Date: Fri 21-Jul-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Illustration: C

Quick Words:

Fiddler-Richter-Cochrane

Full Text:

COCHRANE'S "FIDDLER" ANOTHER RICHTER MUST-SEE

(with photo)

By Julie Stern

DANBURY - Once again, Musicals at Richter has turned to the multi-talented Tom

Cochrane to serve as director, choreographer and set designer for its

production of Fiddler on the Roof , and last Saturday (July 15), as audiences

picnicked on the lawn on the hottest night of the year, Cochrane showed just

how good he is!

As he did with Pirates of Penzance and Man of La Mancha in previous seasons,

he demonstrated clearly his ability to elicit a spirited and convincing

performance from a large cast. Get to see this one while you can!

Of course it helps to have a great play to work with, and Fiddler - which

combines haunting music, witty lyrics and droll humor with an underlying

serious theme - is deservedly a classic of the American stage. The title comes

from an image by French surrealist painter Marc Chagall, in a painting he did

of a stetl , a Russian Jewish village.

As explained by the narrator and lead character, Tevye the Dairyman, the image

symbolizes precariousness - it would be so easy for the fiddler to lose his

balance and fall off the roof. In Czarist Russia of 1905, when the story is

set, it is the village of Anatevka and its Jewish population who are in a most

precarious position.

Government-led pogroms encourage drunken peasants to raid Jewish villages and

attack their inhabitants. In many parts of the country, the Jews - who were

already forbidden by law to live in the cities - were being expelled from

their homes and forced to give up their land.

Against this constant danger, Tevye and his neighbors cling all the more to

"Tradition" - those customs both religious and secular which distinguish them

from their Russian adversaries. Tradition is the basis of the villagers'

identity: "It is our traditions," Tevye explains, "that tell us who we are and

what God expects of us."

But traditions are under attack by more than hostile mobs. As the father of

five daughters, Tevye, by tradition, is entitled to arrange their marriages,

through the services of a matchmaker. The idea is that village life is best

perpetuated when parents choose the best deal they can get for their children.

Personal choice has nothing to do with it; love may come later, if the pair is

lucky.

Yet when Tevye tells his oldest daughter, Tzeitel, that he has promised her to

the butcher Lazar Wolf, a penniless widower as old as her father, Tzeitel begs

to be allowed to marry Motel, the penniless young tailor she loves. And when

Tevye, a wise and caring father, succombs to her plea, other parts of the

structure of life as he knows it start to fall.

His second daughter, Hodel, falls in love with Perchik, a young radical who,

having studied at the university at Kiev, dresses more like a Russian student

than a Jew. He preaches equality and human rights, including the rights of

girls to be educated, and men and women to dance with each other, both of

which were forbidden by tradtion.

The third daughter, Chava, goes even farther afield when she falls in love

with Fyedka, a Christian. To a people whose sense of identity is so grounded

in their religion, the idea of intermarriage and assimilation is the biggest

threat of all.

Tevye's attempts to cope with his daughters' romantic yearnings, and to

placate his irascible wife Golde, is the source of the comedy and wonderful

songs ("Matchmaker," "If I Were A Rich Man," "Sunrise, Sunset," etc) that

dominate the first act, until the pogrom interrups the joyous wedding of Motel

and Tzeitel, forecasting more bad times ahead.

The second act is darker, shadowed by Perchik's arrest and exile to Siberia,

where Hodel will follow him; by Tevye's rejection of Chava when she elopes

with Fyedka; and by the ultimate expulsion edict which orders the entire

village into permanent exile. With their belongings piled on hand carts, they

trudge from their beloved Anatekva towards unknown destinations: Warsaw,

Cracow, America...

As Tevye, Chuck Rinaldi is marvelous, living up to the standard set by Zero

Mostel in the original production, and Theodor Bikel in the film. Everyone in

the show does an excellent job, but I was particularly taken with Dominic

Paolillo as the fiery Perchik; Billy Dempster as the timid Motel who, "miracle

of miracles," becomes man enough to fight for his bride; and Michael Santoro

as Lazar Wolf.

Also impressive was the trio of daughters - M.J. Tomsic's Tzeitel, Sybil Ann

Haggard as Hodel, and Mindy McGuane as Chava. As Golde, Judith E. Davis is

dramatically strong.

Musical director Tina Lorusso leads an 11-piece orchestra through the rich and

complex musical score very effectively. Tom Cochrane's set - a village street

of rickety buildings stretching back into the woods that surround the stage -

is beautifully evoked, and along with his spirited choreography and costumer

Yvette Beausoleil's realistic outfits, the entire effect achieves a clear

sense of time and place in history that was broken up by a combination of the

force of human hatred and the dream of progress and freedom.

However quaint a "period piece" as Anatekva may seem on the stage, the images

that permeate the news this week of frightened Muslims desperately fleeing

villages with names like Srebrenica and Zepa remind us that "ethnic cleansing"

is a recurring and virulent disease, and the world's capacity to sit back and

allow evil to happen is a problem we all need to grapple with.