Theo: An Autobiography

16: Tevye

MELAMED (HEBREW TEACHER): ifI could only be Rothschild! You kIlOl,fJ, if I tlJcre Rothschild I uJould bc richer than Rothschild. A BOY'S FATHER: WIlY is that? MELAMED: Bccause I could tcach Hebretv school 01'1 the side. -JEWISH ANECI)()TE TF THERE ARE SUCH THINGS AS PREORI)AINEI) EVENTS, then I was L surely destined to play Tevye the Milkman. Not only did I have the requisite talent and the voice for this nlusical role, I also had a personal background that put me much closer to it than many who would need a longer reach in order to make the part their own. The literature was sonlething I grew up with; twenty-six volumes of the works of Sholem Aleichem in Yiddish sat on our bookshelves during my early youth in Vienna. The books were well used; my father would read short stories or plays aloud to us. The books were rescued from the Nazis by nlY maternal grandmother with some of our other belongings and followed us to Israel. I grew up with the world of Sholenl Aleichem at my fingertips; I was a young Jew who had started his life in the diaspora and who, as a boy of thirteen, had played a thirteenyear -old in a Sholem Aleichem play. As a professional actor my first paid engagement was at the Habimah Theatre, playing the Constable in Tevye the Milkman in Hebrew. I was a natural for the part of Tevye 322 · THEO when Fiddler 011 the Roofwas first nl0unted in 1964; I was also unavailable . Not that they were cla1110ring for ll1Y services at the till1e; Zero Mostel had the part locked up. It would be some till1e before they got around to ll1e. The world of Anatevka, the nlythical town in which Fiddler 011 the Roof is set, has been written about 111any times. Within the Russian e111pire, the Pale of Settlement, the carefully circumscribed area outside which Jews were not perll1itted to take up residence, contained s1l1all villages very ll1uch like Anatevka. This was the archetypal shtetl in which Eastern Europe's Jewish life unfolded, where the Yiddish language flowered and where richness of spirit stood in such contrast to the poverty of the inhabitants. (A diminutive of the Yiddish word slztot or "town," shtetlliterally Ineans "little town.") They were people guided by rules of behavior laid down by the halachalz, a set of codes c0111piled over centuries by the rabbis. These codes governed not merely religious ritual, but all facets of life outside the house of prayer as well. They covered birth, circumcision, betrothal, ll1arriage, cleanliness , and the behavior of one Jew toward another at all times. Sabbath and the festivals turned even the poorest of shtetl Jews into a wearer of a nobleman's mantle. There was danger and pain ill this place of poverty, but there was also beauty and there was song. This world furnished endless material for Jewish writers, poets, and singers in Eastern Europe; translations into many of the world's languages followed. The works of SholelTI Aleichem, I. L. Peretz, and Abraham Goldfaden were performed on stages wherever the Yiddish language was spoken: Poland, Argentina, Mexico, and the United States. It was only a matter of time before sonleone would decide that here was material for the Broadway theatre as well. Nevertheless, this did not look to be a safe move. How lTIuch of an audience could there possibly be for a play set in a poor little Jewish village in Eastern Europe whose inhabitants wore shabby and threadbare clothes? How could such a play compete with the elegance of settings like the Ascot races in My Fair Lady or Captain von Trapp's chateau in The Soun,d of Music? Would such a play have an audience at all beyond Jewish theatergoers? It was a gall1ble but they decided to take it anyway. The creative ingredients were right: Jerome Robbins, the preeminent choreographer who proposed to direct as well; Harold Prince, an enterprising young producer; a book by Joe Stein based on Sholem Aleichem's Yiddish play; composer Jerry Bock and lyricist Sheldon Harl1ick, the creators of Fiorelllo! They did create a remarkable show and a sensation to boot. The predictions of the naysayers who maintained that this play would only have a narrow ethnic appeal leV(je • 323 were proved wrong. It had widespread appeal, and not only in Anlerica , where...