Fiddler On The Roof

[edjames]

Caught an early preview performance of this classic Broadway favorite.

i had seen the show beofe many years ago

Starring Danny Burstein and Jessica Hecht.

From the producers who brought us South Pacific and The King and I, they have created an evening of great song and dance.

Original choreography by Jerome Robbins and music by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, everyone recognizes some of the great classic tunes that have come from this show (Sunrise, Sunset, Tradition, Matchmaker, Matchmaker, If I Were A Rich Man, etc.) Act One is full of great tunes, Act Two, not so much.

Burstein is very good. He has to live up to some great performances from actors past, such as Zero Mostel and Harvey Fierstein. The choreography is terrific and I wish there were more of it. Directed by Bartlett Sher.

The show has its serious moments when it focuses on the expulsion of the townspeople by Russian government.

 

Anyway, it's an good evening of classic theater. A little long though, Act One lasts one hour and forty minutes and the whole show runs very close to three hours with a fifteen minute intermission.

 

Of historical note is that Bea Arthur played the original Yente and Bette Midler played the daughter

Tzeitel.

 

Ed

[MrMiniver]

Honestly, you lump Harvey Fierstein's over-the-top ridiculous portrayal with Zero Mostel who was simply a god? LOL.

[MrMiniver]

Caught an early preview performance of this classic Broadway favorite.

i had seen the show beofe many years ago

Starring Danny Burstein and Jessica Hecht.

From the producers who brought us South Pacific and The King and I, they have created an evening of great song and dance.

Original choreography by Jerome Robbins and music by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, everyone recognizes some of the great classic tunes that have come from this show (Sunrise, Sunset, Tradition, Matchmaker, Matchmaker, If I Were A Rich Man, etc.) Act One is full of great tunes, Act Two, not so much.

Burstein is very good. He has to live up to some great performances from actors past, such as Zero Mostel and Harvey Fierstein. The choreography is terrific and I wish there were more of it. Directed by Bartlett Sher.

The show has its serious moments when it focuses on the expulsion of the townspeople by Russian government.

 

Anyway, it's an good evening of classic theater. A little long though, Act One lasts one hour and forty minutes and the whole show runs very close to three hours with a fifteen minute intermission.

 

Of historical note is that Bea Arthur played the original Yente and Bette Midler played the daughter

Tzeitel.

 

Ed

 

Joanna Merlin was the original Tzeitel. Midler played the part later in the run, she didn't originate the role.

[+ WilliamM]

Honestly, you lump Harvey Fierstein's over-the-top ridiculous portrayal with Zero Mostel who was simply a god?

 

I am very glad I saw Mostel in "Fidler." But, it was near the end of his run in the musical and Mostel had added some "improvements" to his performance, like "not remembering" his daughter's names. It's impossible to imagine someone like Merman doing that.

[edjames]

Honestly, you lump Harvey Fierstein's over-the-top ridiculous portrayal with Zero Mostel who was simply a god? LOL.

 

I lumped no one! LOL

Despite the performance worthiness, Harvey had a very successful run...

 

And, sorry, I should have said Midler played the role later in the run.

 

Jeez!!!!

[MrMiniver]

I am very glad I saw Mostel in "Fidler." But, it was near the end of his run in the musical and Mostel had added some "improvements" to his performance, like "not remembering" his daughter's names. It's impossible to imagine someone like Merman doing that.

 

Mostel was a force of nature. I think I saw him do it at least 6 or 7 times. No one else has ever come close to him in that role. His stage presence and star quality was overwhelming. It's what's so missing in theater. We have lots of good actors but no one with that kind of stage presence or star quality.

[MrMiniver]

Honestly, you lump Harvey Fierstein's over-the-top ridiculous portrayal with Zero Mostel who was simply a god? LOL.

 

I lumped no one! LOL

Despite the performance worthiness, Harvey had a very successful run...

 

And, sorry, I should have said Midler played the role later in the run.

 

Jeez!!!!

 

How do you define "successful?" I saw him twice and he was absolutely horrendous. Couldn't sing, couldn't act. It was like a drag queen performance. That's why people went because it was hilarious, not because it was "successful."

[OneFinger]

I am very glad I saw Mostel in "Fidler."

 

Seeing him in that role is one my Broadway highlights. He OWNED that role and I can't imagine anyone doing a better job.

[+ Gar1eth]

Seeing him in that role is one my Broadway highlights. He OWNED that role and I can't imagine anyone doing a better job.

 

I liked Topol in the film although the older I've gotten the less I've liked the movie. On the other hand, the older I am the less I've liked the play too.

