|
 |
PLAYBILL ON OPENING NIGHT: Fiddler on the Roof: A Tale of Two Tevyes
By Harry Haun
21 Jan 2005
 |
|
From Top: Harvey Fierstein; Joseph Stein; Jerry Bock; Sheldon Harnick; Andrea Martin; Sally Murphy; John Cariani; Nancy Opel; Eli Wallach; Michael Tucker; David Leveaux
|
| photo by Aubrey Reuben | Looking as if he could step in for Harvey Fierstein at a moment's notice, Ron Orbach hit the Minskoff lobby at intermission of Fiddler on the Roof Jan. 20 with a decidedly contented look on his puss. "I feel like the show's back," he said. "It went away for a bit."
In that feeling, the actor was not alone. A fair share of the "re-opening night audience" wore a similar expression, and their ovation at the end of the revival's 377th performance seconded the pervading notion that the Joseph Stein-Jerry Bock-Sheldon Harnick classic was now closer to its heart, humor and roots than what British director David Leveaux opened Feb. 26 with Alfred Molina.
The feeling was mutual on the other side of the footlights, too. "You feel the love coming from the audience," Fierstein admitted at the post-play party, held within the Zhivago-red walls of The Firebird, an elegant Russian eatery a few short blocks west of the Minskoff.
"I know it's a cliché, but it was a dream, and it has come true. To have the audience go insane like that—and they've done that from the very first performance—is incredible."
This is Fierstein's fourth Broadway outing, and you might think that you couldn't get here from there. It has been an eccentric evolution for him, to say the least. The first two shows—1983's Tony-winning Torch Song Trilogy and the short-lived Safe Sex—he wrote himself and colored himself gay in both. Then came Hairspray, where he played a woman—a full-figured mom and social firebrand—plausibly enough to win Tony Number Two. And now here he is, playing—if not the father of multitudes at least the father of five marriageable daughters—a milkman eking out a meager existence in the small Russian village of Anatevka on Revolution's eve exactly a century ago. How's that for a stretch!
The challenge, he offered as an explanation, made him do it: "If I were smart, when I came out of Hairspray—you know, on top of the world—I probably should have waited for something good and safe to do, not something that would be completely the other side of the world. I try not to get scared, and that's the hardest thing. It's what keeps me going."
In addition to a light touch, he brings an emotional accessibility that audiences appreciate. Case in point: "I had a Russian Jew come up to me on the street after the show. He said his family had come from Anatevka. He was just weeping. He said, 'I've seen other Fiddler on the Roofs, and they always felt kinda like musicals. This felt like my life.'"
Credit for the off-beat casting director Leveaux passes on to Susan Bristow, who produced the show for The Nederlanders. "I was in Japan at the time this came up," he recalled. "Susan called me and said, 'Look, I'm thinking about life beyond Fred [Alfred Molina]. What do you think about Harvey? He has always been in the back of my mind as somebody who ought to play this.' The instant she said it, I thought, 'Yes, that's it. That's exactly where we need to go.' Harvey touches territory that perhaps was last seen in Fiddler when Zero Mostel played it, meaning you got a great clown on that stage. Fred came at it from the other end of the spectrum. The truth is you gotta be able to do both.
"I knew that you can't recast a central role like this with a pale version of the person who was in it before, so the whole idea of Harvey—with his fantastic comedic background and range—somebody who, I felt, would walk onto the stage at the very beginning and be already on the inside track of people who know him and love him—was exciting for me.
"There are those who expect—from Hairspray and Torch Song Trilogy—that Harvey would be one kind of an actor, but the way I thought of him was as a great character actor, which he is. He invites the love of people. He just does. He's one of those performers."
Leveaux admitted that he could probably write the textbook on how to gingerly negotiate two gifted and radically different actors in the same role to achieve much the same effect. "With Harvey," he said, "I was aware that he's somebody who works fast and has an enormous sense of craft in terms of how musical theatre works. Harvey is himself a writer"— [Tony-winning proof is across the street from the Minskoff at the Marriott Marquis: La Cage aux Folles]—"so you get the double advantage of his intelligence as an actor and his intelligence as a writer. We had, I thought, a very inspiring time together, working on this. I also knew, for Harvey, this role of all roles would feel like coming home to him."
