Gordin was born in
Mirgorod in the
Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine), and received a liberal though irregular education at home. He was recognized as a reformer and a Russian writer. He had also been a farmer, a journalist, a shipyard worker in
Odessa, and, reportedly, an actor. He migrated to
New York in July 1891, and tried to make a living writing for Russian-language newspapers and the Yiddish
socialist Arbayter Tsaytung (the precursor to the
Forverts,
The Forward), but his acquaintanceship with the noted Jewish actors
Jacob Adler and
Sigmund Mogulesko prompted him to try his hand at play-writing. His first play,
Siberia, was based on a true story about a man sent
as a prisoner to Siberia and who escaped, lived out a normal life for many years, and was then exiled again. Although initially it met a rocky reception (as did his second play,
Two Worlds), it was a critical success. His third play
The Pogrom in Russia was produced in January 1892 by the actor
Boris Thomashefsky. In June 1892, Gordin signed a contract with
Jacob Pavlovich Adler, and later that year, for Adler and his troupe, he wrote
Der yidisher kenig lir (
The Jewish King Lear), loosely adapted from Shakespeare and the Russian writer
Ivan Turgenev's
King Lear of the Steppes, and set in 19th century Russia. It laid the foundation of his career as a Yiddish playwright. The play drew a new audience of Russian-Jewish intellectuals to the Yiddish theater and constituted a defining moment in Adler's career as well as Gordin's. It is widely seen as ushering in the first "Golden Age" of Yiddish theater in New York. To some extent he had to compromise his
modernist vision with the theatrical conventions of the time. As in the plays of Goldfaden,
Moses Horowitz (Hurvitz), and
Joseph Lateiner, dancing and songs unrelated to the plot still occupied a prominent part in the play, but Gordin's plots were naturalistic and the characters were living persons. Under the influence of his plays, Jewish actors began to regard their profession as one which calls for study and an earnest attitude. Gordin is noted more for bringing naturalism and realism into the Yiddish theater than as an intrinsically great dramatist. Again quoting the
Cambridge History, "With all the realism of his situations, with all the genuineness of his characters, he was rather a producer of plays for a particular theatrical troupe than a writer of drama. That his comic characters generally stand in organic relation to the play is one of his chief merits. Of his many pieces (about 70 or 80) only a score or so have been published." They single out as some of his best
Mirele Efros,
Got, Mentsh un Tayvl (
God, Man, and Devil, based on
Goethe's
Faust), and
Der Umbakanter (
The Unknown). ==Partial list of works==