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In this 2009 production there is a combination of
experienced actors and singers, who played in other productions of
“Fiddler,” and new players for ACT along with a stunning chorus of
singers and dancers who never appeared together before. In this
performance, on this night, they worked magic with the audience.
The loud applause with cheers after many of the songs bore witness
to that fact.
Reflecting on his appearance, the maturity of his
voice, which he could blast forth or modulate, I can’t imagine that
the younger Geoff Gross as “Tevye” back in 1990 could have
had the same impact as last night. Clearly, he carried the
performance with the full credibility that he created for Tevye’s
crisis of faith each time one of his daughter’s broke with tradition
and married someone other than his choice. The rendering of the
song, L’Chaim [To Life] by Tevye and chorus in the inn was a
rousing affirmation of the Jewish conviction that life is to be
celebrated!
With a cast this large, I can’t do justice here to
all of the great singing, but Mary Tirrel, Anne Moege, and Brianna
Bernard, playing daughters “Tzeitel,” “Hodel” and “Chava,”
and Pat Buechler as their mother “Golde” kept the quality of
vocal performances very high. The rendering of “Matchmaker,
Matchmaker, Make Me a Match!” by the three daughters with its
captivating waltz time set the tone for the evening. A. J.
Bierman’s voice flowing forth from the chorus surprised me. When I
complimented him in line, he said, “Me a singer?” and guffawed. Mike
Catalano’s good singing was no surprise to me, having
heard him perform folk songs on many occasions, but his portrayal of
“Motel,” the poor tailor who marries Tzeitel, in his first
appearance in an ACT play was a happy surprise indeed! The
wonderful harmonies from the ensemble cast in several numbers,
especially “Sunrise, Sunset,” reflected the amazing talent
assembled for this production.
Ron Thorson with his full natural beard and
excellent singing voice rose to the challenge of playing “Perchik,”
the live-in teacher, friend of Tevye, who knows all about the
outside world beyond Judaism, and who deeply offends Tevye, when he
persuades Hodel to accept his proposal of marriage without her
father’s permission. Ably played by Anne Moege, Hodel resolutely
endures the sad farewell to her father at the local railroad station
as she leaves to join Perchik in his Siberian exile, singing, “Far
from the Home I love.”
Tevye, arguing with himself, comes to accept the
marriages of Tzeitel and Hodel, but draws the line when his youngest
eligible daughter, “Chava,” played by Briana Bernard, in an
act of rebellion professes her love for, and marries, the gentile “Fyedka,”
played by Kevin Kenkel. In perhaps the most poignant scene of the
play, Chava appears outside of her parents’ house, but Tevye refuses
to acknowledge her presence, giving rise to his plaintive song,
“Little Bird.”
Moments of hilarity are supplied by Jack Mitchell,
as the aged Rabbi with a full fake beard wobbling on his cane, and
newcomer Cheryl Serrano Garmong, who plays the matchmaker, “Yente.”
Her slightly accented rendering of her marriage proposals drew
a lot of laughs, making her a perfect match for the role.
Intruding into the happy moment of the marriage celebration of
Motel and Hodel, as a kind of counterpoint to the happiness, is the
invasion of local Russian police, driving the people out of the inn
and breaking up the furniture, a moment of pogrom,
representing the persecution of the Jews in Russia, who fled there
from similar treatment over the centuries in Western Europe. This
is punctuated in the final scenes when the order comes in the year
1905 for the Jews of Anatevka to pack up and leave in three days
time, creating the sad ending to an evening of hilarity and joy.
While Joseph Stein, who wrote the book, and Jerry
Bock the music, and Sheldon Harnick the lyrics for the original 1964
Broadway production of “Fiddler,” all deserve full credit for
this utterly charming musical, the real source for the piquant
humor, the bittersweet combination of sadness and joy in the main
character are the stories of Sholem Aleichem (b. 1859-1916) about
his character “Tevye the Milkman.” From 1883 on, he became the
author of more than forty volumes in Yiddish, the mixture of German
and Hebrew used by the Jews of Germany and taken with them to Russia
when driven from Germany. An example is this commercial I once
heard from a Yiddish radio station in New York City: “Alle gute
Damen mit wachsenden Kinder gebrauchen Carnation Evaporated melech!”
[“All good laidies with growing children use Carnation
Evaporated milk.”] The only word of Hebrew here is “melech.”
Born “Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich” in the village of
Voronko, near Pereyaslav, Kiev in Russia, he became a very good
student, and after writing a Jewish version of Robinson Crusoe,
he decided to become a writer, and adopted the comic pseudonym,
Sholem Aleichem, derived from the Jewish greeting, “Shalom
Aleichem,” “Peace be with you.” Having selected a pun for his pen
name, he still needed another means of support, which he did by
becoming the tutor for Olga (Golde) Loev, the daughter of a wealthy
landowner. Interestingly, Olga became Sholem Aleichem’s wife on May
12, 1883 against the wishes of her father [Source: Sholem Aleichem,
Wikipedia], so the character “Perchik” is straight out of his
own life experience, perhaps as a commentary on the Judaism of his
day.
He left Russia in the year 1905, “driven out by
waves of pogroms that swept through Russia“ [Wikipedia, p. 2] He
lived in New York City for a time, but set up a second home for his
family in Geneva, Switzerland, from which he could maintain a lively
contact with the larger Yiddish community in Europe, who would pay
to hear him give public readings, much as Mark Twain was doing in
the U.S. He was often referred to as the “Jewish Mark Twain,”
because of their similar styles and their use of a pen name. When
they finally met, Twain said “that he was considered `The American
Sholem Aleichem.’”
[Wikipedia, p. 4].
Our thanks to the Area Community Theater, to Cheri
Hamilton and the marvelous cast for communicating to us the spirit
of Sholem Aleichem! The quality of the sets, the beauty of the
stage, the utility of outside/inside scenes was incredible! I
haven’t seen better on an A.C.T. stage.
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