Is “Death of a Salesman” Better in Yiddish? https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/arts-culture/2015/10/is-death-of-a-salesman-better-in-yiddish/

October 27, 2015 | Terry Teachout
About the author: Terry Teachout is the drama critic of the Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary.

In 1951, Joseph Buloff—one of the Yiddish theater’s leading actors—starred in a Yiddish version of Arthur Miller’s classic play, which he himself had translated. This version has recently returned to the stage, courtesy of the New Yiddish Rep. Terry Teachout writes:

I have yet to see this staging, but it’s clear from reading the script, which was translated in 1951 by Joseph Buloff, that Death of a Salesman has profited immensely from the change in languages. Even though Willy and Linda Loman are as self-evidently Jewish as bagels and lox, Miller deliberately deracinated their characters on the page to make their plight seem more universal to Gentile audiences. That’s why their lines sound more authentic in Yiddish (which you don’t have to speak to follow the production—it uses English-language supertitles). Instead of the inflated pseudo-poetry of Miller’s original text, you get the guttural lilt of a homely tongue that comes naturally to such beleaguered souls. In Yiddish, Linda’s notoriously clumsy “Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person” has the stark ring of a death sentence: “Akhtung gib af im.”

Read more on Wall Street Journal: http://www.wsj.com/articles/gained-in-translation-1445548836?alg=y