Photo Courtesy of Skylight Music Theatre
Andrew Varela and Janet Metz at rehearsal for Skylight Music Theatre's "Fiddler on the Roof"
“Usually, we pick the show. In this case, the show picked us,” says Michael Unger, the Skylight Music Theatre’s artistic director. He’s talking about Fiddler on the Roof, Skylight’s contribution to Violins of Hope, a project that has rescued instruments owned by Holocaust victims and presented them publicly as living memorials. Some 60 Wisconsin arts groups are participating with the project’s Badger State iteration. What better offering from Skylight than Fiddler on the Roof, a musical set against a backdrop of antisemitism featuring a violinist fiddling precariously yet hopefully in a dangerous world.
Fiddler on the Roof was greeted rapturously when it debuted on Broadway in 1964 and expanded its reach with director Norman Jewison’s 1971 film adaptation. If you know the story only from the movie, will there be any surprises?
“No,” Unger says. “The film was faithful to the musical and I’m very reverential to an author’s impulses. I’m not an auteur theater director who tries to reinterpret things.”
And what’s to reinterpret in a musical as rich as Fiddler on the Roof? From “Tradition” to “Matchmaker,” “If I Were a Rich Man” to “Sunrise, Sunset,” every song is a melodic and lyrical gem carrying the story forward. Drawn from the stories of Sholem Aleichem, the early 20th century Yiddish author dubbed by contemporaries as “the Jewish Mark Twain,” Fiddler on the Roof tells the story of Tevye the Milkman, his wife, the marriages of his daughters and the storm clouds over a village where life seems to have changed little with the centuries. The story contains plenty of sweetness but no saccharine in a setting where a joyous wedding could end in a pogrom.
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The musical was a collaboration between Jerry Bock (music), Sheldon Harnick (lyrics) and Joseph Stein (book). “The writing is as good as Broadway gets,” Unger says. “All three writers crafted the emotional tugs on the heart with humor—before they hit you with the sucker punch of sorrow. It covers the entire range of human emotions” in under three hours with nary a sluggish moment.
Fiddler on the Roof is a musical in motion featuring dance in the Hasidic tradition of Eastern Europe choreographed by Yehuda Hyman to music under the direction of David Bonofiglio. “He’s the perfect choreographer for this show,” Unger says. “He’s written many solo shows about his faith and worked on other Jewish-themed shows. When he moves, he has such history and soul. It’s a beautifully authentic way to tell this story through movement.”
Unger points out that there are “no tricks” in the “bottle dance” sequence. Of course, the bottles are plastic and weighted with sand, “but there are no magnets, no Velcro holding them in place. They are precarious—like a fiddler on the roof.”
As for the violins from Violins of Hope, there will be two on display in the theater lobby, one in the orchestra pit and the other on stage, “never used before in a production of Fiddler on the Roof,” Unger adds. “It’s incredible, beyond moving.” The cast includes well-known Milwaukee thespians such as Andrew Varela (Tevye) and Janet Metz (Golde) plus a contingent of Marquette University theater students. With a cast of 31, it’s one of Skylight’s largest productions in recent seasons.
Back in 1964, the producers of Fiddler on the Roof worried that the show was “too Jewish” and wouldn’t play outside its ethnic enclave. Unger tells the story related by Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda in the documentary A Miracle of Miracles about book writer Joe Stein seeing a production of Fiddler in Japan and being asked by its producer, “Does this show work in America? It’s such a Japanese story.” Unger adds, “The story is universal. It’s about family, loss, cultural traditions, change—it applies to every human on the planet.”
Skylight Music Theatre performs Fiddler on the Roof Oct. 3-25 at the Broadway Theatre Center’s Cabot Stage, 158 N. Broadway. For tickets, visit skylightmusictheatre.org/fiddler.
