The next country we were to visit was the Soviet Union.
My parents were a little apprehensive to learn after the contracts were signed that there was no United States government representative in Moscow. Pop explained the possible risks involved to the family and company and everyone was willing and excited at the prospect of seeing Russia.
We were supposed to take only necessities and bring our own bedding and cooking utensils. After a three days journey by train, we arrived at three o’clock in the afternoon in Moscow and it was already dark.
We were met by representatives of the Soviet Theatre Union who put us in horse drawn sleighs or drezhkis and we were taken to the theatre which contained the living quarters in a part of the building separate from the theatrical area. We were shown to five rooms, to accommodate our twenty people. The rooms were sparsely furnished, two beds and one chair in each room. The only heat would be from a very small fireplace in the wall and we were charged for each stick of wood.
In another part of the building there was a community cook stove that was shared by everyone living in the building.
An interpreter took us shopping for food. There was a marketplace with many kiosks selling a variety of foods as well as clothing, tools etc.
We had to get in a queue to buy bread and when Mom reached the end of the line the clerk handed her a black loaf and asked for a permit or ration card. The interpreter explained that we were all “artists.” This gave us a special privilege and the clerk said in the future we were not to stand in line but walk right in.
Again we were given special privileges when we wanted to buy tea. Other customers were turned away, told that the day’s allotment was gone, but because we were artists, we were given a packet.
The opening night, in the Music Hall, which seated twenty-five hundred people was packed. An interpreter introduced Dante and made it clear that there was nothing supernatural about him, that all his work was brought about by a modern technique, also that the costumes worn in the show, if elegant, were simply those of artists playing a part and he told the audience not to envy us.
Most of the audience understood German and some English so Pop used both languages. The theatre remained crowded nightly for ten weeks.
There was a contrast in the people that were in the audience and those we saw on the streets. My parents wondered about the equality that was supposed to exist in Russia.
Mondays were our days off and the ballet usually performed. Russia’s greatest institution was the theatre. Their artists were excellent and highly trained. We watched many ballet rehearsals and I saw one ballerina remove her slippers and her toes were bleeding. She was in tears but continued to rehearse.
We played to a very enthusiastic audience when the whole house was turned over to the Red Army.
Political meetings were held in the theatre, generally on a week day when there was no matinee. Soldiers took possession of the building and thoroughly searched it. Then they would be stationed all around, outside. These precautions were due to the fact that explosives had been found in the building two weeks earlier.
Pop was building a new illusion and when Mom went shopping for material, for some new costumes, she was told she could only buy one yard at a time. So she and the girls went back several times, until she had what she needed.
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My tenth birthday was spent in Moscow and Dolly made me a huge Raggedy Ann to go with my Raggedy Andy. Leon made me a complete little theatre, with miniature illusions including trap doors, right down to tiny pulleys about a half inch in size, that would raise the scenery.
It was the first Christmas I began to suspect that there was no Santa Claus! Never being around other children, my family kept the fantasy going. I really had a strong reason for believing because when I was three, we were living in a large house and on Christmas Eve I heard sleigh bells. My family tip-toed with me to peek in the living room and there was Santa unloading his pack! I never knew who it was but I believe now it was my Uncle Ray, Mom’s brother.
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The year was 1928 and I believe this was the last Christmas the Russian people were allowed to celebrate until just recently.
Dolly remembers that when we stood in line to buy food, people would ask, “Why are you in line?” and it was because we all wore fur coats. On one shopping trip, Mom bought some fine cuts of meat, it seemed very reasonable. The next time she went shopping she was horrified to see a picture of a horse over the door of the butcher shop. We ate chicken after that.
Dolly was riding on a horse-drawn streetcar (there were no automobiles because of the snow) one day, when a man approached her and asked if she would take a screen test. Since it was just before we were to leave, she had to decline.
Al was the only one who owned a camera, an old Graflex, and having been told that we were not to take pictures, he carried it wrapped in newspaper. The few pictures he took were of the family standing in front of the drozhkis.
Along with our fur coats, we wore unusual boots made of wool felt, very thick and molded to shape, no seams., They stayed dry and very warm.
We went from Moscow to Leningrad, which has again been renamed St. Petersburg, where we worked through January and February.
Mom, Pop and I stayed in a more comfortable hotel this time, the rest of the family and company were given rooms in the Circus Building but were able to find other rooms as well.
