Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof (58 page)

Tom Pye’s set model for a fresh take on
Fiddler
.

Audiences generally accepted Leveaux’s
Fiddler
—it played 781 performances over nearly two years, running considerably longer than any other Broadway revival thus far—but reviewers from publications large and small piled on. The “Jewish problem” remained the primary frame through which the Leveaux production was critically seen. In the
New York Times
, Ben Brantley devoted an entire paragraph to describing how “a nickname for the revival had already started circulating among theater insiders: ‘Goyim on the Roof.’” The satirical revue
Forbidden Broadway
, Gerard Alessandrini’s regular send-up of the season, covered the production with a sketch called “Fiddler with No Jew.”

As fiercely as Irving Howe and Robert Brustein and Cynthia Ozick had once tried to defend Sholem-Aleichem from what they considered the vulgarities of Broadway, the new generation of theater critics now wanted to safeguard their
Fiddler
from the vulgar misapprehensions of a bold Brit. For these writers, “new look” was another name for “goyish.” The show its authors once feared was
too
Jewish now wasn’t Jewish enough.

It could be that the objection stemmed, in part, from the fully calcified idea of the shtetl from
Life Is with People
, Maurice Samuel’s books, and the other postwar works of “popular ethnography.” The solid but false idea of the hermetic enclave clashed with the birch trees, which looked so
Russian
, like they belonged to a drama by Chekhov (Sholem-Aleichem’s favorite playwright). Rosenbaum said as much in an interview at the time: the production, in his view, improperly elevated the universal themes “without the truer feelings of that old, vanished shtetl life.”

There’s more to it. Where Howe and his compatriots decried the oversimplification and exploitation of a whole Yiddish civilization, the critics crying foul about the Leveaux production lamented the lost world of the 1960s and 1970s of their childhoods, when they listened to LP’s of
Fiddler
and sang “tradition, tradition” in the car. Peter Marks admitted as much in the first sentence of his
Washington Post
review: “In the secular Jewish home of my childhood, about the closest we ever came to spiritual sustenance was
Fiddler on the Roof
.” Jewish critics, at least, seemed to expect the new revival to reweave their frayed Jewish connection; they didn’t know where else to look.

Their furious disappointment betrayed two kinds of nostalgia: for a Jewish identification that makes only sentimental demands and for the big-story musical, of which
Fiddler
was one of the last. Sholem-Aleichem’s Tevye stories addressed the anxiety of generational loss; a century later, critics in New York acted out over their own recursive confrontation of this theme.

In the 1960s,
Fiddler on the Roof
served as an engine of Jewish acculturation in America. For the next generation of assimilated Jews, it became a sacred repository of Jewishness itself. And for the next generation still, it became part of a multivalent legacy, available as a source of further exploration for those who wish to follow Tevye as he wanders on.

*   *   *

Perhaps it’s fitting that Sholem-Aleichem’s Tevye stories never came to a full conclusion. His writing of “Get Thee Out” in 1914, after publishing the earlier Tevye stories in a single volume in 1911, gave him the opportunity to bring Khave back into the picture and to keep Tevye in history. But “Get Thee Out” doesn’t properly end so much as peter out. Scholars think that a fragment Sholem-Aleichem wrote later in 1914 was a stab at closing the Tevye cycle properly, but the author didn’t finish it before his death. Even though he permitted its publication, translators often drop it altogether or append its last paragraphs, the only part that isn’t redundant, to the end of “Get Thee Out.” In this sutured finale, Tevye is not sure where he is going. Addressing Sholem-Aleichem, as usual, he wonders if they might some day meet on a train, “or in Odessa, or in Warsaw, or maybe even in America.” In all those places, and far beyond, the world has met—and embraced—him. He belongs nowhere. Which is to say, everywhere.

N
OTES

ARCHIVES—ABBREVIATIONS

Box and folder information follows the abbreviation in the notes where appropriate. For example, JRPP1:2 would mean Jerome Robbins Personal Papers, Box 1, Folder 2. The Arnold Perl Papers include some clipping materials on microfilm reels; APPmicro2 would mean reel 2 of the microfilm in the Perl Papers.

AJC The New York Public Library–American Jewish Committee Oral History Collection, Dorot Jewish Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

APP Arnold Perl Papers 1947–1964, U.S. Mss 65AN, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives/Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.

BAP Boris Aronson Papers and Designs, *T-VIM 1987–012, Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

BSA-TA Beth Sholem Aleichem, Tel Aviv.
“Tevye der milkhiker/Tuvia ha-kholev”
files.

CLIPS Clipping and Program Files at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts: Music Division, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, Billy Rose Theatre Division.

