The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-06-12
STRANGE SCENES IN A GHETTO THEATRE Men and Women Have Very
 Luxuriant Hair THE SONGS ARE LENGTHY Bit of Life From the YIddish Quarter Awakens intense Enthusiasm
 and the Actors Bow to
 Curtain Calls.
THE SONGS ARE LENGTHY
From the New York sun.

CT chapel In which NaudeNlle IS seINeu steaming twice every day.
 The form of these buildings at least adapted them to their new use, what ever the sentimental objection to such a change might be- It is different, however, in the case of the Yiddish music hall
 A stage has been built in one corner of an irregularly shaped room. Two open pews, described as boxes. stand at either end of the stage and the orchestra of some ten musicians Is placed between them
 The parquet consisting of several hun dred wooden chairs. stretches out in rows back to the door, About two sides of the room runs q narrow balcony.
 Such is the Irving Music Hall as it is called on the English side of the pro- gramme. On the Yiddish sde-Yiddish is the tongue of most of the audience the title of the foremost music hall of the Ghetto looks much more picturesque
 Yiddlsh audiences are intensely emo- tional, noisly appreciatve of what they like, and uneasily intolerant of what bores them.
 Possibly this is due in part to the habit of their entertainers, who sing intermina- ble songs and ballads An American would give his audience three stan4as, or maybe only two when he expected to add an encore. But nothing of that kind sat isfes the singers for Yiddish audiences.
 Singers Willing to Repeat.
 They sing from six 10 eight verses and, applauded, sing us many more. The soul of the American nearer cries out. Evi- dently the Yiddish audiences take no in- tense pleasure in all of these verses, for they only laugh occasionally and applaud at the end.
 Young women were scattered through the room last night, and there was noth- ing in the wholly decorous performance they could not properly see and dear. They were all rather plainly dressed, but wore a great many pearls and turquoises.
 But It was not their cheap jewelry that attracted most attention, Their hair was wonderful
 Whether red, brown, or black, it grew in luxuriant waves over their heads. They were as conscious of it's beauty as the outsiders, and few of them wore hats.
 The men were as remarkable for the luxuriance of their locks, and showed pride in them by the liberal amount of oil rubbed on every young head.
 Men smoked, and they could order what they wanted to drink. Beer was the bev- craze that passed most frequently down the aisles, although comparatively little of that was drunk.
 The first enthusiasm of the evening went out to the sketch "The Peddler from Kisinef'
 This was unalloyed Yiddish. When the curtain rose a woman was making rass- over bread on a wooden board She had covered herself with flour, and when she brought the door into close proximity with her nose. the audience roared witn laughter
 Her husband--the two were announced as MT. and Mrs. Shapiro-came later on the scene attired in the typical dress of the Russian Hebrew peddler. He had the long coat. the high boots, the striped cloth with the two cords attached to either side that hung down over his chest, and the struggling beard.
 The audience roared at his stories of what had happened to him once in New York where there were Irish policemen. negroes, and conductors who united to make the peddler's life burden. He sat In the passover dough and ruined the matzohs and then became very religious, initiating to the enthusiastic delight of his hearers the old ceremonies of the holiday.
 He prayed from long scroll, which he took out of his basket and rattled a ven erable praying machine, which he gave to the woman that she might accompany him.
 Four times at the end of this perform ance the two bumped their way out of the narrow passage at the side of the proscenium arch and bowed But the audience wanted more. It came in the form of a song and dance.
 The two performers crooned a melan- choly ditty. which even in the dance at the end when the tempo quickened, did not lose It's minor haunting note of sad ness. All of the typically Yiddlsh music has this quality, even when it is meant to express festal mood.
 "The Two Orphans" was the ominous title of a one-act play that occupied the middle of the programme. It turned out to be another side of life in the Ghetto. Beginning in humor. it soon held the audience spellbound by it's crude realism and sordid emotions.
 The interior scene of the two sets the evening had divulged was set to repre- sent sitting room of the kind common in the more prosperous homes of the Ghetto. A few pieces of tawdry furni- ture stood about the room and cheap lace curtains were in the windows.
 On the wall hung the portrait of rabbinical looking person, who had died exactly year before and left a second wife with his two children by his first marriage.
 The mother is in love with the lodger So is her step-daughter. The widow has inherited $500 from her husband, and she is the lodgers favorite.
 He is handsome in the style of the Ghetto, high-colored, straight featured, and wearing a pretty mustache. As he comes into their sitting room to adjust his purple tie, he shows the widow the empty pockets of his light red waist coat He says he was robbed the night before. The widow knows he has been gambling. but gives him $25 to start out.
 Her step-son is an idiot. She hates him and keeps a dog whip, with which she disciplines him. She Is belaboring him vigorously, when his sister. clad in mourning enters in time to prevent her from punishng him any further. '.To think that our home should be- come what it is" she says to her broth CT "and we are the children of an hon. est man who died only year ago to- day"
 The daughter goes to a desk and as the electric lights in the hall go down and the music begins she touches a match to a candle set in cup. This is burned in memory of her father, and she | accompanies the ceremony with a hymn that lasts more than ten minutes. The actress who played the part of the daughter was really pretty. So the audi ence took an interest in her long hymn and even applanded her at the end of itl | Then she goes away in search of a home to which she may send her broth or to protect him from her mother and | the Iodger.
 Presently the lodger returns with a | fx~t--