Al and Ruth and Dolly shared a room at the Europa Hotel. It was an enormous room with two double beds. The large rooms and buildings and extremely wide streets were very impressive.
Mom, Dolly and Ruth went shopping for a few souvenirs and they were able to buy, in a commissar store, linens, dishes and glassware (goblets) with the royal crest on them. I got a doll, of course!
When we were leaving Russia, the only question we were asked was, “Do you have any caviar?” No one did – we didn’t like caviar.
We did bring back a three-month-old Great Dane, Marqui. While in Leningrad he had to have his ears clipped and since he had almost destroyed the legs on a table in our hotel room, he was exiled to the theatre. The operation was performed there and my brothers felt so sorry for him, they took turns sleeping near him in the dressing room.
The theatre was one of the most beautiful we had ever played in, it was actually two theatres, with huge banquet hall restaraunts, rehearsal rooms, carpenter shops, scenic studios which covered a full city block.
Here we learned more about the Soviet Union, through many international artists who had gone through the revolution and were unable to leave the country. No one was allowed to leave, except on official business. In the case of a married couple, one could leave but one would have to remain behind. Everyone had to be employed and Pop met a lady, well known on the continental stage, who was selling newspapers. There were women conductors on the trams and women street cleaners. Which all seemed very strange to us. Everyone was told never to discuss politics and they didn’t. They only listened.
* * *
Our contract had been extended once and we were offered another extension, with the prospect of a return engagement in 1933. The Soviet Theatre Union cabled the Berlin agent that the Dante show was the biggest financial and artistic success they had ever had.
I once read that the company of “Porgy and Bess,” which traveled to Moscow and Leningrad in December 1955, claimed to be “the first American theatrical production ever to appear in the Soviet Union”! We beat that claim by twenty-seven years!
* * *
The following was Dante’s version of leaving Russia:
“The theatre branch of the Soviet had done their work, their publicity campaign had been excellent, money had been made and turned into the government. My work had been done as per contract and our association most pleasant. We were now turned over to the finance department, as each department is a separate unit.
Therefore no matter how well my work was done in the theatre, that part was finished and I now had to deal with strangers to get my money. I was sent back to Moscow to collect it although I had been given many promises that I would receive it the last night in Leningrad.
In Moscow we waited many days in vain, then we were told to leave, the money would be in Berlin waiting for me. We were also told that our baggage would be on the same train.
On arriving in Berlin, I was informed that they knew nothing about my check.
After much intrigue, I received my money. Whether it was an attempted holdup on the part of the Berlin agent, I have never been able to find out but I do blame the financial department and not the Russian people or the theatre.
Likewise, the Railway department took advantage of saving money by sending our baggage by freight, which meant that we had to lay off for a month, waiting for it to arrive.
Needless to say I did not accept the kind invitation to return for another engagement.”
(Editor’s note: See radio talk script, “My Visit to Russia.”)
* * *
I must now add something to this story. It is certainly understandable that my father was under a great deal of pressure those final weeks in the Soviet Union. Possibly he was not accustomed to the drinking of vodka but after we boarded the train for our return trip, he began to hallucinate.
Looking out of the train window, he would point and say, “Look at the camels,” when there was nothing to see but a landscape of snow. He wanted to hide his cigars because he thought someone wanted to steal them.
When we reached Berlin, my Mother put him to bed and kept him very quiet. In the meantime, Al was the one trying to get the money due and getting the run around. We wondered afterwards if someone had drugged my Father, I know he thought so, because he woke one morning completely recovered but unable to remember anything about the return trip. When my Mother told him that we still did not have the money and that the agent was doing a good job avoiding Al, he dressed, picked up his gold headed walking stick and called Al to go with him.
Together they arrived at the agent’s office on Fredrickstrasse. Al went to the back entrance and my Father walked in the front door in time to catch the man trying to make a quick exit. After waving his cane under the man’s nose a few times, they left with the money that they came for.
But we missed a booking in Portugal because of the month’s delay.
I would like to add a little of my own, more pleasant, recollections of Russia. I had never seen, and have not since, such beautiful snow, dry like powder, not the slush I remembered in New York. Pop would put me on a sleigh and run and dump me in a mound of snow. In Moscow milk was delivered to us every morning, in a large pail. While it sat on the outside steps, the thick cream on top would freeze.
I loved watching the ballet and regret not taking lessons as my parents wanted me to. And riding in the “drozhkis,” the horse-drawn sleighs.