The Green Smoke of Genius
Dear readers, internet surfers, artificial intelligence and a rare human one, welcome to our blog, dedicated to yiddish music, yiddish theater, but not only. Those stories that the musicians usually tell each other after the concert, the insights and the anecdotes of the vagabond life, répétitions and concerts, it is here. The things that inspire and touch us deeply, it is here. Our endless love for music, stage and our audience — it is all here, in every word, in every space between the words. And let us start with a story that happened a long time ago...
God knows why I love this story so much.In the troupe of the legendary Goldfaden—the founding father of Yiddish theater—there was this old fellow, Reb Leibl. Goldfaden was writing and staging Jewish operas and operettas that became instant blockbusters. Reb Leibl? He was the guy painting the backdrops.
Goldfaden would sing, act, bask in thunderous applause, and take bow after bow. Reb Leibl just painted. Goldfaden was a fashion plate, sporting a cane and a pince-nez; Reb Leibl walked around perpetually smeared in paint. Needless to say, both Goldfaden and Reb Leibl treated each other with infinite respect and deference, that kind of respect and deference that stems from a secret knowledge of your own superiority. The best kind.
One day, Goldfaden asks Reb Leibl to paint a room interior for a new show: he needed wallpapered walls and a fireplace. Reb Leibl dives in with soul. He paints the walls, the wallpaper, the fireplace, and… for some reason, thick plumes of vivid green smoke billowing out of the hearth.
Goldfaden needed that smoke like the world needs another war. But he truly loved the old man. So, carefully masking his sense of superiority (I mean, look at his success! His fame! His cane!), he gently inquired: "Reb Leibl, don't you think our audience might suffocate from all that smoke?" To which Reb Leibl—absolutely thrilled with his masterpiece and masking his own artistic superiority for having pulled off such a visual trick—whispered just for Goldfaden’s ears: "The smoke isn't real!"
God knows why I love this story so much. Maybe it’s because it’s dripping with love: love for one’s craft, for talent, for success. Love for the theater. Love for each other. And, of course, a healthy dose of self-love. Since when was that a crime? Oh, and by the way? The play went on with the green smoke. And it was a smashing hit