Story

“Power” is a Yiddish play about civilization and what fuels it, literally and figuratively. The personification of Electricity outpowers Steam, the Airplane outmaneuvers the Horse, and Madam Cinema outshines the Radio. The only human character is the abstract Slave whose naïve questioning reveals that the more things change, the more they stay the same. 

The play was published in 1930 in the book Teater shpiln [Theater plays], in the section “Fantastishe teater shpiln” [Fantastical plays].

About the Author

Playwright Leah Kapilowitz Hofman was born in 1898 in the city of Līvāni, in what is today Latvia, into a working-class family. At the age of fourteen, she began writing plays and poetry. Hofman moved to the United States in 1913, and contributed to many Yiddish periodicals, while also working in tailoring and teaching. She was able to publish children’s poetry and theater books. Many Yiddish speaking school children read her work in their primers. Her 1919 poetry collection In kinderland [In children’s world] was the first Yiddish-language book of children’s literature in the United States. She died in Los Angeles, California, in 1952.  

Albert Schafer as Dampf in”Kraft” (Steam) Zehavit Amara on make-up

A Special Thank-You!

To the Great Lakes Theatre Troupe

“Kraft” by Leah Kopelyovitsh Hofman was first translated as “Power” by the Great Lakes Yiddish Theatre Troupe in 2017, a collaborative translation between students and instructors from University of Illinois, University of Michigan, and University of Toronto: Miriam Borden, Tyler Dolan, Beth Dwoskin, Sara Feldman, Leianna Xenia Hamel, Saul Hankin, Evan Heugel, Sasha Hoffman, Anna Kalimouline, Elena Lemeneva, Nadav Linial, Jessica Pollock, Vera Power, Anya Quilitzsch, Jennifer Schmitt, Ian Sone, and Hannah Werner.