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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Our shtetl

December 23, 2015 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the new Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

How often should a classic musical be revived on Broadway? In the case of “Fiddler on the Roof,” which has just opened there for the sixth time since 1964, it’s hard not to wonder whether a point of diminishing returns might possibly be drawing nigh. “Fiddler” is a marvelous show, but the last revival, directed by David Leveaux and starring Alfred Molina, dates from 2004, and it was a fine one, both fresh and faithful. Granted, Bartlett Sher’s new version sports an even more impressive star turn by Danny Burstein, plus new dances by Hofesh Shechter, an Israeli-born modern-dance choreographer. All interesting, all promising—but do we really need another “Fiddler”? Now that I’ve seen this one, my answer is…maybe.

hfhfMr. Sher, as always, has found his own way into “Fiddler,” taking a tack that owes nothing to Jerome Robbins’ original 1964 staging or any other version of which I’m aware, and I was sure for the first 15 minutes or so that I’d be writing a review as enthusiastic as the one I wrote of his letter-perfect Lincoln Center Theater revival of “The King and I.” But no: This production, intelligent and imaginative though it is, falls short of the mark…

We first see Mr. Burstein in modern dress on an empty stage, reading a book as he waits for a train. Then a shadowy house with a fiddler perched precariously on the roof is slowly lifted into view. Mr. Burstein shifts as if by magic into Orthodox Jewish garb and the stage fills with villagers. As the fiddler and the roof fly into the rafters and the cast strikes up “Tradition,” we see (or think we see) the bare brick walls of the stage itself. And as everyone starts speaking in accents indistinguishable from those you might hear on a present-day New York streetcorner, you get it: This is an “Our Town”-like “Fiddler on the Roof.” It’s also the most American-sounding “Fiddler” I’ve ever seen, and that’s the point: It is as if we are watching the Americanized descendants of the Jews of Anatevka retell the tales their great-grandparents told about shtetl life in 19th-century Russia….

But as the evening progressed, I realized, very much to my surprise, that I wasn’t feeling the intense emotions that by all rights ought to be stirred up by “Fiddler.” It is, after all, a musical about deadly serious matters, starting with the bloody pogrom that breaks up the wedding of Tevye’s daughter and ending with the forced emigration of every Jew in Anatevka. Such things ought to make us weep—and in this production, they don’t….

Mr. Sher has throttled back the feelings too far. One feels distant from his “Fiddler,” neatly framed as it is by the vaulting proscenium arch of the 1,761-seat Broadway Theatre, which is too big for the show….

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Scenes from a rehearsal for the new Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof:

Snapshot: Dame Myra Hess plays Bach

December 23, 2015 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERADame Myra Hess plays her arrangement of Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.)

Almanac: G.K. Chesterton on the mystery of happiness

December 23, 2015 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised.”

G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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