to Yiddish theatrical traditions. In 1928 GOSET toured Europe with several Granovsky productions, playing to rave reviews in Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, and Vienna. Perelman quotes the implacable Berlin critic Alfred Kerr: “In front of our eyes, we see the emergence of theater, entertainment, circus, and also the soul of man. Dazzling!” (62). About Zuskin, Zalmen Lev wrote in the periodical Yiddish in 1928: “Zuskin is truly a discovery for us. Elegant precision, intelligence, innocence, and intuition” (63). Perelman suggests that Zuskin turned down an offer by Reinhardt to join his troupe (57). GOSET’s success in Europe aroused the suspicion of Soviet authorities. Perelman quotes from Zuskin’s [End Page 312] letter to Moyshe Litvakov, a functionary in charge of Jewish culture and longtime supporter of GOSET: “Believe me, dear Moisei Il’ich … Someone fed you false information … as to the behavior of our actors in Europe. I swear on my honor that we are all behaving properly. We are working beyond our capacity. … Instead of wishing us success, you accuse us of things that are totally unfounded” (59). At the height of public success, the suspicion proved to be a portent of things to come, some twenty years later. After Granovsky decided to stay in Germany—a decision with short-lived benefit—Solomon Mikhoels took over the artistic directorship and guided the theatre through the 1930s, its most successful period. When Germany...
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