{"id":98,"date":"2016-02-16T19:03:48","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T19:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jewishmigrationtoscotland.wordpress.com\/?p=98"},"modified":"2016-02-16T19:03:48","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T19:03:48","slug":"theatrical-families-interview-with-edna-cates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jewishmigrationtoscotland.is.ed.ac.uk\/index.php\/2016\/02\/16\/theatrical-families-interview-with-edna-cates\/","title":{"rendered":"Theatrical families: interview with Edna Cates"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"20160121_123813\"

Edna Cates, niece of Avrom Greenbaum.<\/em>\u00a0 Copyright \u00a9 2016 [Deborah Butcher]. All Rights Reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018Acting means living, it\u2019s all I do and all I\u2019m good at.\u00a0\u00a0 If I weren\u2019t getting paid well, I would still be acting in a small troupe somewhere\u2019 <\/em>is how Morgan Freeman voiced his passionate and prideful dedication to his craft.\u00a0\u00a0 Cast alongside Freeman and fellow Hollywood great Danny De Vito, the Glasgow-born Michael Cates was once lingering on the shaky precipice of stardom before the wheel of fortune took a calamitous turn when an untimely car accident involving Freeman resulted in the film\u2019s cancellation.\u00a0\u00a0 Although his elusive celebrity ambitions were cruelly dashed, Michael\u2019s natural talent has indeed transported him across the Atlantic to tour with the innovative, award-winning Blue Man Group.\u00a0\u00a0 That he was destined to tread the boards is however unsurprising, for his mother Edna (maiden name Green) was the niece of the phenomenal playwright and founder of the Jewish Institute Players, Avrom Greenbaum.<\/p>\n

Edna initially agreed to an interview to shed some light on the creative legacy of her uncle to theatre national and local, and to reflect also on his personal contribution to the company and wider community.\u00a0\u00a0 His one act plays (ranging from the hilarious Watch on the Clyde<\/em> to the more sombre Bread of Affliction<\/em> about a Russian Pogrom) and poetry coincide with many of the themes of \u2018Jewish Lives, Scottish Spaces\u2019 project: the dramatic performance of a distinctly Scottish-Jewish identity, the artistic expression of diasporic experience, and the transformation of Scottish urban landscapes into real and imagined Jewish cultural spaces.<\/p>\n

Her testimony enlivens my understanding of the various memory objects \u2013 theatre programmes, photos, postcards and ephemera – lodged at the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre.\u00a0\u00a0 She articulates what involvement with the Players meant to those, like herself, happy to devote much of their leisure to learning lines and perfecting performances. She touches upon the group\u2019s role in facilitating and reshaping relations within the Jewish community – revealing that many of the Players met or got to know their future spouses at club rehearsals – as well as the interplay between the Jewish and non-Jewish communities through the collaborative involvement of the troupe in the 1940s Unity Theatre.<\/p>\n

A charming and highly self-deprecating, natural raconteur, Edna is effortlessly able to weave details both humorous and touching into an engaging and extraordinarily candid life narrative.\u00a0\u00a0 Echoing Freeman\u2019s love of acting, she wistfully recalled her own youthful aspirations:<\/p>\n

\u2018All throughout school there was nothing I ever wanted to do except being on stage. I was the class clown.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Passing the King\u2019s Theatre in Glasgow as an ambitious schoolgirl, she confidently assured her friends \u2018I\u2019ll<\/em> be there one day!\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 Although breaking into the highly competitive professional theatrical world ultimately proved an unattainable dream\u2013 hindered by the lack of local Drama College and daunted by the prospect of forsaking family to relocate to London in uncertain pursuit of fame and fortune \u2013 Edna nevertheless enjoyed what she recalls as \u2018a wonderful experience\u2019 with the amateur yet highly acclaimed Jewish Institute Players.<\/p>\n

Unassumingly, she attributes much of her success to invaluable encouragement of her pre-eminent and inspirational uncle \u2013 \u2018Uncle Abie\u2019 she affectionately calls him – who recognising her talent, secured parts for her in numerous plays. While still a girl she landed a small part in the festival-winning production of The Dybbuk,<\/em> in which Ida Shuster topped the bill as Leah, and at the tender age of 14 she was cast as the lead in Dear Ruth.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>She also played the bride in Blood Wedding <\/em>and counts Caf\u00e9 Crown, Winter\u2019s Journey <\/em>and The Dream <\/em>amongst the highlights of her varied theatrical career.\u00a0\u00a0 Active also behind the scenes, she tried her hand at directing Morning Star <\/em>and Brighton Beach Memoirs <\/em>during the 1980s, and served on the committee of the Greenbaum Players (as they became known following Avrom\u2019s death) when the company relocated to Coplaw Street.<\/p>\n

Edna spoke adoringly of the Uncle Abie she remembers as \u2018so clever, modest and quiet.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018He had these fantastic eyes\u2019 she mused \u2018you just listened to every word, and just a wonderful sense of humour.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Watching Edna captivatingly holding court, regaling us with a delightful selection of annecdotes of mishap and mayhem – untimely curtain closures, actors appearing late on stage, bungled and improvised lines – it is striking how many of her uncle\u2019s qualities she shares.\u00a0\u00a0 The intergenerational legacy of the Greenbaums, happily, lives on!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  \u2018Acting means living, it\u2019s all I do and all I\u2019m good at.\u00a0\u00a0 If I weren\u2019t getting paid well, I would still be acting in a small troupe somewhere\u2019 is how Morgan Freeman voiced his passionate and prideful dedication to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7vIzI-1A","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishmigrationtoscotland.is.ed.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishmigrationtoscotland.is.ed.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishmigrationtoscotland.is.ed.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishmigrationtoscotland.is.ed.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishmigrationtoscotland.is.ed.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jewishmigrationtoscotland.is.ed.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishmigrationtoscotland.is.ed.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishmigrationtoscotland.is.ed.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishmigrationtoscotland.is.ed.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}