Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof (60 page)

Others mocked Schwartz’s penchant
Tevye der milkhiker
reviews by Vladek, Goren, Frumkin, others quoted in Zylbercweig,
Yiddish Art Theater in America
, 134–46.

Schwartz’s “wholehearted” and “realistic” performance
Cahan quoted in Zylbercweig,
Yiddish Art Theater in America
, 140ff.

“an unstrained style” … “to downright slapstick”
Jacob Copper, “Yiddish Art Players in Debut Here,”
Los Angeles Times
, July 19, 1929, A9.

“It was hard to tell if Schwartz created Tevye or Tevye created Schwartz”
Gersten quoted in Zylbercweig,
Leksikon
v4, 3411–12.

“the whole Jewish people is in danger”
Vladek quoted in Zylbercweig,
Yiddish Art Theater in America
, 136–37.

GOSET belonged to
See Veidlinger,
Moscow State Yiddish Theater
.

Chagall “hated real objects”
Avrom Efros quoted in Harshav,
Moscow Yiddish Theater
, 69.

“fossilized patriarchal … dead dogma”
Shloyme Mikhoels, “Sholem-Aleichem’s Hero,”
Jewish Currents
(January 1998): 22–24, translated from the Yiddish by Lyber Katz.

Schwartz said it looked just like the Ukrainian countryside
“Studio and Screen: Ambassador’s Film—A Jewish Humorist,”
Manchester Guardian
, August 11, 1939; and Martha Drieblatt, “Poland in Jersey, Ukraine on Long Island,”
New York Herald Tribune
, February 25, 1940, E3.

While filming, the company heard
recounted in Hoberman,
Bridge of Light
, 307–9.

“There sits upon Tevya’s shoulders”
Mae Tinee, “Praises Acting in Yiddish Film of Famed Play,”
Chicago Daily Tribune
, May 6, 1940, 22.

“a triumphant rebuke”
Hoberman,
Bridge of Light
, 309.

“does not at all agree with the spirit and essence”
N. Buchwald,
Morgn frayhayt
, quoted in Zylbercweig,
Leksikon
v4, 3419, and in Hoberman
, Bridge of Light
, 309.

“Merely a shadow”
L. Fogelman, “Tevye the Milkman in a Movie,”
Forverts,
December 25, 1939, quoted in Zylbercweig,
Leksikon
v4, 3318, and in Hoberman,
Bridge of Light
, 309.

CHAPTER 2: BETWEEN TWO WORLDS OF SHOLEM-ALEICHEM

“the leading spokesman of Jewish rejuvenation”
Emanuel Goldsmith, “Maurice Samuel,” in Kessner,
Other New York
, 228.

“dogma” and “intellectual bullying”
Samuel,
Little Did I Know
(henceforth,
LDIK
), 42.

“gateway into Jewish life”
ibid., 136.

“as if the pogroms had been two-sided”
ibid., 244.

“defined themselves Jewishly”
Kessner,
Other New York
, 3.

“to help Jews acquire an interest in Jewish knowledge”
Samuel,
LDIK
, 286.

“The man who does not see in the prophets”
Samuel,
Gentleman
, 168.

“the mirror of Russian Jewry
” Samuel,
World
, 6.

“the first American newspaper reports”
Hecht,
Child of the Century
, 539–40.

“It was a principle of Russian law”
Samuel,
World
, 5.

“transmitted rather than translated”
Samuel,
LDIK
, 271–72.

The resulting work
For discussion of Samuel’s approach to Sholem-Aleichem, see, especially, Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “Imagining Europe,” and Shandler, “Reading Sholem-Aleichem from Left to Right,” both of whom influenced my reading.

“the common people in utterance”
Samuel,
World
, 6.

“an exercise in necromancy”
ibid., 3.

“We could write a Middletown”
ibid., 6–7.

“best known and best loved … big dark jungle of history”
ibid., 14.

“
very real hatred” of women
Samuel letter to Eugenia Shafran, likely 1924, quoted in Kessner,
Marie Syrkin
, 169.

“without equal at handing out a dinner of curses and a supper of slaps”
Samuel,
World
, 10. (
Life is with People
also supported the stereotype of the oversolicitous and husband-nagging Jewish mother; see Antler,
You Never Call
, 73–82.)

