Fiddler on the Roof
Last night on Sky Arts there was a fascinating programme about the continuing appeal of Fiddler on the Roof since its first Broadway production of Jerome Robbins in 1964.
Every day since then there has been a production of the musical somewhere in the world. I was fortunate to see the first London one starring Topol and Miriam Karlin.
At first sight a musical about a Jewish community in Tsarist Russia taken from a story by Yiddish writer Shalom Maleichem is not the stuff of enduring appeal.
Even the community it depicts do not always take kindly to intrusion on their ways. However it’s theme of loss – loss of the community as at the end they pack up and leave their shtetl (little town), loss of Tevye the milkman’s daughter when she marries a Gentile – touches a chord and is still relevant today.
Add to this a wonderful score with numbers like Tradition, Sunrise, Sunset and If I was a Rich Man and you appreciate that it still both appeals to a modern audience but is often performed by very diverse groups.
The Femimists had their say bemoaning the lack of choice for Tevye’s five daughters and the insidious role of the matchmaker.
The programme interviewed key players: the lyricist, songwriters, Topol and in some cases the offspring of those that once acted in it.
The title owes its inspiration to a painting by Marc Chagall who came from that community.
Personally I found the film, directed by Norman Jewison, too long.
It’s a stage musical needing that direct impact with its audience. The programme commented on the use of circles on stage to depict a community united in confrontation.
It has been the lot of Jewish people to be the victim of prejudice for some 2,700 years yet they have always prospered.
The programme was a Sam Goldwyn film who, with Louis Mayer, founded MGM.
The diaspora from Middle Europe produced film directors like Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann. The you have Jewish comedians Groucho Marx, Joan Rivers, Jack Benny, Mel Brooks and Woody Allen. It’s quite some success story starting, as often as not, from humble origins and still encountering prejudice along the way.
