A Landmark Musical that Captured a Unique Cultural Experience with Great Artistry and Emotional Depth
NOVEMBER 11—LA MIRADA CA.
If I were a rich man, I wouldn't think twice about paying the $180 for an up-close and personal premium ticket to the soulful new JASON ALEXANDER production of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, holding forth at La Mirada Theatre through December 1st. But even if I were a lowly peasant, even if I didn't have two kopeks to rub together, I would still cobble up enough for a seat in the balcony ($34). The creative team, led by Director Lonny Price, finds a new handle on what is already a can't-fail musical, full of classic songs and universal themes. It is a sober revival, sentimental, headstrong and emotionally charged.
The story, based on tales by Sholem Aleichem (by special permission of Arnold Perl), revolves around Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman with six women to feed. The role of Tevye, originated by the great comic actor Zero Mostel, is here undertaken by yet another giant of entertainment, JASON ALEXANDER, a Broadway veteran to be sure, but also a master of comedy in TV and movies — best known as George Costanza in “Seinfeld;” Brdwy: “Merrily We Roll Along,” “The Rink,” “Broadway Bound,” “Accomplice,” Jerome Robbin’s “Broadway” -Tony Award, “Fish in the Dark” and “The Portuguese Kid.”
As Mr. Alexander walks out on the stage to a roaring crowd, he breaks the fourth wall, and explains the customs of the Jews in the Russian shtetl of Anatevka in 1905, where their lives are precarious and uncertain. As uncertain as the perch of a fiddler on a roof.
“Sounds crazy, no? But here, in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck."
And there he is, our famous phantom fiddler, just where he’s supposed to be. The familiar, plaintive strains make their magic again and Tevye is planted strong, sure of his foundations, his strength. Why? “Tradition!” he shouts at us. And suddenly a multitude of villagers rise from years past, powerfully singing, swirling and passionate in their fervor and belief. “Tradition!” It’s overwhelming. It’s rousing. It’s electrifying. It’s guaranteed to leave you farklempt (Yiddish for “choked with emotion”).
Yes, everybody in Anatevka has problems. Maybe it’s the Czar, maybe it’s their neighbors, maybe it’s just grinding poverty. Tevye has a lame horse so he has to tow his milk cart himself today, but oh, the real plight of Tevye and his wife, Golde (a simply wonderful Valerie Perri) is not his horse. It’s his Five daughters. Five. Little do they know Fate has already taken a hand in their lives.
For Mr. Alexander’s Tevye, life is simply a matter of daily headaches, given that three of those five daughters are approaching marrying age, and each proves unwilling to obey the longstanding tradition of arranged weddings. Ms. Perri’s Golde brings a very moving, careworn quality to her performance, and seems forever to be slightly stooped with work or worry. She’s plaintively amazed at Tevye’s ability to see both sides — or rather several sides — of any issue. (His “on the other hand” is a lovable running gag in the show.)
Tevye bargains with his God, sometimes shakes his fist and then cracks wise like he’s talking to his best friend, always struggling to balance his religious beliefs and traditions against the ever-changing realities of family and community — his thoughts often hidden beneath his self-deprecating humor, sorely tried by his rebellious daughters. But when he unleashes his rich baritone, he does so with roof-raising force bringing to the surface the character’s strength and indomitable will. And on top of that, he also gets to sing the immortal words, "Daidle deedle daidle digguh deedle daidle dum."
Act One surrenders its pleasures, when a stauch, determined Tzeitel (Rachel Ravel), Hodel (Samantha Massell) and Chava (Melanie Moore), Tevye's three eldest daughters, imagine their future marriages with “Matchmaker, Matchmaker." When they sing "It's not that I'm sentimental, it's just that I'm terrified," they are in a true panic.
Similarly, when the shy, struggling tailor Motel (played by Cameron Mabie with an antic, quivering nervousness) successfully screws up the courage to ask Tevye for Tzeitel's hand in marriage (he almost flings himself under the milk cart when Tevye flies into a rage at his declaration of love for Tzeitel), but when Mr. Mabie’s Motel unleashes his glee in an ecstatic, upbeat performance of “Miracle of Miracles,” there’s a smile on every audience member’s face.
Lee Martino's sharp-edged choreography, bearing the unmistakable stamp of Jerome Robbins’s genius (Robbins directed the original production and is considered as much the show’s author as the writers of its book and score), is more than thrilling. In the chorus numbers she not only whips up a heightened version of Robbins' original choreography, but in “To Life” also throws in a healthy dose of his "West Side Story" attitude as well. You may have noticed when a group of celebrating Jewish denizens and an interloping group of gentile Russians were both present at the same inn, both wanting to dance their cultural dances, the tension seemed high enough to ignite even the night air – so much so that it brought to mind that rumble scene between the Jets and the Sharks. Call it Gangs of Anatevka.
The famous “bottle dance” at Tzeitel and Motel’s wedding seem almost identical to those in the original. But who would want it any other way? Ms. Martino’s dances contain the same formal beauty and ingenuity and possess an athletic exuberance that was a Robbins trademark. One thing’s for sure: there’s certainly no lack of earth-stomping, hand-waving and circle dancing — all carried to the giddiest heights and whirlingly abetted as well by the great Catherine Zuber’s original costume design, including the payes and beards, adding verve and authenticity into the Horah, dreidel and Mbende Jewish dances, as well as the iconic bottle dance (no tricks or theatre magic here).