EPP-B Edmond Pauker Papers. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

EPP-42 Edmond Pauker Papers 1923–1959, MssCol2354, New York Public Library.

EPP-PA Edmond Pauker Papers, *T-Mss 1960-001, Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

FCP Fred Coe Papers 1949–1975, U.S. Mss 198AN, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives/Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.

FSG Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. records (Noonday Press), Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library.

HPP Harold Prince Papers, Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

ITA-TA Israeli Theater Archives, Tel Aviv University.

JBP Jerry Bock Papers, JPB 02-10, Music Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

JRP Jerome Robbins Papers, (S) *MGZMD 130, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

JRPP Jerome Robbins Personal Papers, (S) *MGZMD 182, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (with thanks for access and permission to the Jerome Robbins Trust).

JSP-NY Joseph Stein Papers and Scripts, Performing Arts Research Collections, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

JSP-W Joseph Stein Papers 1942–1969, U.S. Mss 33AN, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives/Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.

LHP Leland Hayward Papers, Collection ID *T-Mss 1971-002, Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

MCNY-P Museum of the City of New York, program and photo collections,
Fiddler on the Roof
, Yiddish Theater.

MS Maurice Schwartz collection, RG 498, YIVO, Center for Jewish History, New York.

ND New Dramatists, Inc., Archive, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

NJAB National Jewish Archive of Broadcasting of the Jewish Museum, New York.

NJP Norman Jewison Papers, U.S. Mss 122AN, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives/Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.

NYPL-PA New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

PZP Patricia Zipprodt Papers and Designs, *T-Vim 1999-001, Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

RHA The Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

RRP Richard Rodgers Papers, *T Mss 1987-006, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

SHP Sheldon Harnick Papers 1937–1968, U.S. Mss 104AN, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives/Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.

SHP-NYPL Sheldon Harnick Papers, JPB 04-11, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

TOFT Theater on Film and Tape Archive, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Z&KMP Zero and Kate Mostel Papers, *T-Mss 1993-007, Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

ZRT Zbigniew Raszewski Theater Institute Archives, Warsaw.
Cinematheque Archives, Tel Aviv.
Library of Congress, Special Collections (National Theater programs), Washington, DC.
World Jewish Newspapers & Periodicals on Microfilm, Dorot Jewish Division, New York Public Library.
Yizkor (Holocaust Memorial) Books, Dorot Jewish Division, New York Public Library.

INTERVIEWS

With enormous thanks, I acknowledge the scores of artists, administrators, relatives, colleagues, and other relevant parties, who shared their memories and insights with me in lengthy conversations—sometimes several of them—and then in follow-up calls and e-mails:

All interviews took place in person and in New York City unless otherwise noted.

