Fiddler on the Roof evokes the story of my family. Led by my grandfather, a Yiddish poet and socialist, they fled the antisemitic progroms engulfing their small village in modern day Ukraine in 1920. My father was born on their journey to America. It is the story of Jewish emigration from the Pale of Settlement in Czarist Russia.
The tales of the dairyman Tevye written by Yiddish humorist Sholem Aleichem were a childhood favorite. That well-thumbed volume of “Tevye’s Daughters” remains on my bookshelf today.
Tevye and his family live in Anatevka, a small shtetl in rural Imperial Russia. A poor milkman, he struggles to arrange the marriages of the eldest three of his five daughters in absence of a dowry.
“A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But 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,” Tevye tells the audience in the play’s beginning scene.
“It isn’t easy. You may ask, why do we stay up there if it’s so dangerous? We stay because Anatevka is our home. … And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in a word… Tradition,” he proclaims.
“Tradition,” the opening number, establishes the various familial roles of shtetl life: father, mother, sons and daughters and introduces all Anatevka’s many characters.
“Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” the next number, establishes the central elements of the plot, which revolves around Tevye’s wife Golde attempts to arrange the marriages of their daughters Hodel, Chava and Tzeitel with the aid of the local yenta (matchmaker) Yente.
Given his poverty, Tevye is sanguine about the prospects for his daughters. “I’m not really complaining – after all, with your help, I’m starving to death. You made many, many poor people. I realize, of course, that it’s no shame to be poor, but it’s no great honor either. So, what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune?” he muses, before launching into the musical’s most famous number, “If I Were a Rich Man.”
Needless to say, nothing goes as it should. The eldest Tzeitel turns down a wealthy butcher to marry a poor tailor. The next in line, Hodel, marries a revolutionary student. Lastly, Chava elopes with a Russian Christian. All are love matches rather than arranged marriages. Tevye and Golde struggle with their daughter’s non-traditional marital choices. In the end, their love for their children wins out over their attachment to tradition.
Above the familial drama of Tevye’s family looms the threat to Anatevka posed by the Czarist regime. In this antisemitic milieu, Jews remained outsiders, not entitled to full citizenship and persecuted by their gentile neighbors. It first rears its head when the local constabulary disrupt Tzeitel’s wedding. The musical ends with the entire community’s expulsion from Anatevka and Tevye’s emigration to America.
While the contextual elements of Aleichem’s writing are rich and specific to the time, his central preoccupations with the struggles between tradition and modernity, intolerance and nation, continue to speak to us today. The combination of Jerry Bock’s sublime orchestration and Sheldon Harnick’s poetic lyrics preserve the story’s universality.
The staging of Signature’s production is spare. A simple set of wooden tables and a single entrance are endlessly rearranged to create everything from a wedding to Teyve’s milk cart. Moreover, unlike the original, it is performed “in the round.” These choices by noted director Joe Calarco place the music directed by Jon Kalbfleisch and an extremely talented cast led by actor Douglas Sills (Tevye) front and center. The kinetic choreography of Sarah Parker fuels the production’s energy.
The result is a mesmerizing musical that left audience members alternately humming and in tears.
To paraphrase Tevye, theater lovers should “Digguh Digguh Deedle Dailde Dum” their way to Shirlington to catch this fantastic production.
Fiddler on the Roof is at Signature Theatre at 4200 Cambell Ave. in Shirlington, VA, until January 25. Visit Signature Theatre for tickets.
