Sarah Sylvia

Sarah Sylvia (real name Serke Goldstein?) (18**-19**). Actress.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

Sarah Sylvia was the acknowledged leading Jewish actress in South Africa. Under the auspices of African Theatres Ltd, she presented a week of different plays in the Yiddish language each night at the Opera House in Port Elizabeth during the first week in March 1921. These included comedies, operas, and tragedies. She staged Madame X, a four-act play by A Beson.

She acted in Minkie and the Cook, a comedy with musical numbers and dancing, at the Opera House in March 1921.

She was a star of the Jewish theatre, who brought a company to South Africa to produce a season of theatre at the Standard Theatre in Johannesburg in the 1940s, followed by seasons at the Colosseum and His Majesty's Theatre over the years. Her company also did the first production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1951). (See also the Sarah Sylvia Company in Section 3.)

She went on to make various appearances as actress in South Africa over the years, including The Same Sky (1952, with Leon Gluckman), The World of Shalom Aleichem (in 1957 with David Kossof and Joyce Grant, directed by Cecil Williams), Romanoff and Juliet (1958), A Majority of One (in 1960 with Frank Wise, directed by Leonard Schach) and Come Blow Your Horn (in 1962, with Fyvel Zygelbaum and local performers Gordon Mulholland, Clive Parnell and Jane Fenn.) *** Her son was the promotor and musical impressario Alfred Herbert (Alf).

Film roles include The Professor and the Beauty Queen (1967), Stadig oor die Klippe (1969) and Hans en die Rooinek (1961).

Sources

Tucker, 1997.

IMDb [1].

Material held by NELM.

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