Winston-Salem Journal Review - "Fiddler"

‘Fiddler’ inspires us to weigh tradition’s place
Sunday, November 4, 2012 12:00 am

Matchmaker

Ken Keuffel/Winston-Salem Journal

Do we uphold tradition or let it erode?

That’s the principal question at the heart of “Fiddler on the Roof,” the popular musical that Twin City Stage is reviving. And it’s a question we’re inspired to care about in numerous ways as we take in the often-funny show, which opened Friday at the Arts Council Theatre.

The show, directed with aplomb by Bobby Bodford, also thrives on the able music direction of Margaret B. Gallagher and the imaginative choreography of Benji Starcher. The cast often fills the stage, but you never feel that it becomes unwieldy or unmanageable.

“Fiddler” is set in a Jewish settlement in a Tsarist Russia that is intolerant of it and ultimately shuts it down. The musical transports us to a time when resistance to “modern” ideas was beginning to weaken.

One result: a man and a woman might just bypass a matchmaker and marry because of their love for one another, even if such a union meant financial struggles, dislocation or being stigmatized for marrying outside one’s faith.

Tim Austin as Tevye

Tevye (Tim Austin), the loveable milkman, contends with revolutionary notions taking hold in his three oldest daughters as they find love and pursue marriage. The daughters are Tzeitel (Mary Lea Williams); Hodel (Katie Skawski); and Chava (Gracie Falk).

Austin is at his best when the rest of the play’s action freezes and he engages in a mini-soliloquy, weighing the pros and cons of a momentous dilemma. Tzeitel, for example, might not enter an arranged marriage with a wealthy butcher old enough to be her father, opting instead for Motel (Latimer Alexander), a poor tailor.

In each mini-soliloquy sequence, Austin goes back and forth thoughtfully between two extremes, beginning each scenario with “on the other hand.” His struggles emerge as genuine, exposing the tensions between rigid inflexibility and greater openness.

For some reason, I hadn’t seen a production of “Fiddler on the Roof” until I reviewed the current Twin City production. But I had certainly heard parts of it many times in the great songs by composer Jerry Bock and lyricist Sheldon Harnick. These were powerful enough to enter the collective consciousness and stay there for almost 50 years, delighting young and old alike. The original Broadway production of “Fiddler” opened in 1964, spawning numerous professional and amateur revivals.

On Friday, it was a joy to experience such classics as “Matchmaker, Matchmaker”; “If I Were a Rich Man”; and “Sunrise, Sunset” in their original contexts. The humor in Joseph Stein’s book, though sometimes a bit corny, usually hits the nail on the head in its expression of universal truths about life, money or the lack thereof.