Page - 64 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

64 | Entangled Entertainers not only members of Albert Hirsch’s company but were also engaged by the S. Fischer Society for a temporary stint in June 1903.92 Armin Berg (1883–1956) also worked for Fischer, as well as the Budapest Orpheum Society, th e Budapest Variété (a spin-off of the Budapest Orpheum Society), and other Jewish groups.93 Th e Jewish Volkssänger and the groups they worked for were all closely linked with one another and thus created an environment that did not exclude non-Jews but could nonetheless be viewed at least to some extent as independent. We see this interconnectedness also in celebrations that were sometimes held to honor one of these actors. Most of the actors who took part in such events were Jewish and had previously performed in various Jewish groups alongside their colleague being celebrated. Non-Jews tended to be absent from such events, just as Jews often did not attend other festivities.94 Nevertheless, it would be incorrect to assume that there was a sharp contrast between Jews and non-Jews in the Viennese Volkssänger scene, as there was a fair amount of overlap between Jewish and non-Jewish groups. Th e composition of these groups frequently shifted; non-Jewish groups might have a Jewish director or Jewish members from one day to the next. Th e Gartenbau Restaurant, with its vaudeville performances, provides us an example of this variability. At the begin- ning of 1901, Käthe and Josef Armin both performed there. Martin Schenk, who was not Jewish but had previously performed with the Budapest Orpheum Soci- ety, was also engaged there.95 Josef Müller, who was famous for his jargon songs, earned his living for a time at the Gartenbau.96 Th is venue exemplifi es the close cooperation that existed between Jews and non-Jews in Viennese popular culture. We see a similar amalgamation between Jewish and non-Jewish groups in the performances that they off ered the public. Troupes that had few if any Jewish actors in their ranks frequently staged so-called Jewish plays. Th ese ensembles sometimes replaced their Alpine popular folk pieces with Jewish burlesques or simply added them to their lineup. In addition to other groups, the Mannsfeld Singspiel Group, located at the Wi edener Variété in the fourth district, did just this. In May 1904, the Blümel Co medy Ensemble was still the big attraction at the Wiedener Variété.97 At the beginning of October, the group performed Josef Armin’s Illustrated Pages.98 Armin’s play is a Jewish farce that the S. Fischer Society and the Folies Caprice also staged.99 Two years prior, the Wiedener Variété had performed a play that it had borrowed from the Budapest Orpheum Society.100 In mid-October 1904, Louis Taufstein’s A Fine Society was performed.101 Taufstein’s pieces were also incorporated into the repertoire of the aforementioned Garten- bau Restaurant, which frequently off ered farces and singspiel performances with Jewish themes. In this context, I would be remiss if I did not mention the heavily advertised performance of Adolf Wollner, wh o sang the hit song “Worüm war der klane Kohn nix zu fi nden?” (“Why was Little Kohn nowhere to be found?”), written by Eugen Joessel.102 But none of these details that I have discussed here mean that the Mannsfeld Singspiel, the Gartenbau Restaurant, or other outfi ts This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.