Why a book about a tear-jerking melodrama that is scarcely remembered today? In his last book, Deborah and Her Sisters, which appeared shortly before his sudden and untimely death, Jonathan M. Hess makes the case for a reappraisal of one the great blockbusters of the nineteenth century: Salomon Hermann Mosenthal's play Deborah. Following its premiere in Hamburg in 1849, this play about a beautiful Jewish woman forsaken by her Christian lover took German and Austrian stages by storm. It was performed throughout Europe, the British Empire, and North America, giving rise to innumerable spin-offs. Millions of people saw the play and felt for the suffering Jewess. Hess argues that the audiences’ tears should be taken seriously. He shows how the play provided both Jewish and non-Jewish theatergoers with an opportunity to develop empathy for Jewish suffering in a century in which the theatrical representation of Jews was still shaped by Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice.
In his introduction, Hess points to other literary and theatrical stereotypes of Jews during that period, such as the figure of the belle juive or Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's noble Jew Nathan. Subsequent chapters focus on the place of Deborah in this long theatrical tradition. The first chapter offers a close and illuminating analysis of the original text, probing the literary techniques by which Mosenthal, a successful Jewish playwright and author of opera libretti, fostered empathy for his Jewish heroine. In a rural Austrian village, Joseph is torn between his Christian sweetheart Hanna and the Jewish Deborah. The personal conflict turns into a touchstone for the entire community. As Hess notes, the power of the play derives “from tensions between Christian modes of compassion and the quest for a more secular ethos of liberal sympathy” (39). The drama of the Jewess Deborah who abandons her vows of vengeance to seek reconciliation with Christians also features the figure of a male Jewish leader, Ruben, whose praise of America as a secular paradise where Jews and Christians are joined in “brotherly love” prompts Deborah's change of mind. The transformation of an embittered, rancorous woman into a proponent of universal humanity and love gained thunderous ovations from spectators. Hess observes that the highly emotional story “was elaborately constructed around the goal of making sympathy with Jewish suffering into the ultimate theatrical pleasure, one that allowed spectators to revel in their own liberal sentiments” (61).
The second chapter describes the worldwide success of the play while also considering the various adaptations of Deborah—all of which offered, as it were, variations on a theme. Mosenthal's play was translated into numerous languages and performed around the globe, including in Australia, India, and Jamaica. Augustin Daly's adaptation of the play, Leah, the Forsaken—“an even more dramatic tearjerker,” according to Hess (86)—was successfully staged in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. Published about a decade after Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, the play took up the themes of “bigotry, superstition and intolerance” (81). No less successful was Charles Smith Cheltnam's version Deborah; or, the Jewish Maiden's Wrong. In its highly dramatic last scene, the tormented, proud Jewess is murdered by the malicious schoolmaster whom she accuses as, “Hypocrite! … Disgrace of Israel!” (96). Hess shows how both Daly and Cheltnam sought to outdo Mosenthal by giving the audience a “thrill and a good cry.” In addition to these and other adaptations (including poems, operas, and even three silent movies), Hess points to a rich tradition of parodies and satires. The British Debo-Leah, premiered in London in 1864, ends with the heroine Debo-Leah marrying her nemesis Nathan, after informing the audience that she would not have done so “if this wasn't a Burlesque” (109).
The original Deborah and her various offshoots owe much of their success to the actresses who played the lead role. Hess argues that emotional acting thrilled spectators because it “marked a departure from earlier, more rhetorical, acting styles” (112). Major actresses starring as Deborah or Leah included Fanny Janauschek and Kate Bateman. The common thread of their performance brought Jewishness to life not despite, but because of its theatricality. Some actresses were of Jewish origin—among them the French theater star Sarah Bernhardt. Although Leah did not form part of her permanent repertoire, Bernhardt's reputation as the foremost Jewish actress of her day got conflated with the role of the maltreated Jewess. Hess considers her portrayal of Leah a milestone distinguished by the “extravagant dramatization of her own exotic status as a Jewess” (157). Based on the production history of the play and its offshoots, Hess shows how actresses shaped the role and vice versa; he also sheds light on the expectations and interaction between stage and spectators.
The final chapter explores how the performances created opportunities for Jews and non-Jews to interact and “to produce and experience … theatrical modes of Jewishness” (24). It is well known that the nineteenth century saw the denigration of Jews on the theatrical and musical stage. Less known are the artistic expressions of philosemitism in this period. These included representations of beautiful Jewesses who, like Deborah or Leah, do not abandon their Jewish faith—a trope that also applies to Rebecca in Walter Scott's Ivanhoe and Rachel in Fromental Halévy's La Juive. The ambiguous nature of this kind of philosemitism was not lost on critical Jewish observers, such as the writer Karl Emil Franzos. In his novel Der Pojaz (1905), he described an itinerant ensemble from Czernowitz that performs Deborah. The troupe creates a “bilingual” playbill, in Hebrew for Jews, in German for Christians, and two different sets for two different audiences. Franzos offers a parody of the type of performance that indulged Jews and non-Jews alike in the illusion of universal love and in the promise of philosemitism. He was not alone with his critique: leaders of German-speaking Jewish communities as well as rabbinical authorities also voiced their disapproval of the play. Such criticism notwithstanding, Deborah and her sisters enjoyed immense popularity among Jewish theatergoers throughout the nineteenth century. Praised as an “authentic” representation of Jewishness, Mosenthal's play appealed to Jews precisely because of its appeal to non-Jews. By probing the history of a seemingly obscure drama, Hess uncovers the immense power of popular culture in the nineteenth-century imagination of the Jewish condition, which had repercussions beyond the stage. The study is richly illustrated with stage portraits of Deborah/Leah actresses, theater programs, and cover pages. Most images come from the late author's private collection—a reminder that this original and instructive study was not merely an academic project, but also a labor of love.