Four days ago, Leveaux stopped fine-tuning Fiddler and turned to a different American classic, Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, which will bow March 15 at the Barrymore with Sarah Paulson, Josh Lucas, Jessica Lange and Dallas Roberts. The latter two attended the Fiddler festivities, Roberts sporting the latest in pappy pouches (containing 16-week-old Pilot Roberts) and accompanied by Mom (Christine Jones).
Fierstein's indispensable helpmate in lighting the material is Andrea Martin, who brings to wife Golde her immaculate Second City timing and a U.N. face that has served her well in her career, allowing her to pass cultural borders unquestioned from Bulgarian (Candide) to Greek (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) to even red-earth rustic (Oklahoma!) and now Jewish. She was born Armenian, as was the longest-running Tevya, the late Harry Goz.
"It was particularly light tonight because the audience gave us so much," she observed. "It's always give and take, isn't it? I was really aware of the good will in the audience, and, oh my God, did I need it. I have a hard time with stage fright. The first ten minutes, I was really nervous, then I felt all that love, and I said, 'What are you doing, Andrea? Stop it! Enjoy this. Get into the character, and stop worrying if people like you.' And I did."
To do this role meant relinquishing her seat in the clown car director Mike Nichols and Monty Python writer Eric Idle have pointed toward Broadway this season. She and Sara Ramirez were to share Spamalot's distaff duties—Ramirez the songs, Martin the comedy bits—but when Martin passed, these duties were merged. "That was smart of them and great for her." (Indeed, Ramirez may wind up winner in the Featured Actress in a Musical category that Martin won in '93 for My Favorite Year.) "There's room for everybody."
For Martin, it's the work, not (necessarily) the awards. "This is where my heart is, to really go as an actress. I've done sketch for so long, and it wouldn't have stretched me."
Book writer Stein has a lovely way of ducking compliments about the indestructibility of his contribution: "Well, this has been going on a very long time," he said, without his toe actually digging into the thick carpet of The Firebird. (Forty years this year, to be exact.)
"Harvey brings a kind of warmth and a soul that is very unique to this show," Stein said. "And also, the combination of him and Andrea—we're very fortunate because it feels as if they belong together. It's like a fresh show. I loved the original show, but I love this, too."
Composer Bock felt blessed he didn't come up with a "Some Enchanted Evening" for the show. "The whole score somehow received an appreciation without one particular number stepping out from it," he said. As a result, the nonhits—that have been around all this time, but you couldn't see them for the "Sunrise, Sunset" etc.—are lovely surprises.
"You know what's happened? The performances—particularly Harvey's—are so different that you think that there are new lines and new lyrics, and new things have been added, because of his investigation into everything. It sounds new, but it's really the same show."
The most conspicuous person missing from the revival's original cast—beyond Tony nominees Molina and Randy Graff—is their first born, Hodel, now played by Laura Shoop, replacing Laura Michelle Kelly, who flew the coop last summer to become London's Mary Poppins. Yesterday, she got one of the show's nine Olivier nominations.
"It was hard for Laura to leave the show, and it was really hard for us to say goodbye to her because she's a fantastic person," said Melissa Bohen, who soldiers on as sister Chava. (She and her brother, Astaire Award winner Justin Bohen of Oklahoma!, will be this season's Broadway siblings, a la last season's Sutton and Hunter Foster, as soon as he arrives in All Shook Up.) To date, Molina is the only person who has seen Kelly's lofty ascents in London, according to Bohen. "He wrote us the most beautiful e-mail you ever read—how just wonderful she was and how the show was fantastic and how she was sure to be nominated for numerous awards. They had dinner and talked about how much they missed the show and the cast. A lot of us are looking forward to making a trip to see her." Continued...
Contact Us | Advertise | Privacy Policy
Send questions and comments to the Webmaster
Copyright © 2009 Playbill, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
|
|
|
|
|