best Fiddler on the Roof original production story

[calimac]

with director Jerome Robbins and star Zero Mostel

Robbins said little to Mostel by way of direction and that was plenty since Mostel, endlessly inventive, needed little prodding.  When they argued at all, it was over substance, and often over Jewish substance.  "What are you doing?" Robbins demanded at one rehearsal as Mostel touched the doorpost of Tevye's house and then brushed his fingers over his lips.  Mostel offered the obvious answer: "I'm kissing the mezuzah."  Robbins responded bluntly, "Don't do it again."  But Mostel insisted that Tevye, like the Orthodox Jews with whom the actor had grown up, would never neglect to make the customary gesture of devotion that acknowledges the case of sacred parchment affixed to doorways of Jewish homes.  Robbins bristled.  Mostel held firm and kissed the mezuzah again.  Without raising his voice - in fact, the more emphatic he became, the more firmly and calmly he spoke - Robbins demanded that Mostel stop.  The actor relented.  And then, when he walked through Tevye's doorway once more, he crossed himself.  He'd made - and won - his point.  The mezuzah kissing stayed in.

- Alisa Solomon, Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

lol!

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Love it.

That would be like telling me not to accept the Quaker Peace Testimony. It's like breathing so I couldn't not do it. :o)

[negothick.livejournal.com]

Great story--and the author of that book is a member of a congregation here in CT, to which a friend belongs.
Meanwhile, Fiddler is observing its 50th anniversary, and I have tickets (with that very friend) to the Golden Anniversary production at Goodspeed Opera House, that wedding cake building with a jewel-box theater inside.

By coincidence, this summer also saw the death at 103 of Bel Kaufman, granddaughter of Sholom Aleichem, who continued to rail against Fiddler, calling it a travesty of his stories, transforming the tragic character of Tevye into a feel-good comic character, and romanticizing the shtetl from which she and her family had fled.

[margdean56.livejournal.com]

Is that the same Bel Kaufman who wrote Up the Down Staircase?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Yes, 'tis she.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

The book discusses the countering complaints from those who believe the musical changed the stories too much, and those who feel it didn't change them when it should have.

I last saw Fiddler in a high-school production several years back, a very lively show in which Fruma-Sarah jumped up and down in fury on Tevye and Golde's bed, with them in it.

[margdean56.livejournal.com]

Cool! I never knew that -- the relationship of the two writers, I mean.

[margdean56.livejournal.com]

I was in a high school production of Fiddler mumblemumble years ago; I was Grandma Tzeitel.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Then you will like this story, also from the book. Bock and Harnick's custom was to begin work by having Bock write some tunes and then mail them on tape to Harnick who would devise lyrics.

The very first tape Bock sent, which is preserved and has been issued on CD, has Bock saying, "here's a little gay folk thing that I think has some interest for us," and then he plays the chords for a skipping melody that he sings with nonsense syllables: "bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-yaaaa, bup-bup-ya, bup-bup-ya ..."

On hearing it, Harnick quickly affixed the words, "A blessing on your head, mazel tov, mazel tov ..." and thus, three years before the premiere, was the first song for Fiddler written.

[margdean56.livejournal.com]

That is a cool story! Did they do this before or after they had a script?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

The script, which was written by somebody else, was being worked on simultaneously. As as usual with co-authored musicals, the three of them kept in close touch to coordinate how the story was shaping up, which songs were needed, and where they might go. Harnick was able to write the lyrics for this one early because he was sure that scene would stay in. Still, they wrote, it says, about 3 discarded songs for every one they kept. Some weren't even discarded until the preview performances. Have you ever heard "When Messiah Comes"?