The Dybbuk (Studio One)

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"The Dybbuk"
Studio One episode
Episode no.Season 1
Episode 16
Directed byPaul Nickell
Written by
Original air dateJune 1, 1949 (1949-06-01)
Running time48 minutes
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"The Dybbuk" is a 1949 television production of the Russian play The Dybbuk by Sholom Ansky, a work authored between 1913 and 1914,[1] which, as late as 2015, was dubbed by Cambridge University Press, "probably the most performed of any Yiddish play".[2] Directed by Paul Nickell for Studio One from an English-language television adaptation by Joseph Liss (which would later form the basis for the like-named Play of the Week episode, directed by Sidney Lumet), The Dybbuk aired on June 1, 1949, and starred Arnold Moss, Mary Sinclair, and James Lanphier.[1]

Plot

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No copy of this production is currently known to exist, so any plot description offered would be impossible to vouch for, the sole exception being this short summary, as featured in Variety's original review of the Studio One adaptation.

Ansky's classic tells of a brilliant scholar who dies for the love of a girl on the eve of her wedding to another. Unable to roam eternity, he invades the body of the girl, and is ultimately exorcised. Immediately afterward, the girl joins him in death.[3]

Cast

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Production

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Though not announced as such at the time, this June 1949 episode represented the screen debut of its star, Mary Sinclair,[a] who had, by then, performed extensively on the stage.[6][7]

On June 8, Variety reported that CBS-TV's John Demott, who had already introduced such techniques as rear projection into television, had now devised a new process shot system for this episode.

To make possible scenes showing the soul of one character entering the body of another, DeMott had the 'ghost' performing against a jet-black screen, which gave him a disembodied effect. Other characters performed before the standard set and then, through super-imposing one camera over another, the merging illusion was created. Actors rehearsed the scene together before the show but worked at opposite ends of the studio during the actual production.

DeNott likened this process to the split-screen effect used in Hollywood, as he himself had done while working on Paramount's The Ghost Breakers, almost a decade before.[8]

Release

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The television play was broadcast on CBS as season 1, episode 16 of its Studio One series on June 1, 1949.

Bowling Green University currently holds a copy of this episode's shooting script.[9]

Reception

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New Republic TV critic Saul Carson called it "the most satisfying dramatic performance I have yet seen on the new medium". Citing both "superb acting by Arnold Moss [and] Liss and Miner's thorough grasp of television's possibilities", Carson concludes his review on a cautionary note. "It would be tragic if the Liss-Miner 'Dybbuk' were relegated to the status of one-shot; it should be in television's repertory."[10] The trade publication Variety—aside from concluding its review with a bit of friendly advice directed to the show's sponsor, Westinghouse[b]–was no less enthusiastic, dubbing the episode "one of the group's best efforts to date".

A difficult proposition to capture on video, in Studio One's adaptation, the poetic quality of the folklore was ever-present, and the beliefs of the burgers of this village in Mitteleuropa were presented in a manner that didn't strain credulity. [...] Performances were superior. Mary Sinclair and James Lanphier as the ill-fated lovers and Arnold Moss as the rabbi entrusted to exorcise the wandering soul gave the production its high dramatic spots. [...] Washington [sic] Miner's production, Joseph Liss's adaptation, Paul Nickell's direction, and incidental choreography by Felicia Rorel all contribute to making this one of the studio's most successful productions.[3]

The Jewish Advocate reviewer Cy Shapiro called it "one of the finest TV shows I have ever seen" and praising the stars and bit players alike. He also reports that over 500,000 people had seen the broadcast, and that CBS was subsequently "flooded with requests to repeat same and to present other fine Jewish plays in English, and many ask[ing] for plays in the Yiddish language".[11]

Notes

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  1. ^ The same could almost be said of her leading man, James Lanphier, for whom this was, however, at least his sophomore outing, having appeared the previous month, complete with last name misspelled, in a role deemed minor in a fairly obscure NBC offering; the odd man out amidst four "featured" performers in the five-character, half-hour chamber drama, "Tin Cup Captain".[4][5]
  2. ^ "The poetry of the drama was interrupted and in a show like this, which depends upon sustaining mood, the digressions were jarring. With themes of this type, more goodwill to a sponsor would be generated by dropping those middle spiels."[3]

References

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  1. ^ a b Leonard, William T. (1981). Theatre : Stage to Screen to Television. Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press. p. 534. ISBN 0-8108-1374-2.
  2. ^ Wirth-Nesher, Hanna, ed. (2015). The Cambridge History of Jewish American Literature. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 240. ISBN 978-1-107-04820-1. "S. Ansky’s The Dybbuk, probably the most performed of any Yiddish play, has surfaced not only in Paddy Chayevsky’s Broadway adaptation The Tenth Man (1959) but also as a two-person play, an opera, and a ballet."
  3. ^ a b c "Tele Followup Comment". Variety. June 8, 1949. p. 34. ProQuest 1285973638.
  4. ^ "3 Top Shows Join 'Live' List on TV Tonight". The Buffalo News. May 2, 1949. p. 19. "The Colgate Television Theater does 'Tin Can Skipper' with Virginia Gilmore, Steve Cochran, Sidney Blackmer and Jess White in the featured roles. It's a story of the reunion of five survivors of a destroyer sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf."
  5. ^ "Tonight's Television". Poughkeepsie Journal. May 2, 1949. p. 9. "Tin Can Skipper, with Sidney Blackmer, Steve Cochran, James Lamphier and Jess White."
  6. ^ Pace, Eric (November 14, 2000). "Obituary: Mary Sinclair, 78, Television Actress of the 50's". The New York Times. p. B15. ProQuest 431600345. In 1946 she married George Abbott, the Broadway producer and director. In the 40's she also began to acquire valuable experience as a freelance television actress, appearing on 36 programs in two years. In 1951 Ms. Sinclair signed a seven-year CBS television contract.
  7. ^ "A Springboard to Acting Goals Is Found in 'Studio One' Show; Players in Broadway Productions and Hollywood Dramas Have Been Pouring From the Casts of the Weekly, Hour-Long Television Presentation in a Steady Stream, Survey Reveals; A Producer's Wife". The Kansas City Star. September 10, 1950. p. 4E. "Mary Sinclair is another actress who has come into her own through 'Studio One.' Wife of Producer George Abbott, Miss Sinclair makes the regular rounds under her maiden name, refusing to take advantage of her husband's reputation. After she had read for Miner, the producer asked one question: 'Can you dance?' In spite of a temporarily injured knee, Miss Sinclair answered in the affirmative and lead in 'The Dybbuk' was hers."
  8. ^ "Inside Television". Variety. June 8, 1949. p. 35. ProQuest 1285974122.
  9. ^ "'Studio one' presents S. Ansky's The Dybbuk: Featured libraries". WorldCat.
  10. ^ Carson, Saul (June 20, 1949). "ON THE AIR: A Week of Precedents". ‘’The New Republic’’. p. 27.
  11. ^ Shapiro, Cy (June 9, 1949). "DISC-ussion". The Jewish Advocate. p. 11. ProQuest 886739629.
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