Courtesy Of Roadside Publicity
One of the world’s most recognized fictional characters is a Jewish milkman from a tiny village in pre-revolutionary Russia. Tevye, a recurring figure in the short stories of Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem, danced his way into American popular culture as the protagonist of the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof. From there, he reached the wider world through a popular film version that etched the story’s characters and songs in memory.
As the enlightening documentary Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles reminds us, Fiddler on the Roof was considered an unconventional entry in the Broadway sweepstakes of 1964, the year it premiered. A musical about a family fleeing a pogrom? Well, Fiddler on the Roof is much more than that, but even so, some asked, “Will it sell beyond a Jewish American audience?”
Joel Grey, one of the many interviews conducted by the documentary’s director, Max Lewkowicz, recalls the Japanese fan who told him that Fiddler on the Roof is her favorite musical. “What makes it speak in so many languages—and everybody thinks it’s about them?” asks Grey, who recently directed an acclaimed Yiddish-language version of the musical.
Fiddler on the Roof is the story of a family struggling to get along in a world whose many joys are encircled by ever-present dangers. They are threatened with persecution, not for anything they did but because of who they are—a message that registered in 1964 as the American civil rights movement gained momentum (and still resonates today). It becomes a hopeful immigrants’ tale in a world that continues to be shaped by immigration.
At heart, Fiddler on the Roof is about a tradition bending—but not really breaking—under the force of modernity. Tevye and his community draw their strength, as he sings, from “Tradition,” and yet that body of law and lore can’t entirely fulfill the desires or requirements of a rapidly changing world. Should Tevye’s daughters be free to marry according to the stirrings of their own hearts in a society where marriage is arranged and love—sometimes—comes later? Do they have the right to say no? Tevye is a stubborn patriarch with a heart. Someone once called the musical a “female empowerment” story and yes, it’s that as well.
Fiddler on the Roof can be enjoyed as nostalgia—a window to the past for people of many heritages, including Grey’s Japanese friend. But the multi-layered narrative has no one meaning.
Lewkowicz also interviews several of the musical’s creators, including composer Jerry Bock, lyricist Sheldon Harnick and book author Joseph Stein. What emerges is how, in 1964, Fiddler on the Roof could only have been born in the particular artistic and ethnic ferment of New York, the magnetic pole for outsiders with stories to tell. Director Jerome Robbins is one example. Credited with shaping and staging the story in the form we know it, Robbins—a brilliant but troubled artist conflicted by politics and sexuality—was deeply moved upon visiting his ancestral village in Russia. His roots gnawed at his imagination as he transformed the story with its songs—those unforgettable songs!—into an American musical thoroughly suffused by the culture of another place in time.
Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles will be shown at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 15, at the Marcus North Shore Cinema. The screening is already sold out, a spectacular opening for the 22nd Annual Milwaukee Jewish Film Festival, Sept. 15-19, which features a diverse selection from many nations of documentaries, dramas and comedies that reflect on the Jewish experience.
Tickets for any film in the festival may be purchased through Micki Seinfeld at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center, 414-967-8235; online at jccmilwaukee.org/filmfestival; or at the JCC desk inside the North Shore Cinema beginning one hour prior to each movie. Tickets are not available for purchase directly through the theater. For more information, visit jccmilwaukee.org.
