[NEohioPAL] "What Were They Thinking: A Gentile 'Fiddler'"

[Bob Abelman via NEohioPAL]

What Were They Thinking: A Gentile 'Fiddler' 

 

Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

 

The original Broadway production of the musical "Fiddler on the Roof" - which ran for a then-unprecedented 3,242 performances and earned nine Tony Awards - is celebrating its 50th anniversary.  A revival, the show's fifth, is planned for later next year.  

 

Set in 1905 in the underfed and overworked Russian village of Anatevka, "Fiddler" tells the tale of Tevye the dairyman, his wife Golde and their five daughters scraping a living and keeping faithful to their heritage in a time and place where indifference turns to hostility and hostility leads to relocation. 

 

It is generally agreed that no creative work by or about Jews has won the hearts of Americans as thoroughly as "Fiddler."  Through this musical adaptation, Sholem Aleichem's stories, first published in 1894, became accessible to a wider, non-Yiddish speaking population of Jews and gentiles.  

 

But there are those who believe that this tale of Jewish resistance has been watered down for the Broadway stage.  

 

In her recent book "Wonder of Wonders," Alisa Solomon recalls how backers of the musical worried that it would be "too Jewish" for tourists.  In response, the depiction of Eastern European Jews took on reassuring stereotypes that "preserved our heritage not so much in amber as in schmaltz." 

 

Author Ruth Wisse wrote in Mosaic magazine that much of the Jewish identity of Tevye - the personification of shtetl nostalgia - was sacrificed in an effort to universalize, dramatize and popularize our ethos.  At the conclusion of the original stories, for example, Tevye's narrative ends on a note of fatalism as he wanders off into the distance; in "Fiddler," he and his family head off for a new life in America.

 

In the 2004 revival of "Fiddler," a non-Jew - Alfred Molina - played the hallowed leading role.  One reviewer referred to the show as "Goyim on the Roof" and wondered if the musical could get any less Jewish.   

 

Yes it could.  Recently, Silhouette Productions performed "Fiddler" at the Shore Cultural Centre in Euclid.  There was one Jew in the 37-member cast of community players and none on the production team.

 

How gentile was this production?  Silhouette Productions featured "Dinner and a Show" packages at Vittorio's Buon Appetito and Mama Catena's Italian restaurants. The Irish American Club East Side offered an unlimited brunch before the final Sunday matinee performance.

 

Perhaps the best litmus test for how much Jewishness resides in the bones of "Fiddler" is that which remains intact in an amateur production of it.  So I went.  And I took Alan Lettofsky - Rabbi Emeritus at Beth Israel, The West Temple - with me.

 

For more of this article, go to: http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/features/article_9c14b64e-8313-11e4-9d30-2790d4dde365.html#.VIy9vxxTC5c.facebook

 


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