This article explores the Jewish working-class poet John Rodker’s writing for and about the stage as an overlooked, alternative theorisation of modernist theatre and its artistic and institutional function. It retraces the origins of his 1914 theatre manifesto, published in the magazine The Egoist, to his earlier theatre criticism to show that Rodker initially took an interest in the stage, above all, as a tool for the political engagement and artistic education of the masses. I discuss three theatre critiques, published in The Freewoman and Poetry and Drama between 1912–1913, in which Rodker considers three different types of contemporary theatre with a view to their effectiveness in engaging popular audiences in contemporary social and aesthetic debates. While he criticises the commercial West End theatre and regional repertory companies for their failure to promote social and cultural reform, he lauds the local Yiddish theatre in London’s East End as a true community theatre and the home of a revolutionary modern drama. By highlighting the role played by the popular Yiddish theatre in Whitechapel in shaping Rodker’s ideas for an institutionally and artistically reformed modernist stage, this article aims to restore a forgotten piece of working-class history to our critical conception of modernist drama.

中文翻译：

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约翰·罗德克（John Rodker）在剧院上：对伦敦犹太东区的现代主义舞台的反思

本文探讨了犹太工人阶级诗人约翰·罗德克（John Rodker）所写的关于舞台的内容，该舞台是现代主义戏剧及其艺术和制度功能的一种被忽视的替代理论。它追溯了他1914年发表在《自我主义者》杂志上的戏剧宣言的起源，再到他早期的戏剧评论，以表明罗德克最初对舞台感兴趣，首先是作为大众进行政治参与和艺术教育的工具。我讨论了1912年至1913年间发表在《自由女人》和《诗歌与戏剧》上的三种戏剧评论，其中罗德克考虑了三种不同类型的当代戏剧，以期有效地吸引大众观众参与当代社会和美学辩论。虽然他批评西区商业剧院和区域性剧团公司未能推动社会和文化改革，但他称赞伦敦东区的当地依地斯剧院是真正的社区剧院和革命性现代戏剧的所在地。通过重点介绍白教堂地区受欢迎的意第绪剧院在塑造罗德克在体制和艺术上进行改革的现代主义舞台的观念中所扮演的角色，本文旨在将被遗忘的工人阶级历史还原到我们对现代主义戏剧的批判概念中。