On the other hand, Act Two sees Remy Laifer as Perchik, a rebellious tutor who is Hodel's beau, in fine acting form and with an apt fieriness, even truculence. The couple excells in their duet together, “Now I Have Everything,” and Ms. Smith’s lovely delivery of Hodel’s somber “Far from the Home I Love” is also among the show’s musical highlights. Later, the bookish Chava, played with quiet dignity by Ms. Glick, breaks Tevye’s already burdened heart by falling in love with a gentile Russian, Fyedka (Sawyer Patterson). And quite undone by all this chaotic flouting of traditional marriage is the matchmaker Yente, imbued with flinty comic assurance by Eileen T’Kaye.
But, as directed by Mr. Price with much sensitivity, his multihued staging moves to a heart-stopping conclusion. Yet it’s impossible to watch the people of Tevye’s town, Anatevka, marching toward their unknown destinies in the shadow of a threatened pogrom without thinking of the thousands of families fleeing violence in the Middle East or South America or elsewhere today.
Oy! But enough philosophizing. It’s just a musical, no? Yes, but what a musical! Never have the songs sounded better. The score, by Jerry Bock (music) and Sheldon Harnick (lyrics), enters your bloodstream, indelibly, upon a single hearing, so rousing are its songs of celebration, so beautiful the melodies of love and loss — you cannot help but hang on every word and note. And Joseph Stein’s book miraculously blends borscht belt humor (he was an alumnus of the fabled writing staff of “Your Show of Shows”) with a moving depiction of Tevye’s conflicted heart and, more gravely, the suffering of the Jews under Russian imperialism.
The 20-member orchestra performs the score under Music Director Alby Potts exquisitely, with sumptuous, idiomatic style and exuding charisma. All of the design elements of the production, in fact, were without fail. The combination of lighting by Japhy Weideman and sound by Jonathan Burke enhances the quicksilver changes of mood considerably.
The outline of buildings of Anatevka sometimes hover high above the stage (Anna Louizos’ fondness for levitating set pieces here has symbolic resonance), and as the production progresses, they seem to grow smaller; soon we see them from a greater distance. By the climactic tableau they have disappeared entirely. All we see are people in transit, carrying the few possessions they can bring with them in their carts or in their handbags, moving with a weary but steady gait into an unknown future, an image that might have been taken from the front page of a newspaper on almost any day this year.
LA MIRADA THEATRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS & McCOY RIGBY ENTERTAINMENT PRESENT, Tony Award winner JASON ALEXANDER starring as “Tevye” in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF; Book by JOSEPH STEIN; Music by JERRY BOCK; Lyrics by SHELDON HARNICK; Original Broadway production directed and choreographed by JEROME ROBBINS; Originally produced on the New York stage by HAROLD PRINCE; Musical Direction by ALBY POTTS; Choreography by LEE MARTINO; Direction by LONNY PRICE; Scenic Design by ANNA LOUIZOS; Lighting Design by JAPHY WEIDMAN; Sound Design by JONATHAN BURKE; Costume Coordination by ADAM RAMIREZ; Hair/Wig Design by KAITLIN YAGEN; Properties Design by KEVIN WILLIAMS. The Dialect Coach is TIM MONICH. The Fight Choreographer is ERIK GRATTON. Casting by MICHAEL DONOVAN CSA; RICHIE FERRIS CSA. The Production Stage Manager is JOHN W. CALDER III.
STARRING: JASON ALEXANDER as “Tevye,” VALERIE PERRI as “Golde,” RACHEL RAVEL as “Tzeitel,” ALANNA J. SMITH as “Hodel,” EMERSON GLICK as “Chava,” CAMERON MABIE as “Motel,” REMY LAIFER as “Perchik,” SAWYER PATTERSON as “Fyedka,” EILEEN T’KAYE as “Yente,” RON ORBACH as “Lazar Wolf,” GREGORY NORTH as “Constable,” CATHERINE LAST as “Shprintze,” AVA GISELLE FIELD as “Bielke,” DAVID PROTTAS as “The Fiddler” & “Yussel,” NICHOLAS MONGIARDO-COOPER as “Mordcha,” HAYDEN KHARRAZI as “Mendel,” RYAN DIETZ as “Avram,” MARC MORITZ as “Rabbi,” DANIEL STROMFELD as “Nachum,” JEAN KAUFFMAN as “Grandma Tzeitel,” GWEN HOLLANDER as “Fruma-Sarah,” DANA WEISMAN as “Shaindel,” and HANNAH NICOLE SEDLACEK as “Fredel.” ENSEMBLE: ANTHONY CANNARELLA, MICHAEL JAMES, BRUNO KOSKOFF, GAVIN LEAHY, MARK C. REIS, MICHALIS SCHINAS, CHAD A. VAUGHT AND MICHAEL WELLS. SWINGS: BAILEY HERSKOWITZ, CHARLEY ROWAN MCCAIN AND DONOVAN MENDELOVITZ.
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF previewed November 8th and will run from November 9th through December 1st at LA MIRADA THEATRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, 14900 LA MIRADA BLVD. IN LA MIRADA. Performances are Thursdays at 7:30pm except Thanksgiving Day (moved to Wednesday, Nov 27); Fridays at 8pm; Saturdays at 2pm & 8pm; Sundays at 1:30pm & 6:30pm. Tickets start at $34 and can be purchased at: www.LaMiradaTheatre.com
Chris Daniels
Arts & Entertainment Reviewer
The Show Report
Photo Credits: Jason Niedle/TETHOS
