How can you love musical theater and not love Fiddler? Indeed, how
can you love either theater or music and not love Fiddler? The 1964
musical has an emotionally affecting story and a host of interesting
characters, told in a dramatically arresting manner with warm humor, and is
accompanied by a score of memorable songs. What is more, it has one of the
top principal characters in the annals of musical theater: Tevye, the
dairyman in Tsarist Russia who talks to God, loves his family, holds on to
tradition as long as he possibly can and leads his family off to face the
new world when the old one collapses. In this two week entry into the
summer-stock style programming of the Shenandoah Summer Music Theatre in
Winchester, many of the strengths of the piece are on display, and even the
weaknesses are often endearing. The theater's founder, its producing
artistic director Hal Herman may not be the best Tevye you'll see, but he
leads the cast through its paces nicely and gets some of Tevye's flippantry
just right. Potomac region theater goers will enjoy Ilona Dulaski's
performance as his long suffering wife.
Storyline: In a tiny Jewish enclave in 1905 Russia, Tevye lives in poverty
with his wife and five daughters. Without dowries, how will he get them
husbands? When a wealthy local widower asks for his eldest daughter’s hand
he arranges a marriage, but finds that she prefers to wed a penniless
tailor. Tevye bends a bit and allows her her wish. When his second daughter
falls in love with a penniless revolutionary and wants to follow him into
exile in Siberia without his permission but with his blessing, Tevye bends
further and allows her her wish. But when his third daughter falls in love
with a Russian and wants to wed outside their faith he simply can’t bend
that far. “If I try to bend that far, I will break.” The anti-semetic furor
that accompanied the end of the Tsarist regime overtakes the entire enclave
and Tevye and all his neighbors are forced to leave their homes.
The appeal of the short stories of Tevye’s life
written by Sholem Aleichem is that they find the warmth of human affection
and the miracle of human resiliency within such trying times. The appeal of
the play that Arnold Perl wrote, based on those stories, is that he found a
way to structure bits and pieces from many stories into a single,
dramatically engrossing narrative. The appeal of the musical that drew
from those stories and that play is that it not only retained its source
material’s glory, it enhanced it with a score that was a perfect match – “If
I Were A Rich Man,” “Matchmaker,” “Miracle of Miracles,” “Sunrise, Sunset,”
“Far From The Home I Love.” No show is perfect and Fiddler does have
a one-dimensional character in Tevye’s wife Golde, as well as a number of
simplistic stereotypes. But it has so many marvelous elements it seems
churlish to point these out.
Herman not only appears as
Tevye, he directs the production as well. As Tevye, his nice light touch
doesn't quite compensate for his lack of dramatic intensity at the few spots
that should be heart rending but which, as a result, are merely heart
touching. Similarly, his directing is more effective with the humor than the
pathos. The three daughters who fall in love are played very effectively,
each maturing visibly as they find their way in life with very different
partners. There's Sarah Armstrong as the eldest who is paired with Jonathan Flom as her tailor, Sarah Sesler as the idealist matched with Michael Misko
as the revolutionary student, and Beth Cheryl Tanow who tugs at the
heartstrings with her dilemma when the father she loves can't accept her
devotion to the non-Jewish Russian she can't or won't live without.
While the set design is
quite sufficient and the staging of the separation ballet behind a scrim
striking, this production benefits most from the fine sound of its
twenty-four member orchestra under the baton of music director Karen Keating,
who maintains solid tempi, gets some tricky phrases across clearly and
supports the vocalists with dramatic, romantic or energetic dynamics as the
scenes require. She also manages to get the full cast to sing out with gusto
for large chorus moments.
Music by Jerry Bock.
Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick. Book by Joseph Stein based on Sholem Aleichem
stories by special permission of Arnold Perl. Directed by Harold Herman.
Music direction by Karen Keating. Choreographed by Robyn Hart Schroth.
Design: Wm. McConnell Bozman (set) Cheryl Yancey (costumes) William Pierson
(lights) Josh Daniels (stage manager). Cast: Thomas Albert, Sarah Armstrong,
Gene Babb, Bob Bonhage, Justin Bowen, Alan Cole, Erika Conaway, Olin
Davidson, Delius Doherty, Ilona Dulaski, Alisha Eberhart, Jordan Ellis, Jake
Emmerling, David Fiorello, Jonathan Flom, Marilee Greene, Trip Hampton, Hal
Herman, Marissa K. Hines, Randy Hodson, McKenzie Jones, Michael Jones, Kelly
Kantner, Mark Kittlaus, Jason Labrador, Benjamin JC Luczak, Ford Maeuser,
Susan McCormack-Pike, Nicole Ashley Milbrod, Michael Misko, Mikey Nagy,
Katrina O'Neil, Nicky O'Neal, Rick Ours, Sarah Philbaum, Josh Randolph,
Madison Rudolph, Jacob Schneider, Sarah Sesler, Logan Sinsel, Alexandra
Skaltsounis, Dave Stishan, Jordan Stocksdale, Stephen Tabor, Beth Cheryl
Tarnow, Chelsea Wengler, Angela Winslow. |
