Firday, May 29

ALERT: This post contains a spoiler from the new Harold Green Jewish Theatre production of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish. Don’t read it until after you’ve seen the show. (And see the show!)

I have had a life-long relationship with Fiddler on the Roof. The first production I saw was when I was very young in Springfield, Massachusetts, with Theodore Bikel as Tevye, and which was performed in the round. I loved the songs, and afterwards, my father approached someone in charge to point out that whenever the door swiveled as part of the staging, the mezuzah was now on the wrong side.

A year or so later, the Norman Jewison film was released. I was still small and, as a special treat, was invited to see it with my friend Christine and her family. The pogrom in the wedding scene thoroughly freaked me out. When I later told my parents about it, my dad chose to use that opportunity to scare the living daylights out of me with tales of the terrifying, horrific things that Cossacks (and later, Nazis) did to Jews. Education through musicals.

So that was my introduction to one of the best-loved classic Broadway musicals of all time. When the show first came out, the Jewish audiences in New York wondered how such a Jewish story could be understood by anyone but the Jews. It became a sensation, translated into many languages, and the Japanese audiences wondered how such a Japanese story could be understood by anyone other than the Japanese.

Since then, I have seen and/or been involved in countless Fiddler productions, including these, each one remembered and nicknamed by me:

• The Blonde Fiddler. In Fairfield County, Connecticut where, it seemed, the entire cast was blonde. A thoroughly gentile presentation. The villager named “Shaind’l” was referred to – with perfect American diction – as “shan-DELL”
• The Colour-Blind Casting Fiddler. Here in Canada. While I understand that fair-is-fair, and that colour-blind casting is a sign of equality and acceptance, it just didn’t work for me. The clapping and dancing in “To Life, L’Chaim” should not look like a revivalist church meeting.
• The Effeminate Tevye. London’s West End. He didn’t walk across the stage; he sashayed down the runway. Equal parts comical and unfortunate.
• The Fiddler That I Corrected. New England. I joined the production late, only to discover that the entire cast (not Jewish, bless them) was pronouncing Tzeitel’s husband-the-tailor to rhyme with hotel.
• The One with Harvey Fierstein. Silly me. When I heard that they cast him in the 2004 Broadway revival, I assumed that he would play Yenta. Or Golda. Imagine my shock. . .

It’s a great show with a phenomenal score and timeless story, and even a bad production is still a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

For those of you who don’t know Fiddler on the Roof, in the opening scene, Tevye explains the title: “Here in our village of Anatevke, every one of us is a fiddler on the roof, trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck.” Nice little metaphor. Jews struggling to survive, trying to continue living Jewishly, in spite of the outside forces of antisemitism.

This week, I saw the Toronto production of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish, directed by Joel Grey, produced by the Harold Green Jewish Theatre. I had seen it in New York, but that was before October 7th. This time, the metaphor hit home. Not because of anything in the script. Not because of any lyric. But because of one single set piece.

The stage is sparce in this production. Three large parchment-coloured panels hang — one stage right, one stage left, and one centre stage — hiding the (brilliant and pristine) onstage orchestra and serving as a backdrop to the action of the players. On the central panel is written one word in Hebrew: Torah (In Yiddish it would be pronounced Toyreh). Odd to see, but we get it. Torah is what gives the Jewish people their backbone, their light, what keeps us together. (Apparently, in the original Yiddish translation, instead of singing “Tradition” in the opening number, the lyric was Toyreh. But when he heard this, Sheldon Harnick z”l, the lyricist of Fiddler and a friend of mine, insisted they change to the three-syllable Traditsye, closer to his lyric.)

[**Attention: SPOILER**] The last scene in Act I is the wedding pogrom. Not so different from most of the onstage wedding pogroms of other productions. People get hit, things get broken, feathers fly from the pillows given as a wedding gift. But in this production, as the final action before the curtain falls, a lone Cossack stands centre stage, and then – in a movement that no audience member could possibly miss – he grabs hold of the central hanging banner and rips it in two. A diagonal rip, going straight through the word Torah, removing part of it as a piece of banner falls to the ground. An attack on the heart of our People. The curtain falls. Intermission.

[**SPOILER continues**] The lights are down and Act II begins. The curtain is lifted and – here’s what got me – there hangs the Torah banner. Whole. No longer ripped in half, the banner is now sewn together with great big, black, visible cross-stitches along the line where it had been torn, big stitches holding the word Torah together. And it simply took my breath away.

October 7th. The most recent attack. Still fresh. Still raw. And this is our history. Our enemies keep coming for us. Pharoah. Haman. Crusades. Inquisition. Cossacks. Holocaust. Israeli wars. October 7th. They keep trying to rip us apart. They keep trying to push the fiddler off the roof. But here we are. Whole. A strong people. Stronger than ever, in fact, with cross-stitches making us even more resilient to future attacks.

This production deserves to be seen for umpteen reasons that the critics and word of mouth are all sharing. But this profound moment was, for me, what will forever make the Yiddish Fiddler memorable. A reminder of our strength and resilience. A reminder of who we are. A reminder that nothing can stop any of us from scratching out our simple tune. On the contrary – our simple tune is a symphony.

Am Yisrael Chai!