Possessed Voices: Aural Remains from Modernist Hebrew Theater

Description

"Audio recordings are a valuable tool for understanding historical theater, yet they have seldom been used in scholarship. Possessed Voices tells the intriguing story of a largely unknown collection of recordings preserving performances of modernist interwar Hebrew plays. Ruthie Abeliovich focuses on four case studies: a 1931 recording of The Eternal Jew (1919), a 1965 recording of The Dybbuk (1922), a 1961 radio play of The Golem (1925), and a 1952 radio play of Yaakov and Rachel (1928). The book traces the spoken language of modernist Hebrew theater as grounded in multiple modalities of expressive practices, including spoken Hebrew, Jewish liturgical sensibilities supplemented by Yiddish intonation and other vernacular accents, and in relation to prevalent theatrical forms. Abeliovich shows how these performances provided Jewish immigrants from Europe with a venue for lamenting the decline of their home communities and for connecting their memories to the present. Analyzing sonic material against the backdrop of its artistic, cultural, and ideological contexts, she develops a critical framework for the study of sound as a discipline in its own right in theater scholarship."-- Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Preface: In the Synagogue Introduction Modernist Hebrew Theater Melodies of the Hebrew Language Possessed Voices Nostalgic “Sound Souvenirs” Listening to Theater Chapter One The Messiah’s Mother Lamentation: The Sonic Imagination of The Eternal Jew The Messiah’s Mother Lamentation Franz Rosenzweig’s Cry: What Does Melodious Recitation Do? Habima Imagining Grief The Liminality of Voice Chapter Two The Rise and Fall: The Return of The Dybbuk and the Making of the Acoustic Community Between Two Worlds: Visual Imaginations and Aural Realms The Haunting Archive and the Voices of the Dead “Mipnei Ma?” An Oratorical Moment of Participatory Singing The Speech Community: The Rise-Fall Contour in Speech and Melody The Heterophonic Chorus: Noise and Disorder on Stage In Plural Voice: Performing Dissociation Where Do We Meet? The Making of the Acoustic Theatrical Community Chapter Three “Who Will Save Us?” Hebrew Specters and the Performativity of Cultural Rupture in The Golem The Golem—A Medium Inside The Golem: Spectral Voices How to Revive Spirits with Words The Paradigm Shift in Habima’s Dramatic Recitation A Hebrew Actor or a Golem? A Machine Learning Language Distorted Voices: Forgetting the Past, Inventing Tradition “Who Will Save Us?” Post-Holocaust Vocal Apparitions Chapter Four Yaakov and Rachel: The Experience of Source Experience of Source: Attending the Archive Modernizing the Biblical Drama: Embodying Myth “Being There”: Cross-Cultural Vocal Gestures Enacting the Sources of the Hebrew Language From Possession to Dispossession: 1928/1952 Epilogue: Against Ephemerality The Dead Sing Notes Bibliography Index