‘Fiddler on the Roof’ a triumph
The divisive times we are living through call out to the arts to help us better understand painful situations and cruel people. The arts deepen our humanity and energize our compassion.
The cast and crew of talented people assembled by the Peterborough Theatre Guild, and its gifted director, Jerry Allen, offered up such gifts with the recent run of “Fiddler on the Roof.”
Jerry, who grew up here, and was a teacher of the humanities for many years, has now directed 10 musicals and a number of plays for the Theatre Guild. Each takes about four months of intense work, from audition to performance, with three rehearsals per week, usually in the evenings for three hours. For the dancers and singers, their work involves more time, plus costuming and other meetings.
Even Jerry, with his experience and knowledge of the community, was amazed at the depth of musical and acting talent which auditions turned up last fall. Some of the cast have professional training. They are drawn to Peterborough for different reasons — family, or its reputation as a supportive city, or, it must be said, a director whose vision of justice and inclusion they share.
Jerry told me he knew Donnell Mackenzie, who played Tevye, could act, from reviews from York University and Seneca College, but could he sing? Then, Donnell wowed him with his singing.
Jerry and his team — producer Pat Hooper, musical director, Peter Sudbury, choreographer, Laura Lawson and vocal director, Janina Kraus — chose a play that would honestly portray another culture and country, and another time (1905) a play which seamlessly integrates heavy human suffering with wit and music.
The classic “Fiddler on the Roof” opened on Broadway in 1964. That’s 60 years ago. It lasted for 10 years, 3,000 performances, and won 10 Tony Awards. A worldwide favourite, it has been mounted many times by both professional and community companies. A film version in 1971 was directed by Canadian Norman Jewison.
Like all great art, it has reverberations for every age. Great storytelling is timeless.
Tevye is a poor milkman in a Jewish village in occupied Ukraine in 1905. He is a devout believer, with a sharp-tongued but loyal wife, and five daughters, for whom he must find suitable husbands; preferably wealthy, but definitely Jewish. Modern views, which are held by his daughters, challenge Tevye.
Enter the matchmaker, Yente, a former student of mine, Nicole Grady, who absolutely inhabits the part.
Jerry wisely invited Len Lifchus, former director of United Way, to advise him on Jewish ways. The emotional backdrop of the play is the anxiety felt by a dominated people who fear a riot caused by Russian forces, a pogrom.
“Let us pray for the Czar,” says one wit.
“Yes,” answers another, “We pray the Czar be kept far from us.”
How can one forget the remarkable bottle-on-head dance performed by two men and two women, without a slip. But Russian troops disrupt the family wedding, ordering the villagers to leave. Some go to Siberia, some to America.
The play strengthens the audience in its resolve not to think or act in such ways in contemporary situations. The cast understood fully that it was expressing a crucial moral message for today. That made for high morale among the presenters, and profound audience appreciation.
It was a common experience, shared by 6,000 Peterborough people, that built a deeper culture of welcome and kindness. I sat next to a Ukrainian refugee who told me his neighbours, eight of them, had brought him to his first theatre in Canada.
I think Jerry Allen, in giving us this play, continues to teach humanities.