“the greatest single invention”
Roskies,
Jewish Search for a Usable Past
, 41.

“a remarkable civilization”
Samuel,
World
, 5.

“prosperity was spiritual rather than material”
ibid.

“forever frozen in utter piety and utter poverty”
Davidowicz,
Golden Tradition
, 6.

as the antisuburb
Shapiro,
Time for Healing
, 151.

“one great portrait of a life abjectly poor”
Heschel, “Preface” to Vishniac,
Polish Jews
, 5.

Vishniac’s project
On the history of Vishniac’s project and the changing cultural function and valuation of images over time, see Shandler, “The Time of Vishniac”; on the discovery and meaning of Vishniac’s more extensive archive, see Alana Newhouse, “A Closer Reading of Vishniac,”
New York Times Magazine
, April 4, 2010, 36–43. On the exhibit and the response to Heschel’s speech, see Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “Imagining Europe” and also “Introduction” to
Life is with People
. The discussion here is indebted to their research and insights.

“salvage ethnography”
The phrase is Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s in “Imagining”—an influential source for this discussion. See also Zipperstein,
Imagining Russian Jewry
.

“a composite portrait”
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “Folklore, Ethnology, and Anthropology,”
The Yivo Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
,
http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Folklore_Ethnography_and_Anthropology
.

“more than a book”
Ben Hecht, “Tales of Capering, Rueful Laughter,”
New York Times
, July 7, 1946.

“fine, juicy humor”
display ad,
Chicago Daily Tribune
, June 23, 1946.

“scattered” among pieces from other Sholem-Aleichem series
Frances Butwin, “Preface” to Sholem-Aleichem,
Tevye’s Daughters
, x.

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein
In the
New York Times
, show business columnist Sam Zolotow followed their interest: November 18, 1949 (noting their acquisition of the option), January 18, 1950 (reporting that Menashe Skulnik was gunning for the role of Tevye), July 10, 1950 (casting doubt that the Tevye play would happen in the coming season), and August 28, 1950 (reporting that R&H had let their option lapse and that Michael Todd had bought it). More detailed, inside discussion of R&H’s initial and then waning interest, and then Todd’s involvement, can be found in Hammerstein’s correspondence with Edmund Pauker, agent to Irving Elman, EPP-B, EPP-PA.

they felt the Tevye script needed a huge amount of work
Hammerstein letter to Edmond Pauker, July 24, 1950, EPP-PA15:11.

“folk play with music”
Pauker letter to Judah Bleich, November 28, 1955, EPP-B22:470.

“you need to take out all the animals”
producer Michael Ellis to Pauker, February 20, 1953, EPP-B22:477.

“feels so unwieldy as to be almost unmanageable”
ibid.

“sprawling, undramatic”
José Ferrer—who suggested the play to R&H—to Pauker, August 15, 1949, EPP-PA15:11.

“too Jewish and too folkish”
Eddie Blatt to Pauker, September 8, 1949, EPP-PA15:11.

not “commercial enough”
Jed Harris’s view as reported by Pauker to Elman, October 6, 1949, EPP-PA15:11.

the tercentenary celebration … Kallen complained
See A. Goren,
Politics and Public Culture
, ch. 9, “The ‘Golden Decade’ 1945–1955,” 186–204.

Elman’s play
In the early 1960s, Elman tried to mount the play again, this time under the title
As Long as You’re Healthy
and later as
Sweet and Sour
, but by then Bock, Harnick, and Stein had secured the rights to the material and Elman’s effort to claim fair use of the Yiddish originals did not fly. See: “2 Musicals Due” and “Coe Planning Musicals” in Sam Zolotow’s columns,
New York Times
, September 26, 1962, and August 6, 1963.

“not in a postwar effort”
Butwin, “Tevye on King Street,” 132.

“remarkable acts of memory and invention”
ibid., 134.

shaped American culture well into the Cold War
See Denning,
The Cultural Front.

“great friend, mentor, and comrade” … “country” books
Butwin, “Tevye on King Street,” 155.

“
lacking food, clothing, money”
Robert Cromier,
Chicago Daily Tribune
, June 30, 1946.