 

I had an extremely bad time 20 something years ago during a touring company production in Ft. Worth starring Theodore Bikel. I was going there with a straight guy I had a crush on. I was completely closeted at the time. (It was a very strange relationship. He wasn't in a good place mentally and either used me or grew dependent on me. Then he improved. But I was so used to having him around and was so attracted to him while living in my small little closet that I became dependent on him. ). He arrived really late-maybe during the intermission possibly because of work. We got into an argument about something, and he left. I think I stayed until the end because for a long time I had an autographed copy of Bikel's autobiography that I bought there. But I didn't enjoy the show. And possibly I would've outgrown my liking for the show anyway. But the emotional pain from the argument didn't help.

 

I do like the dream sequence though.

 

 

Just a note. I asked my Mom as an adolescent on one of my first times seeing the movie whether she had ever seen anyone keeping bad luck away by spitting on their fingers. I think she said as a child she had an elderly aunt who did that. I know none of my grandparents ever did that.

 

Gman

[+ Gar1eth]

I like the dream scene from the movie too!!

 

 

Gman

[+ WilliamM]

I liked Topol in the film although the older I've gotten the less I've liked the movie. On the other hand, the older I am the less I've liked the play too.

 

Me too, Gman

[edjames]

Successful does not always translate into acting awards or performance accolades, many times "successful" is just quite simply, box office success. Harvey had a "successful" run as Tevye, whether you like his performance or not is another story, and one I do not wish to pursue. Whether we like him or not, Harvey as a big fan base and he brings people to the show. Your criticism is noted and we move along. It is past history. This thread topic was supposed to focus on the current production.

 

 

Here is Ben Brantley opinion of Harvey's performance as Tevye:

 

An Exotic Tevye in Old Anatevka

By BEN BRANTLEY JAN. 21, 2005

 

The placid Broadway revival of "Fiddler on the Roof" at the Minskoff Theater. From the moment it sounds its first word, Harvey Fierstein's voice causes an entire audience to prick up its ears in the manner of a dog startled by a sharp whistle.

 

Heard not so long ago issuing from the plus-size form of Edna Turnblad, the agoraphobic housewife in the musical "Hairspray," Mr. Fierstein's voice is one of the most distinctive in theater, belonging to the legend-making league of those of Carol Channing and Glynis Johns. And though a kazoo is what it most often brings to mind, it also variously evokes a congested saxophone, wind in a bottle and echoes from a crypt. It is, in a way, its own multicolored show. Whether it fits comfortably into the little Russian village of Anatevka, where "Fiddler" is set, is another issue.

 

When David Leveaux's production of this much-loved, much-performed 40-year-old musical of life on a Jewish shtetl first opened last February, it was notable principally for its elegant, autumnal set (by Tom Pye) and its anesthetizing blandness. In the central role of Tevye the milkman, a part created in 1964 by Zero Mostel, the usually excellent Alfred Molina seemed sad, tentative and often absent. The whole show appeared to suffer from a similar lack of engagement with its material.

 

Mr. Leveaux, the fashionable London director behind the Broadway revivals of "Nine" and Tom Stoppard's "Jumpers," may have been aiming for a tone of lyrical lament, of a goodbye to a folkloric way of life about to disappear. But it has always been the robustness as well as the sentimentality of Jerry Bock's and Sheldon Harnick's songs and Joseph Stein's book that has made "Fiddler" such an enduring favorite. Led by the somnambulistic Mr. Molina, and a bizarrely chic Randy Graff as Tevye's wife, Golde, Mr. Leveaux's interpretation sometimes barely had a pulse.

 

That omission has been remedied to some extent by Mr. Molina's new replacement. Even at his quietest, Mr. Fierstein, who won a Tony Award for "Hairspray," has the presence of a waking volcano. And lest anyone think he needs drag to be big, let it be noted that he wears Tevye's tattered trousers with a homey and winning ease. To see the gray-bearded, bright-eyed Mr. Fierstein pulling a horseless milk cart with sardonic resignation is, you may well think, to look upon the image of the Tevye of the Sholem Aleichem stories that inspired the show.

 

It is Mr. Fierstein's greatest asset as a performer, that unmistakable voice, that perversely shatters this illusion. Theatergoers who saw -- or more to the point heard -- this actor in "Hairspray" will require at least 10 minutes to banish echoes of Edna. But even audience members unfamiliar with Mr. Fierstein may find him a slightly jarring presence.

 

Tevye must to some degree be an everyman, albeit in exaggerated, crowd-pleasing form. And Mr. Fierstein, bless him, shakes off any semblance of ordinariness as soon as he opens his mouth. Every phrase he speaks or sings, as he shifts uncannily among registers, becomes an event. And the effect is rather as if Ms. Channing were playing one of Rodgers and Hammerstein's simple, all-American heroines in "Oklahoma!" or "Carousel."

