March 7, 2019
As unlikely as it may seem,
less than four years after a well-regarded Broadway revival, the
Yiddish-language production of Fiddler on the Roof, as
presented by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene,
that debuted this past
Summer at the Museum of Jewish Heritage way downtown,
featuring a cast among whose players are a number many whom any regular NYC
musical theatregoer might recognize, directed by Joel Grey—himself
a childhood veteran of NYC Yiddish Theatre, his father having been Yiddish star
Mickey Katz—has moved uptown for an open-ended engagement at Stage 42 (formerly
the Little Shubert), dead midtown on the Theatre Row strip. The Yiddish text
by Shraga Friedman (having its first airing since its debut in
Israel in the late 60s) is a language adaptation
(i.e. colloquial and idiomatic rather than literal) of the English book
by Joseph Stein and the English lyrics by Sheldon Harnick,. Where this becomes evident,
fascinating and at times inevitably distracting is in the projected supertitles
(which are in English and in Russian) that display not the original English
text, but a literal translation of the
Yiddish adaptation. (The music of Jerry Bock, of course, needs
no translation, and is given sprightly, Broadway-grade zest by the cast and
musical director Zalmen Mlotek. However, Don Walker’s classic
orchestrations have been adapted, with no loss of punch, for a somewhat smaller
orchestra by Larry Blank.)
The fuss is not that there’s anything particularly, interpretively unique about
this Fiddler; in terms of tone, pace, aesthetic. Mr. Grey’s staging
and direction are straight ahead and clean: He doesn’t get in the way of the
show, and the show emerges unblemished and faithfully rendered.
But
the heart of it has been given an unexpected infusion of fresh blood. Something
about how the actors connect to the language and the language to the source—the
Tevye stories by Sholem Aleichem, which of course were written
in Yiddish—keeps this musical that so mamny of us
know not just well, but intimately, from
seeming familiar. In a very real
sense, we’re meeting it anew. And among a just-about-perfect cast the Tevye of Steven Skybell emerges as one of the American greats,
destined, I think, to become as legendary as Mostel, Bernardi or Bikel. And because of
the different language, he owns it
in a waythat no other American has, or yet can. I’m
not entirely sure I would have said that while he was performing the show
downtown (where he was, no mistake, fine; just fine)…but
there are these marriages of role and performer that debut and then go
underground for a while, like a great soup left in the fridge for a day or two,
during which time the elements blend in a way they never could just off the
stove; and when they return, there’s a fantastic, new robustness. And that’s
exactly what’s happened with Skybell. His Tevye, even sung with unusual beauty, is both virile and
vulnerable, an achingly real papa.
And physically the
production is a bit notable: Since Broadway extravagance would be out of the
question in this off-Broadway environment, Mr. Grey has taken a page from the
John Doyle playbook, letting the actors create houses, rooms, large props (like
a bed) and various locales in the town of Anatevka
from nothing but simple tables and simple chairs. What’s quite admirable about
this device is how little attention is drawn to it. There’s never a wink
of Look, look, it’s all chairs standing in for real stuff! This
too is matter-of-fact and straight-ahead, so much so that you barely notice,
and never in the forefront of your mind, how budget-minded the production truly
is. This is not only a thoroughly moving Fiddler…it’s a triumph of
subtle expedience.
Right? Of course
right.
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