Magnificent.
The live performance model of the Nationwide Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s celebrated manufacturing of “Fiddler on the Roof” in Yiddish had its West Coast premiere on the Soraya final weekend, and anybody who was fortunate sufficient to attend one of many three performances will lengthy cherish the reminiscence of this gorgeous musical expertise.
Performing “Fiddler” in Yiddish returns the characters to the language of Sholem Aleichem’s tales, the fictional world from which they sprung. The musical has been translated however in a manner that strikes Joseph Stein’s guide, Jerry Bock’s music and Sheldon Harnick’s lyrics nearer to an genuine Anatevka, the village through which Tevye the milkman lives along with his spouse, Golde, and 5 daughters.
The one concern I had a few Yiddish “Fiddler” was the lack of Harnick’s piercingly easy lyrics. Harnick had a manner of expressing deep common truths in probably the most pure, folksy method doable. However, luckily, his phrases weren’t absent from the manufacturing. English supertitles, spotlighting Harnick’s unmatched talent, had been projected prominently behind the orchestra.
The language was typically understandable even for non-Yiddish audio system. The wealthy man in “If I Have been a Wealthy Man” was translated as a variant of Rothschild, the title of a well known European Jewish banking dynasty. And even when that reference eluded anybody, Bock’s bouncing, daydreaming, previous world melody, virtually encoded into our cultural DNA, assured excellent understanding.
Yael Eden Chanukov (Hodl) and Drew Seigla (Pertshik) in “Fiddler on the Roof” in Yiddish on the Soraya.
(Luis Luque/Luque Pictures)
Joel Gray, the Oscar and Tony successful Grasp of Ceremonies of “Cabaret,” directed each the live performance and the Nationwide Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s manufacturing, which started in New York in 2018 on the Museum of Jewish Heritage earlier than opening off-Broadway at New World Levels in 2019. In 2022, the present returned for an additional run at New World Levels, satisfying the demand for probably the most talked about musical revivals of the previous few years.
The 93-year-old Gray was in attendance at Saturday’s opening on the majestic Soraya. He was additionally a presence on display, offering each the introduction and epilogue of what was an artfully conceived hybrid expertise, a live performance model of the musical targeted on the songs however contextualized sufficiently to deliver the viewers emotionally into the story.
The orchestra, carried out by Nationwide Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene inventive director Zalmen Mlotek, gracefully guided the circulate of scenes. The very good firm of actors, led by Steven Skybell’s Tevye, carried out musical alternatives organized round transient narration and dramatic excerpts.
A commanding presence, Skybell isn’t a barnstormer however an Obie-winning actor who illuminates the humanity of no matter function he occurs to be taking part in. His Tevye, a patriarch making an attempt to carry his household collectively amid the double assault of poverty and pogroms, was particularly touching in his enchantment to the Almighty to ease up on the litany of struggling.
A violinist (Sara Parkins) shadowed Tevye with the haunting strains of cultural “custom” — a loaded phrase. However he’s pressured to adapt to altering occasions. It’s 1905, and Anatevka isn’t the shtetl that it as soon as was.
Revolution is within the air, and Tevye’s daughters have their very own minds about their marital prospects. How does “the papa,” the upholder of custom, because the musical’s opening quantity spells out, keep his self-respect, if not his authority? The one manner he can — by balancing out matches of mood with the sympathetic humor of a father’s loving coronary heart.
“Fiddler” can typically event a flood of overacting. Not right here. The daughters had been too wrapped up in probably the most consequential resolution of their lives — their selection of husbands — to chew surroundings. Rachel Zatcoff as Tsaytl, Yael Eden Chanukov as Hodl and Rosie Jo Neddy as Khave channeled their ardent emotion into their singing.
Jennifer Babiak (Golde) and Steven Skybell (Tevye) in “Fiddler on the Roof” on the Soraya.
(Luis Luque/Luque Pictures)
Zatcoff’s Tsaytl embodied the mature conviction that Kirk Geritano’s Motl, the poor tailor, is the one man for her. Chanukov’s Hodl, extra anxious however no much less resolved, made clear that her future may solely be with Drew Seigla’s Pertshik, a revolutionary pupil. And Neddy’s Khave revealed that she was ready to sacrifice every part to be with Griffith Frank’s Fyedka, a Russian Christian, irrespective of the impact on her household or herself.
What’s exceptional for a live performance is how a lot of the manufacturing’s character work got here via. Within the musical quantity “Do You Love Me?,” when Tevye asks his spouse what seems to be a not-so-simple query, the historical past of an organized marriage that has stood the take a look at of time was laid naked. The way in which Jennifer Babiak’s no-nonsense Golde refused to spit out a simple reply was as telling because the mild manner Skybell’s Tevye stored prodding her to confess a reality that was maybe too advanced for phrases.
The humor of “Fiddler” was nicely accounted for in Lisa Fishman’s Yente, the matchmaker concerned in everyone’s enterprise. Samuel Druhora’s Leyzer Volf, the affluent widower butcher desirous to marry Tsaytl, performed the heavy however with a tender human contact that allowed him to hitch within the laughter.
The Hebrew phrase for Torah was projected throughout the rear of the stage, summoning a part of the unique manufacturing design. The outlined non secular and social world, rooted in a cultural specificity, was all of the extra common for its vivid particularity.
This model of “Fiddler” in Yiddish elicited in me a poignant eager for an America that after understood itself as a nation of immigrants, sure collectively by the dream of a greater life, no matter creed or nationwide origin or accent.
“Fiddler on the Roof,” maybe probably the most unifying American musical of the twentieth century, reminds us of the lengthy, onerous highway lots of our ancestors traveled to reach at a rustic based on (nevertheless imperfectly realized) democratic beliefs. I’m considering now of my dad and mom and grandparents, but additionally of my college students, whose households come from completely different elements of the world however whose paths observe the same trajectory.
It’s a pity that this live performance had such a short run. However how fortunate to expertise at this fragile second the values of generosity and empathy underlying this basic American musical — values that after made it doable to transcend our political variations and discover ourselves in one another’s tales.