 

A master of droll comic melodramas in fringe theater long before he became a Broadway star with his "Torch Song Trilogy" in 1982, Mr. Fierstein inflects every line with at least a touch of the grandeur of old Hollywood movies, whether he's being husky with sentimentality, smoky with regret or growly with displeasure.

 

This can be quite a bit of fun. Tevye's first solo, "If I Were a Rich Man," takes on a fascinating new life, as Mr. Fierstein slides and rasps through its wordless connecting phrases. But it is sometimes hard to credit this exotic spirit as that of a tradition-bound father who has trouble making the adjustment to changing times.

 

Andrea Martin, who has replaced Ms. Graff as Golde, might do well to borrow a bit of Mr. Fierstein's idiosyncracy. This actress, who first came to attention as a flamboyantly eccentric comedian on "SCTV," is on her best behavior here, as if being in a classic Broadway musical meant being quiet and dignified. (She was livelier in the recent revival of "Oklahoma!")There is nothing jolting or inappropriate in her performance, but there is nothing memorable either.

The same might be said of the rest of the show, though Tricia Paoluccio and Laura Shoop bring a fresh and welcome piquancy as two of Tevye's five daughters. John Cariani, who was nominated for a Tony as the nerdy Motel the tailor, has now pushed his performance to grating comic extremes.

 

The onstage orchestra sounds perfectly pleasant, and the dancing, restaged by Jonathan Butterell from Jerome Robbins's original choreography, is agreeable. Yet somewhere there is a disconnect between Mr. Leveaux's elegiac reimagining of "Fiddler," evident in its poetically somber look, and the dinner-theater-style comic performances of much of the cast. To mourn the passing of the traditional life of Anatevka, you need to have an organic and fluid sense of that life that this production rarely achieves.

 

As for the show's new Tevye, it would seem that this "Fiddler" has gone from having too little of a personality at its center to having too much of one.

 

Still, as Tevye himself might argue, better an overspiced feast than a famine.

• 
  

[+ WilliamM]

It is past history. This thread topic was supposed to focus on the current production.

 

I usually agree with you. But, your first post mentioned other performers who appeared in "Fidler on the Roof."

 

Even if you had not, musicals like Fiddler, "My Fair Lady" and "Gypsy" have been revived so ofter, I can not fault MrMiniver for having opinions, even if usually disagree with him.

[+ beethoven]

I saw "Fiddler" last night, and liked it very much. Danny Burstein is very good, and it isn't fair to compare him to Zero Mostel, which is like comparing any modern baseball player to Babe Ruth. There was only one Zero Mostel!

I thought that the actors playing Yente the Matchmaker (Bea Arthur in the original) and Golde, Tevye's wife (Maria Karnilova in the original) were very weak, and added nothing to the production. I haven't seen any versions, either movie or stage, since I saw the original in 1964. If you've never seen "Fiddler," one of the great American musicals, by all means, GO! And if you have, I think you'll like this one.

[MrMiniver]

Me too, Gman

 

For me, I realize that without Mostel I have very little appreciation for Fiddler. It needs him. One friend of mine who worked with Topol felt that "watching him was like watching a WASP play a rabbi."

 

Of course, it's fair to compare one actor to another. To say otherwise is silly. Burstein is a fine character actor. He ain't a star. Has no star presence and if there's one thing Fiddler really needs is star presence. Otherwise, I'm afraid, I find it deadly dull affair.

 

Even Fierstein who was so over-the-top it was painful had stage presence.

[MrMiniver]

I usually agree with you. But, your first post mentioned other performers who appeared in "Fidler on the Roof."

 

Even if you had not, musicals like Fiddler, "My Fair Lady" and "Gypsy" have been revived so ofter, I can not fault MrMiniver for having opinions, even if usually disagree with him.

 

Things can't be looked at in a vacuum. Discussing the current production of Fiddler without referencing and comparing its history would be like trying to discuss the current Israel/Palestine situation without discussing anything that took place prior to last week.

[+ beethoven]

Mr. Miniver, your point is well taken. If I may paraphrase what you said, we needed Tevye, but we got Luther Billis!

[MrMiniver]

Mr. Miniver, your point is well taken. If I may paraphrase what you said, we needed Tevye, but we got Luther Billis!

 

Exactly. And what is so wonderful about Luther Billis is he's on stage for only 15 minutes. An entire evening of Burstein and my head would explode. That's the thing about character actors. They're good in small doses but carrying an entire show? NO WAY.

