A fiddler on the roof. Sounds meshugge, no?
We all know the first line of Fiddler (no?), but part of the fun of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish, this mamaloshen interpretation of the Bock-Harnick classic from the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, is catching the occasional recognizable word or phrase you can pick up among the lyrics and lines translated away from English. As delivered by this Tevye, that opener is entirely in Yiddish, but we hear it almost in English, because we know it so well (and also because of the supertitles projected on both sides of the stage). When we hear meshugge for “crazy,” we smile.
There’s a lot to smile at in this wonderful production, directed by the actor Joel Grey, which opened tonight as likely the first-ever success at Stage 42, that just-outside-the-Lincoln-Tunnel off-Broadway venue formerly known as the Little Shubert. The Folksbiene is a 100-odd-year-old institution, a connection to the Golden Age of Yiddish theater, and this staging must be its most successful production at least since Fyvush Finkel was in short pants. Working from a 1966 script previously performed only in Israel, it was extended four times at the troupe’s home in the Museum of Jewish Heritage before making the transfer uptown.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★ review here.]
As gimmicks go, Fiddler in Yiddish has a pretty good one. Yiddish is, of course, the language the Anatevkans would have spoken, and the language in which Sholem Alecheim wrote the stories on which the musical is based. So there’s a deep authenticity and emotional resonance in the adaptation.
But this Fiddler succeeds fully on its own merits. Grey’s interpretation of the classic is simple and moving, and he has assembled a fine cast of Yiddish-speaking (and Broadway-level-singing) performers. Jackie Hoffman, the beloved cantankerous actress who recently (finally!) received wide acclaim as Feud: Bette and Joan’s devoted housekeeper, Mamacita, is the biggest name in the cast, playing Yente the Matchmaker. Hoffman is a natural comic, but she underplays Yente, letting the natural humor in Joseph Stein’s script (translated here, by the way, by Shraga Friedman) shine through.
The rest of the performers are equally strong, if not stronger. Steven Skybel, who boasts more than a few Broadway credits, is a human Tevye in the Danny Burstein mold, a struggling, well-intentioned, confused father, not a Borscht Belt tummler. He carries the show ably and sings well. His Golde, Jennifer Babiak, is an equal match. And their five daughters — he has five daughters! — deliver a beautifully sung “Shadkhnte, Shadkhnte.” (You know it as “Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” and the five young women are played by Rachel Zatcoff, Stephanie Lynne Mason, Rosie Jo Neddy, Raquel Nobile and Samantha Hahn.)
The Yiddish language places the piece even more firmly than usual in a specific place and time. Between your familiarity with the story and score and the projected supertitles, you easily enough fall into language’s rhythms. What starts as a novelty becomes a commonplace. By the end of the musical, as the pogroms come and the villagers leave Anatevka, some for America or Israel and some for the Nazis just a few decades later, the language adds special poignancy: a near-dead tongue for a lost world.
(Sometimes, though, the Yiddish rubs your ear less well. You might recall that pretty song about Chavala, the daughter who abandons Tevye and Golde to marry a Cossack. It opens with a metaphor: “Little bird, little Chavala.” The Yiddish word for “little bird” is “faygeleh.” Which leaves our lovely cast in our lovely show singing a lovely song with a modern Jew’s antigay slur.)
Mostly, though, the language drives home an essential fact at the center of this beloved musical. Working with what must be a rather limited budget — you can’t help noticing the Levi’s and sneakers on some of the villagers — Grey dresses the stage with towering pieces of what looks like parchment. (The resourcefully effective costumes are by Ann Hould-Ward, and the set is by the prolific Beowulf Boritt.) The parchment at upstage center is inscribed with a single word in large Hebrew type. That word is Torah, and the set is a reminder that the People of the Book are the people of a specific book. (Yiddish, a mashup of German and Yiddish used as the vernacular for Eastern European Jews, was typically written with Hebrew characters.)
The word is also an answer to Tevye’s question of why the villagers keep their traditions. His famous answer: “I don’t know.” Really, it’s because of that book. That’s what drives these characters, why they were different from their Cossack neighbors, and why they were exiled. It’s quite a thing to think about, these days.
Fiddler on the Roof opened Feb. 21, 2019, at Stage 42 and runs through January 5, 2020. Tickets and information: fiddlernyc.com
