#1
Posted: 3/5/04 at 1:34pm
It all starts with the set. I walked into the Minskoff (a theatre I hadn't been in since I saw my first Broadway show, SWEET CHARITY with Debbie 'The Oscars have sucked since they've gotten rid of me' Allen) and immediately thought that I was about to watch Peter Brook's production of THE CHERRY ORCHARD. All it needed was an Oriental rug. My boyfriend asked 'Are we seeing the musicaliztion of MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA?' And my best friend, who saw FIDDLER the night after us said 'All you need is one gorgeous settee and you have the perfect set for A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC.' In fact, each of those shows would have been better served by the set than this wrong-headed production of one of my all time favorite shows. And it was a harbinger of doom.
FIDDLER is not complex. It's not cryptic. It tells a wonderful, moving, already-pretty-dark folk tale about tradition vs. modernity, and how a family struggles to move forward. But most importantly, it's a musical. And it demands to be played as such.
I appreciated David Leveaux's European sensibility in the revival of NINE. But, even though FIDDLER takes place on a shtetl in Russia, it is wholly American in its sensibility. As well as Jewish. Now...a WASPy Brit can certainly reach outside himself and direct an American musical about Jews. But not if he imposes a WASPy Brit sensibility on the production.
I remember reading an article with Patrick Wilson in Playbill when OKLAHOMA came out where he stated Trevor Nunn was directing the piece as if it were Chekhov. Unfortunately, neither OKLAHOMA nor FIDDLER are Chekhov. Directing them as such distorts them to the point of unrecognizability. The characters in FIDDLER and OKLAHOMA are not languishing in the silence of their lives, struggling with meaning. They are people who work hard every day to build something, be it a family or a state. They do not have the luxury to sit and think all day long if they should go to Moscow. They raise cattle, tend homes, deliver milk and, at times, wish for a better station in life. But they are not maudlin or self-absorbed. Therein lies the problem with this FIDDLER. Instead of being peasants, they come off as the Chekovian bourgeoisie.
Never does Leveaux let emotions run high enough to justify an orchestra coming in and a character bursting into song. IF I WERE A RICH MAN is not about a penniless milkman, but about someone in middle-management wanting a nicer car. MATCHMAKER is a modern girl's wish for a prom date, not a shtetl girl on the verge of womanhood facing a marriage to someone she doesn't know. Tzeitel's plea for her life (not marrying Lazar Wolf) turns into a slight temper tantrum. And all of this kept me at such a remove from the show that I had to flee after the first act. I could no longer watch this beautiful show coast on tepid emotions and small performances.
Why was Tevey's dream inspired so much by Chagall? Does the Anatevka Museum of Art have an impressive collection? Did Tevye order a Chagall coffee table book from Amazon? It makes about as much sense as the Christmas lights on the roof. Is Santa really coming to bring presents to Schprintze and Bielke??? And why, oh why does Motel have every tic known to the psych ward at Bellevue??? Not to mention he has more chemistry with Yussel than with Tzeitel. A low blow, I know, but if the very gay Leonard Frey can convince in the movie of FIDDLER, why can't John Cariani (of unknown sexual orientation...at least by me) not even begin to convey any sort of interest in Sally Murphy's Tzeitel (a talented actress completely stymied by this role).
If TEVYE'S DREAM can't even manage a chuckle out of me, you know you're in trouble. And you call that a pogrom??? I call it redecorating.
Lordy how I wished I could have stayed to hear FAR FROM THE HOME I LOVE or IF I LOVED YOU. But I couldn't abide watching talented actors in a wonderful show sink lower and lower into the abyss.
PS Jerome Robbins told the brilliant Beatrice Arthur that FIDDLER is 'not a show about a matchmaker.' Would that David Leveaux gave the gentleman playing the beggar the same advice!
FIDDLER is not complex. It's not cryptic. It tells a wonderful, moving, already-pretty-dark folk tale about tradition vs. modernity, and how a family struggles to move forward. But most importantly, it's a musical. And it demands to be played as such.
I appreciated David Leveaux's European sensibility in the revival of NINE. But, even though FIDDLER takes place on a shtetl in Russia, it is wholly American in its sensibility. As well as Jewish. Now...a WASPy Brit can certainly reach outside himself and direct an American musical about Jews. But not if he imposes a WASPy Brit sensibility on the production.
I remember reading an article with Patrick Wilson in Playbill when OKLAHOMA came out where he stated Trevor Nunn was directing the piece as if it were Chekhov. Unfortunately, neither OKLAHOMA nor FIDDLER are Chekhov. Directing them as such distorts them to the point of unrecognizability. The characters in FIDDLER and OKLAHOMA are not languishing in the silence of their lives, struggling with meaning. They are people who work hard every day to build something, be it a family or a state. They do not have the luxury to sit and think all day long if they should go to Moscow. They raise cattle, tend homes, deliver milk and, at times, wish for a better station in life. But they are not maudlin or self-absorbed. Therein lies the problem with this FIDDLER. Instead of being peasants, they come off as the Chekovian bourgeoisie.
Never does Leveaux let emotions run high enough to justify an orchestra coming in and a character bursting into song. IF I WERE A RICH MAN is not about a penniless milkman, but about someone in middle-management wanting a nicer car. MATCHMAKER is a modern girl's wish for a prom date, not a shtetl girl on the verge of womanhood facing a marriage to someone she doesn't know. Tzeitel's plea for her life (not marrying Lazar Wolf) turns into a slight temper tantrum. And all of this kept me at such a remove from the show that I had to flee after the first act. I could no longer watch this beautiful show coast on tepid emotions and small performances.
Why was Tevey's dream inspired so much by Chagall? Does the Anatevka Museum of Art have an impressive collection? Did Tevye order a Chagall coffee table book from Amazon? It makes about as much sense as the Christmas lights on the roof. Is Santa really coming to bring presents to Schprintze and Bielke??? And why, oh why does Motel have every tic known to the psych ward at Bellevue??? Not to mention he has more chemistry with Yussel than with Tzeitel. A low blow, I know, but if the very gay Leonard Frey can convince in the movie of FIDDLER, why can't John Cariani (of unknown sexual orientation...at least by me) not even begin to convey any sort of interest in Sally Murphy's Tzeitel (a talented actress completely stymied by this role).
If TEVYE'S DREAM can't even manage a chuckle out of me, you know you're in trouble. And you call that a pogrom??? I call it redecorating.
Lordy how I wished I could have stayed to hear FAR FROM THE HOME I LOVE or IF I LOVED YOU. But I couldn't abide watching talented actors in a wonderful show sink lower and lower into the abyss.
PS Jerome Robbins told the brilliant Beatrice Arthur that FIDDLER is 'not a show about a matchmaker.' Would that David Leveaux gave the gentleman playing the beggar the same advice!
"I'm so looking forward to a time when all the Reagan Democrats are dead."
Thanks for the review. I would say it helped me to decide whether I should see it or not but I don't have any plans in the near future to go to new york...yet, but hopefully I will.
