Fiddler follow-up on New York’s mean streets
Park Theatre
When this musical first appeared on Broadway in 1986 — and then disappeared after only four performances — its creators could never have known how much the New York in their show would have in common with the New York of today.
It would, for instance, have been unimaginable to think that the hostility experienced by Jews in Rags who arrive in the city in 1910 would echo with the recent attacks on Jews in neighbouring New Jersey over a century later. Yet they do, even though it is this resonance that helps this show from being one of the also-rans of musical theatre.
The show’s story might best be described as the sequel to Fiddler on the Roof. For although the Jews in Rags have different names from the Jews in Fiddler, the story of single mother Rebecca (Carolyn Maitland) arriving on a boat in New York in 1910 with little more than her son and a sewing needle, feels very much like the continuation of the journey embarked on by some of Anatevka’s Jews after they are driven from their shtetl.
Perhaps this is no surprise given that both Fiddler and Rags share the same book writer in Joseph Stein. The later musical, whose lyricist is Wicked’s Stephen Schwartz and whose music is by Annie’s composer Charles
Strouse, has been rewritten a number of times since it was first seen. Back then, the focus of the plot was the Tevye-like Avram (here, David Willetts) and his three children as they attempt to find their way in America.
But, with the help of David Thompson’s relatively recent rewrite, the city itself becomes the crucial context.
While Rebecca is given lodgings in the room occupied by Avram and his daughter Bella (Martha Kirby), who befriended Rebecca on the boat, New York is depicted as rapaciously exploitative of newcomers, the Jewish “greenhorns” who were dirt-cheap labour for its factory bosses.
It is also a place brimful of antisemitism. The streets are adorned with posters depicting Jews attempting to gain entry to the US and Rebecca’s son is beaten and his payot cut off when he strays from his Lower East Side neighbourhood. Meanwhile, the city echoes to populist chants, such as Take Our Country Back, which sound awfully like “Make America Great Again” or Britain’s own “Take Back Control”.
As for plot, we follow Rebecca as she sews her way out of poverty with a talent for intricate needlework. She is spotted by dastardly factory owner Bronfman (Sam Attwater) but her heart belongs to Italian union firebrand Sal ( (Alex Gibson-Giorgio) who is also the shabbos goy of Rebecca’s adoptive family. Debbie Chazen is Anna, matriarch of the household.
The action takes place in front of a wall of suitcases, a somewhat off-theshelf motif for immigration. And it is a shame that the staging finds no room for the show’s band, though much of the ensemble double as Klezmer musicians.
The score is not in the same league as Fiddler, with is is like saying “that painting is not as good as a Picasso.” But it is excellent in parts and terrifically well sung, especially by Maitland who anchors the evening with a stand-out performance of poise and power. The result is a show that has been elevated by its rewrites so much it can even be spoken of as a companion piece to Fiddler on the Roof.