Robert Aberdeen (working under the name Robert Berdeen during
Fiddler
, Nov. 21, 2009); Dan Almagor (Tel Aviv, Jan. 7, 2009); Bruce Ampolsky (by phone, June 4, 2009); Lisa Jalowetz Aronson (Nyack, NY, Jan. 9, 2010); Marc Aronson (Dec. 28, 2009); Tanya Everett Bagot (June 11, 2010); Sammy Bayes (Dec. 1, 2009); Anna Vita Berger (July 19, 2010); Eleanor Bergman (Warsaw, July 2, 2008); Olga Berlozecka (Warsaw, July 2, 2008); Bruce Birnel (by phone, June 23, 2009); Duane Bodin (Aug. 11, 2010); Frances Brown (Aug. 11, 2010); Janice Cabon (April 12, 2010); Mariusz Choma (Dynów, July 8, 2008); Olga Carter Dais (Sept. 9, 2009); Natan Datner (Tel Aviv, Jan. 5, 2009); Merle Debuskey (New Milford, CT, Aug. 2, 2010); Robert DeCormier (by phone, Aug. 10, 2010); Ruby Dee (by phone, Aug. 5, 2010); Beverley Cannon Dorsey (Albany, NY, June 14, 2009); Howard Enders (New Rochelle, NY, June 17, 2008); Margo Feiden (Nov. 24, 2009); Joanne Felcher Gibson (Aug. 11, 2009); Harvey Fierstein (by phone, June 16, 2011); Mayor Zygmunt Frańczak (Dynów, July 9, 2008); Rachel Perl Garson (by phone, Aug. 20, 2010); Joe Gilford (Oct. 17, 2010); Sidney Gluck (May 16, 2008); Eli Gorenstein (Tel Aviv, Jan. 5, 2010); Jerzy Gruza (Warsaw, July 1, 2008); Mirosław Haponiuk (Lublin, July 12, 2008); Sheldon Harnick (Aug. 1, 2006; June 18, 2008; Sept. 22, 2010; and Jan. 9, 2012); Sheila Haskins (Somerset, NJ, Dec. 13, 2010); Michael Hausman (by phone, March 24, 2010); Stephan Hirsch (Aug. 23, 2009); Charlie Isaacs (Newburgh, NY, June 21, 2010); Hans Jenny (by phone, April 3, 2008); Norman Jewison (by phone, May 27, 2011); Marian Josicz (Lublin, July 12, 2008); Bel Kaufman (May 27, 2010); Sandra Kazan (April 11, 2011); Moshe Kepten (Holon, Israel, Jan. 6, 2009); Emily Perl Kingsley (by phone, Aug. 4, 2010); Tomek Kitlinski (Lublin, July 12 and 13, 2008); Sławomir Kitowski (by phone from Warsaw, July 1, 2008); Stanley Koor (Aug. 19, 2010); Maciej Kosłowski (Kraków, July 4, 2008); Stanisław Krajewski (Kraków, July 5, 2008); Ken Le Roy (by phone, July 12, 2010); Pawel Leszkowicz (Lublin, July 12 and 13, 2008); David Leveaux (Jan. 5, 2004); Janusz Makuk (Kraków, July 6, 2008); Carolyn Maxwell (June 29, 2010); Duane McCullers (July 23, 2009); Joanna Merlin (Nov. 26, 2008); Janusz Miklasz (Dynów, July 7, 2008); Magdalena Miklasz (Dynów, July 7, 8, 9, and 10, 2008); Mateusz Mikoś (Dynów, July 7, 2008); Alan Miller (July 27, 2009); Peff Modelski (by phone, July 23, 2009); Joshua Mostel (Feb. 8, 2011); Tobias Mostel (by phone, Sept. 6, 2010); Patrick Palmer (by phone, Feb. 13, 2013); Michael Pasternak (by phone, April 11, 2008); Austin Pendleton (April 3, 2008); Adam Perl (by phone, Aug. 5 and 9, 2010); Nancy Perl and Mick Benderoth (East Hampton, NY, Aug. 17, 2010); Rebecca Perl (by phone, Aug. 16, 2010); Dominik Piejko (Dynów, July 7, 2008); Justyna Pinczer (Dynów, July 7 and 8, 2008); Richard Piro (deceased, San Francisco, March 16 and 18, 2009); Joe Ponazecki (July 22, 2009); Harold Prince (Dec. 3, 2008); Rivka Raz (Nov. 12, 2008); Maurice Reid (June 23, 2010); Maritza Figueroa Reynolds (June 23, 2010); Frank Rich (Aug. 9, 2010); Shirley Romaine (by phone, July 12, 2010); Alan Rosenberg (by phone, July 26, 2010); Julius Rubin (by phone, June 9, 2009); Malgorzata Semil (Warsaw, July 2, 2008); Roberta Senn (Great Neck, NY, Aug. 18, 2010); Joe Sicari (June 8, 2009); Ewa Sikora (Dynów, July 7, 2008); Orna Smorgonski (Tel Aviv, Jan. 8, 2009); Albert Stankowski (Warsaw, June 30, 2008); Harry Stein (by phone, Feb. 15, 2012); Joseph Stein (deceased, June 27, 2007); Alicia Svigals (Feb. 10, 2010); Grzegorz Szajnik (Dynów, July 8, 2008); Jan Szurmiej (Warsaw, June 29, 2008); Szymon Szurmiej (Warsaw, July 2, 2008); Chaim Topol (Jan. 24, 2009); Roni Toren (Tel Aviv, Jan. 8, 2009); Marek Weiss (Warsaw, June 30, 2008.); Jitu Weusi (June 23, 2010); Ewa Woźniak (Dynów, July 7, 9, and 10, 2008).

I’m also grateful to those who, while not sitting for full-fledged interviews, provided answers to (sometimes multiple) queries on various details by phone and/or e-mail: Don Aslan; Maya Benton, curator, Roman Vishniac Collection, International Center of Photography; Ronald Blanche; Jerry Bock (deceased); Louis Botto; Jim Brochu; Joseph Butwin; Lee Grant; Mary Rodgers Guettel; Deborah Jowitt; Vladimir Levin, Acting Director, Center for Jewish Art, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Branko Lustig; Rajiv Menon, Mumbai; Jeff Ovall, Lead Research Specialist, FOIA/Privacy Act Office, Securities and Exchange Commission; Richard Patterson and John Prignano, Music Theatre International; Barry Rosenberg, Contract Associate for Production at Actors’ Equity; Elisa Shevitz, Director of Communications, The Broadway League Inc.; Elisa Stein; Richard Ticktin; Amanda Vaill; Cynthia Young, curator, Robert and Cornell Capa Archives, International Center of Photography; Gilda Zwerman.