Sophie Maslow
 …
The Village I Knew
videotape, NYPL for the Performing Arts; see also Naomi Jackson “Choreographer Draws on Her Jewish Heritage for Inspiration,” interview with Maslow by Laura Bleiberg,
Orange County Register
, Santa Ana, CA, April 19, 1992, F26.

mainstream Jewish organizations were purging leftists
See Shapiro,
A Time for Healing
, 37ff.

Butwins saw [Da Silva] … in …
Oklahoma!
author correspondence with Joseph Butwin, January 29, 2012.

Taylor … “he always seems to have”
Navasky,
Naming Names
, 79.

Da Silva was sworn in
transcript, “Communist Infiltration of Hollywood Motion Picture Industry—Part 1,” March 21, 1951. On Da Silva’s actions at the hearing—shouting, testiness, etc.—see “Larry Parks Says He Was Red; Gives Other Hollywood Names; Two Other Film Figures Won’t Talk at House Hearing,” UP, March 21, 1951, and
Los Angeles Times
, March 22, 1951; “Parks Admits He Was a Red But 2 Other Actors Balk at House Prober’s Queries,”
Baltimore Sun
, March 22, 1951; Murrey Marder, “Screen Star Admits He Was a Red,”
Washington Post
, March 22, 1951, 1.

Arnold Perl was never called before HUAC
Perl FBI file, generously shared by Rebecca Perl.

“I have gotten radio detectives”
Perl quoted in Joseph Liss, ed.,
Radio’s Best Plays
. New York: Greenberg, 1947: 122.

specifically when he entered Dachau
Perl quoted in interview with Dr. N. Sverdlin in
Der tog
, September 5, 1957, APPmicro3.

“mutual impulse”
Perl letter to Mary Ann Jensen, November 4, 1969, APP2:5.

share this culture
Da Silva letter to Oscar Lewenstein, January 3, 1954, APP2:8.

if they didn’t know Yiddish
Perl interviewed by Sverdlin,
Der tog
, September 5, 1957, APPmicro3.

“Sholom-Aleichem’s gentle but firm plea”
Theater Arts
feature, July 1953: Aimee Scheff, “Art on a Shoestring,” n.p., clipping, APP3:7.

paid barely over minimum wage
Perl letter to Mary Ann Jensen, November 4, 1969, APP2:5.

“reminding people of where they come from”
Perl letter to B. Z. Goldberg, May 25, 1953, APP2:5.

The press agent, Merle Debuskey, had to insist
Debuskey interview.

about
500 fixed seats and a small proscenium
Debuskey interview.

some of them too fearful of guilt by association to go backstage to greet the company
Debuskey, Dee interviews.

“fine theater and splendid humanity”
Brooks Atkinson, “At the Theatre,”
New York Times
, September 12, 1953.

“Human warmth, generosity”
Walter Kerr, “Sholom Aleichem’ Full of Sympathy and Good Theater,”
Los Angeles Times
, September 20, 1953, D2.

“shows how theater-wise imagination”
Vernon Rice,
New York Post
, n.d., APPmicro3.

Eleanor Roosevelt
Chicago Sun-Times
, January 29, 1954, APPmicro4.

composer
who went uncredited
Robert de Cormier interview.

torn from a packing crate
Perl letter to Ida Nasatir, October 16, 1953, APP2:6.

avoid “over-detailed naturalism”
Da Silva letter to Sam Wanamaker, November 26, 1954, APP2:8.

working from … “The Golden Peacock”
DeCormier interview.

“obscure chapbook” … deliberately aimed to mimic the style of a folk narrative
Roskies,
Bridge of Longing
, 160–66.

“If we have succeeded in moving from fantasy”
“Production Notes,” Perl,
The World of Sholom Aleichem
script, 51.

“This is the dawn of a new day”
The World of Sholom Aleichem
script, 46.

“very real interest on the part of the left”
Perl letter to Da Silva, March 9, 1956, APP2:5.

“continuous emphasis on the most negative virtues”
letter from Katya and Bert (Gilden) to Perl, March 10, 1953, APP2:4.

“increasingly aware that simply presenting”
Ring Lardner letter to Da Silva, October 20, 1953, APP2:4.

Counterattack
obsessively chased the play
In addition to the lengthy report on September 25, 1953, warnings about the show appeared in issues on October 9, 1953; March 26, 1954; July 30, 1954; and October 15, 1954.