Page - 52 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

52 | Entangled Entertainers some of the members of Gimpel’s troupe to move to Vienna so that he could found the Lemberg Singspiel Society.36 If this was the case, then Gimpel may have been prompted to come to Vienna out of a desire for retaliation. However, he was not successful. It is quite possible that his failure was due to the lack of resonance that Yiddish performances found among the population of Vienna.37 But the fact that the shows put on by the Lemberg Singspiel Society met with signifi cant audience approval suggests that the “Polish” abstained from perform- ing in Yiddish. Gimpel failed to garner the favor of the Viennese, and many folk singers also distanced themselves from him. Th ey sometimes made him the target of their mockery and ridicule. We see this ridicule in a production of the Albert Hirsch Society (which I discuss in greater detail below). After Gimpel’s arrival in Vienna, Hirsch’s troupe performed a piece titled Gimpel (from Lemberg) Is Here!, a parody of the Galician theater director.38 Similar to Jüdaly with His Traveling Bag, this play also depicts an arranged marriage. Jacob Beer, the father of a Jewish girl named Malke, and Gimpel’s father decide that their children should marry one another. For Jacob Beer, this appears to be an extremely advantageous arrange- ment, as Gimpel comes from a rather wealthy family. Malke, however, feels a strong attraction to Th eodor, who only comes to the fore in the play because of the cavalier behavior that he displays. Jacob Beer remains unfazed by his daugh- ter’s feelings and holds fast to his decision. On the other hand, Malke’s mother, Zelda, feels sorry for her daughter. In her youth, Zelda had been a member of an amateur theater and showcases her skills as an actress to prevent the marriage between Malke and Gimpel. When Gimpel arrives in Vienna one day to meet his future wife, Zelda comes to meet him as Malke. Gimpel, who is expecting to be greeted by a young lady, is disturbed by the age of his apparent bride and escapes the marriage agreement by fl eeing back to Lemberg. Malke is then released from the marriage pledge and is free to marry Th eodor. We see the allusion to Gimpel clearly expressed in Hirsch’s choice of the pro- tagonist’s surname and place of origin, as well as in the name of Malke’s father, who has the same fi rst name as the Lemberg ensemble director. Th e mockery of Gimpel, which also entails the humorous aspect of the piece, lies in Malke’s mother, a former actress, being able to dupe him. Gimpel, who dedicated his life to the theater, is portrayed as too naïve to see through an “amateur perfor- mance” like the one Malke’s mother gives, in reference to her past experience in the theater. Indeed, the character Gimpel in the play claims to have the ability to switch back and forth between various roles in order to deceive the people in his immediate surroundings and thereby infl uence situations to his benefi t. When he fi nds himself in a compartment fi lled with antisemites on a train journey from Lemberg to Vienna who loudly rant about Je ws, Gimpel conceals his Jewishness and is proud of his skill in pulling the wool over their eyes. But when he arrives in Vienna, he is beaten at his own game. He is the one who is misled. Because This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.