There is little doubt that Menasha Skulnik was one of the Yiddish Theatre’s greatest comedians.
Menasha was born in 1892 in Poland, where he first became interested in and acted in Yiddish theatre. In 1913 he immigrated to the United States and began to play Yiddish theatre. In a short time, Menasha became one of the most popular comedic performers on the Yiddish stage on New York’s Second Avenue.
On stage Menasha was most well-known to play a shlumiel, which is a Yiddish word that describes an inept, incompetent and foolish person.
This sad-eyed, undersized man was adored by his audience for many decades, and his name is often mentioned in response to the question, "Who was the greatest comedian ever to grace the planks of the Yiddish stage?"
A critic for the Jewish Forward newspaper wrote a review of a play that he attended, in which Menasha performed, and in the review, he stated unequivocally:
"The shlumiel is Menasha Skulnik.
The audience is in love with him, and they call him by his first name, ‘Menasha.’
He has become a kind of Charlie Chaplain to our Yiddish audience, and just as Charlie Chaplain did with his bowler hat, his extensive pants, his big shoes, and with a cane in his hand evoking a warm and happy feeling, so also does our Menasha Skulnik for our audience, who wants to strongly laugh at him in the theatre.
At the time when in the comic Charlie Chaplain, there is something hidden and an inevitable grieving that emerges from his entire gesture and from his big, sad eyes, one only fills up with Menasha Skulnik as the tormented, foolish shlumiel, who evokes laughter from the audience.
In truth, Skulnik almost always plays the same type, and with the same resources as an actor.
How many times have I seen him on the stage? And for me every time there are the same gestures.
He does not even grant us a different way of playing. Every time he only wants to play the one-and-only role, the role of the shlumiel.
But notwithstanding this, the audience maintains itself in one big laugh from his shmendrik shlumiel.
Playing together with Skulnik shouldn't be very convenient for the other actors. He diverts the audience's entire attention to himself, and with his comical gestures that he uses for the other types in the play.
Incidentally, there are plays in which he participates that are so tailored that the other actors have virtually nothing to do on the stage. They only act with him, nothing more."
In his memoirs, Menasha writes:
"I do not know what caused that it should suddenly become a prerequisite to run to see a Yiddish production.
I think that all the years in that theatre, the audience consisted of older people.
Younger people were rarely seen in the Yiddish theatre, but suddenly there came to me a young audience of "boys and girls," the second and third generations of American lawyers, doctors, judges, businesspeople and the Broadway theatre profession and many comics and "gag" writers who began to come to the theatre.
Those who used to write jokes for radio and nightclubs on the "Avenue" used to come with "paper and pencil," in order to acquire fresh material for themselves.
It was a happy time on the Avenue.
Second Avenue had risen up. It was packed in the theatre every night. I used to play two musical comedies every year, not because they needed two plays because of business. One play was enough, but we used to sell many benefits and theatre parties, and because of this we even had to put on a new play in January …
Our theatre had really lit up. The prominent people of the country used to come to us in the theatre. In fact it was as much a "must" for a guest in New York to go see Menasha Skulnik's theatre, as it was to go see Radio City.
The Shubert brothers used to continually come see "the little comedian from Second Avenue," as if it was a hunger. So they had run frequently to the Second Avenue Theatre.
If a comic crossed the country, and he wanted to get a laugh from the audience, he used to ask, "Who do you think I am, Menasha Skulnik?" "
Not only was Menasha so very popular on the Yiddish stage, but he also crossed over in later years to the radio and television, playing Uncle David in the radio serial “Rise of the Goldbergs” from 1931 to 1950, continuing in this same role on television in the program, “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg!” from 1949 to 1956.
He also performed in English-language plays, such as “The Flowering Peach” in 1954, which was penned by Clifford Odets, as well as “The 49th Cousin,” “The Law and Mrs. Simon,” and the musical, “The Zulu and the Zayda” in 1966.
Menasha Skulnik was truly one of a kind!
