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 beautiful 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 approach that strikes Joseph Stein’s e-book, Jerry Bock’s music and Sheldon Harnick’s lyrics nearer to an genuine Anatevka, the village by which Tevye the milkman lives together with his spouse, Golde, and 5 daughters.
The one concern I had a couple of Yiddish “Fiddler” was the lack of Harnick’s piercingly easy lyrics. Harnick had a approach of expressing deep common truths in probably the most pure, folksy method potential. However, thankfully, his phrases weren’t absent from the manufacturing. English supertitles, spotlighting Harnick’s unmatched talent, have been projected prominently behind the orchestra.
The language was usually understandable even for non-Yiddish audio system. The wealthy man in “If I Were a Rich Man” was translated as a variant of Rothschild, the identify 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 Phases in 2019. In 2022, the present returned for one more run at New World Phases, satisfying the demand for some of the talked about musical revivals of the previous couple of years.
The 93-year-old Gray was in attendance at Saturday’s opening on the majestic Soraya. He was additionally a presence on display screen, offering each the introduction and epilogue of what was an artfully conceived hybrid expertise, a live performance model of the musical centered on the songs however contextualized sufficiently to convey the viewers emotionally into the story.
The orchestra, carried out by Nationwide Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene inventive director Zalmen Mlotek, gracefully guided the circulation of scenes. The excellent firm of actors, led by Steven Skybell’s Tevye, carried out musical picks 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 position he occurs to be enjoying. 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 “tradition” — a loaded phrase. However he’s compelled 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, preserve his self-respect, if not his authority? The one approach he can — by balancing out suits 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 have been too wrapped up in probably the most consequential resolution of their lives — their alternative 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 all the things to be with Griffith Frank’s Fyedka, a Russian Christian, regardless 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 by means of. 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 best way Jennifer Babiak’s no-nonsense Golde refused to spit out a simple reply was as telling because the mild approach Skybell’s Tevye saved prodding her to confess a fact that was maybe too complicated for phrases.
The humor of “Fiddler” was nicely accounted for in Lisa Fishman’s Yente, the matchmaker concerned in all people’s enterprise. Samuel Druhora’s Leyzer Volf, the affluent widower butcher wanting to marry Tsaytl, performed the heavy however with a gentle 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, laborious highway a lot of our ancestors traveled to reach at a rustic based on (nonetheless imperfectly realized) democratic beliefs. I’m pondering now of my mother and father and grandparents, but additionally of my college students, whose households come from totally different elements of the world however whose paths comply with 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 potential to transcend our political variations and discover ourselves in one another’s tales.
