University of Virginia Library

The Best Yet

Convincing Acting Sparks 'Fiddler'

Fiddler on The Roof: directed and choreographed by Jerome
Robbins, from the book by Joseph Stein based on Sholom Aleichem's
Stories; music by Jerry Bock; lyrics by Sheldon Harnick.

                 

Tevye, the Dairyman	Joe Cusanelli
Golde, his wife	Susan Willis
Tzeitel	Corinne Kason
Hodel	Susan Goeppinger
Chava	Andrea Eden
Yente, the Matchmaker	Lila Teigh
Motel, the Tailor	Stuart Howard
Perchik, the Student	Richard Balin
The Fiddler	Randall Keys

By Robin Lind

Last Thursday night the University
community was treated to
what was definitely one of the
finest productions yet presented in
this year's Fine Arts Festival.
Sponsored by the University Union
and the Student Aid Foundation
the musical "Fiddler on the Roof"
was produced at University Hall.

The story is one of the life in a
Jewish peasant village in pre-war
Czarist Russia. It is a tale of the
everyday struggles in particular of
one Tevye, who has five daughters
and obviously enough a generation
gap problem multiplied fivefold
The story progresses through the
marriage of the three oldest daughters
and the problems they create
until the tale ends with the
wholesale eviction of the Jews in a
pogrom by the authorities.

The musical opened with a
fiddler playing on the room symbolizing
the precarious and tenuous
nature of the Jewish people in this
little village of Anetevka who
nevertheless, like the Fiddler, spend
their time satisfied and contented
hoping they won't be disturbed.
The first song, "Tradition," was a
little difficult to hear, even from
the floor, but the cast quickly
corrected and little difficulty was
encountered for the rest of the
evening.

Best Group Effort

The next song "Matchmaker,
Matchmaker" was extremely well
done and perhaps the easiest song
to hear throughout the whole
evening. It related the situation in
the village where all marriages were
contracted through an official
matchmaker and the girls had no
choice in the matter at all. A
parody of arranged marriages, it
was very amusing and sung by the
three oldest daughters, Tzeitel,
Hodel and Chava, one of the best
group efforts.

This reporter felt initially that
the song "If I Were a Rich Man"
sung by Tevye (in a wistful desire
to also be cursed with a small
fortune,) was played down and not
enough emotion was pulled from
the audience. It was felt that a song
with so much potential should not
be sung whilst reclining in a milk
wagon.

However, in contrast to the
production in London, the Prince
of Wales Theatre on Haymarket,
staring Topol, where he was able to
strut in front of a packed audience
absolutely belting the song out at
the top of his lungs and pull the
audience into his grasp emotionally,
Mr. Cusanelli realized that due to
the cavernous qualities of University
Hall and the obvious impossibility
of ever charging the entire
building with electric feelings of
emotion or even of ever filling it
with sound, it would be also
impossible to attempt the more
emphatic approach. Instead he
interpreted the song in a lackadaisical
manner which proved to be
really the most effective way of
putting across the song in such a
building.

In certain other cases though it
was felt that the less violently
active approach was not as effective.
How much more effective
would it not have been had the men
from town been far more choppy,
abrupt, and snappy in the scene
where they are cursing the Czar and
replying with 'Amens' and group
expectorations rather than the slow
and emphatic presentation given
us.

Penniless Radical

In the character of Perchik, the
young penniless radical who becomes
the tutor of Tevye's children
we see a prime example of youthful
challenge of all traditions and
mores of society. It was interesting
to note that he was portrayed and
presented to us, not in the historical
clean-shaven, wire-rimmed bespectacled
image of the pre-war
Russian radical, but in the full bearded
tweedy image of the
Harvard intellectual radical of today.
Truly, he looked remarkably
like Che Guevara. Perhaps this was
to help us associate him with what
has become our notion of the
radical today; rebelling not against
the full-bearded image of our
grandfathers, but against the clean-shaven
image of fathers who themselves
rebelled against their fathers.

Both the Jew baiting scene in
the bar and the pogrom at the
wedding of Tzeitel and Motel the
Tailor were very effectively done
and to those of the audience who
have recently had the experience of
seeing the film "The Fixer" starring
Alan Bates, (which was a brutal
story of Russian injustice to the
Jews at this very time,) these scenes
conveyed an immediacy and credibility
which was somehow lacking
less than a year ago. To view a true
peasant wedding with all the
community participation and feeling
of happiness suddenly smashed
asunder by the wrecking of the
village Constable and his Christian
deputies was unbelievably moving.
To see the characters stoically
accept this and continue as before
even to the point of continuing to
touch the door post as they enter
their houses to ward off evil,
conveys an emotional impact infrequently
found in stage productions.

The scene in which Hodel
departs to join Perchik in Siberia,
where he has been exiled for his
participation in a radical movement,
is moving and has a poignancy
which is a prelude to later
scenes but is nevertheless effective
and moving. It shows the conflict in
Tevye's mind between the love for
his child and his loss at her
departure, and the expected emotions
of the disrespect of children
for their parents and their parents'
wishes.

Poignant Scene

The most poignant and moving
scene was the final and climatic one
in which the Jews are all evicted
from their village of Anetevka. In
this scene not only did Tevye lose
his home but he was leaving one
daughter in Siberia, one in Cracow,
and one he refused any longer to
recognize (because she had married
a Christian). In a highly charged
atmosphere in which Tevye is not
only at odds with his own emotions
but also with the other members of
his family who so desperately need
to draw together in this hour of
crisis the family is suddenly reunited
in a truly memorable and
unashamedly tearful scene. The
audience is not left with a feeling of
the tragic catastrophe which has
befallen these people but rather
with one of the joy for these
people, for their reunion, most of
all for their capacity to endure
hardship and setbacks and to smile
through them.

The production can be characterized
as brilliant and outstanding.
The technical aspects such as
choreography, lighting, and properties
were all splendid. The acting
could not have been more convincing
in nearly every case; even the
children, usually the most hard to
portray and the most difficult
positions to fill competently, were
convincing. While some aspects in
the direction of the play were a
little off-putting, such as the
non-emphasis of previously most
effective Jewish accents, presumable
to spare offense in today's
liberal society, and the aforementioned
presentation of Perchik, the
modern Gueverra-esque Czarist
Russian radical, the great majority
of the work was simply outstanding;
the best production to date.