[+ WilliamM]

Burstein is very good. He has to live up to some great performances from actors past, such as Zero Mostel and Harvey Fierstein. The choreography is terrific and I wish there were more of it. Directed by Bartlett Sher.

The show has its serious moments when it focuses on the expulsion of the townspeople by Russian government.

 

Anyway, it's an good evening of classic theater. A little long though, Act One lasts one hour and forty minutes and the whole show runs very close to three hours with a fifteen minute intermission.

 

I asked Ed to tolerate many comments about former "Fiddler" stars like Zero Mostel. But, it does not mean that his mini review of the current production is not very valuable. Ed's reviews are excellent

[samhexum]

NY POST:

 

A few Broadway misfires, as Ken Mandelbaum called them in “Not Since Carrie: 40 Years of Broadway Musical Flops,” are “heartbreakers and cream”: These are shows that, while fatally flawed, had big ideas, sensational casts and gorgeous scores. At the top of my list is “Rags,” writer Joe Stein’s follow-up to “Fiddler on the Roof.”

 

I saw “Rags” in the summer of 1986, a day before its sudden demise after just 22 performances at the Mark Hellinger Theatre. Two things stood above the chaos of failure: its leading lady, opera’s Teresa Stratas, and the soaring, operatic score by Charles Strouse and Stephen Schwartz.

 

Thirty-one years later, Strouse and Schwartz have returned to “Rags.” (Stein died in 2010.) Their revised version, with a new book by David Thompson, opened in October to terrific reviews at Connecticut’s Goodspeed Opera House, where it’s set to run through Dec. 10.

 

Several New York producers have seen the show, including Joey Parnes, who’s flush with the box-office success of “Meteor Shower,” starring Amy Schumer. Parnes has a personal connection to “Rags”: An assistant general manager on the ’86 production, he was there when it fell apart, devastating its creators.

 

“I was heartbroken,” Strouse tells me. “I just gave up.”

 

Schwartz vowed never to work in the commercial theater again, although he changed his mind several years later and wrote “Wicked” — pretty good commercial theater.

 

Both are delighted that “Rags” has a new life.

 

“The show never really worked before,” Schwartz e-mailed me. “So for this production, we went back to the drawing board. Charles and I have done several new and greatly revised songs … It’s enormously gratifying to feel we now have a show that works.”

 

“Rags” tells the story of Rebecca Hershkowitz, a Russian refugee who arrives on Ellis Island in 1910 with her son. Her husband, who got there a few years before, is now an up-and-coming Tammany Hall politician. He’s turned his back on his Jewish roots, and the marriage is strained. Rebecca gets caught up in the radical politics of the Lower East Side, eventually leading a strike at a sweatshop. Audiences expecting a musical with the lightness of “Fiddler on the Roof” stayed away.

 

“Rags” arrived in New York after a rocky tryout in Boston. Its original director, Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”), was fired. To make matters worse, Stratas missed a week of performances due to vocal problems. Director Gene Saks took over, and the New York opening was postponed two weeks, adding $200,000 to a show that already cost $5.25 million.

 

‘For this production, we went back to the drawing board. … It’s enormously gratifying to feel we now have a show that works.’

 

Money was so tight that the producers eschewed the traditional Sardi’s opening-night bash, throwing a small cast party at a chain hotel in Times Square. Stratas didn’t attend. Schwartz chose to “hide out” at an amusement park in New Jersey.

 

Stratas got raves, as did the score. But critics complained about the convoluted script and characters that were more symbols than people.

 

In a desperate attempt to keep the show going, Stratas led a parade of cast members from the Hellinger to the TKTS booth, urging people to buy tickets. Alas, nothing could save “Rags,” one of the most expensive flops of the 1980s.

 

But the score endures, and these days, its immigration theme has “a relevance it didn’t really have before,” says Strouse. “I love the show. It sums up my feelings about America, now more than ever.”

[samhexum]

My father had the original cast album & would play it occasionally when I was a kid. I still have it somewhere. When answering machines were in vogue (I still use one on my landline ), I used it several holiday seasons in a row to record a clever message using the opening of TRADITION. I never knew any whole songs as a kid, but remember singing the most famous part of one:

 

If I were a rich man,

Yabba Dabba Dabba, Yabba Dabba, Yabba Dabba Doo.

All day long I'd Yabba Dabba Doo,

If I were a wealthy man.

I wouldn't have to work hard.

Yabba Dabba Dabba, Yabba Dabba, Yabba Dabba Doo.

That's as far as I got...

 

If I were a rich man,

Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.

All day long I'd biddy biddy bum.

If I were a wealthy man.

I wouldn't have to work hard.

Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.

[+ Cash4Trash]

Not germane but - I have a friend who was an original investor in this show, the royalty checks continue to pour in.