Fiddler On The Roof

I never had an opportunity to see “Fiddler on the Roof” before, but I got to last night! What a great play. Memorable songs and music, good story, great acting it was a real treat to go. We had to wait until yesterday’s paycheck to buy the tickets and we got the last four. Our tickets were scattered around the venue but we got them just in time. Elizabeth had seen it before and stayed home with grandma. Margaret offered to let her go, but she has to try to figure something out for her research paper so Margaret, Tabitha and Abigail went with me. Tabitha paid for her own ticket the way she is paying for her trip to the West Coast Conference and her porcelain doll obsession, er, collection, with money she made at her own job! Margaret and Tabitha had both seen it before, but Abby and I had not. Afterward they said they had never seen the full-length 2 hour and 55 minute Off-Broadway performance of it. We didn’t get home until after 11:30 last night but it was worth it.

What was my favorite part? That’s a toughie. The whole thing was. I thought the way Tevye kept saying, “As the Good Book says…” then at one point when he’s talking to God he says, “I don’t have to tell you what the good book says!” Or where Perchik, “the Radical” tells Tevye, “Money is the world’s curse!” and he says, “May the Lord smite me with it. And may I never recover!” The scene with the Butcher’s Wife was lost on me because there was a problem with the sound, but I kind of got the general idea anyway and Tabitha told me how it was when she had seen it.

My favorite song would have to be…well, wow, there’s another toughie. I guess, “If I Were a Rich Man” probably would be the most fitting but they were all good. “Sunrise, Sunset” was beautiful and true. The Bottle Dance was great, too.

Abigail made an interesting comment. She compared the way the traditions were broken down one by one, little by little, with the way some churches have slowly allowed one little thing after another to change and churches that all used to believe the same things started letting up on the things they preached. Fifty years ago they all basically preached against the same evils and stood up against them, now there are many that don’t preach anything is wrong, and that didn’t change overnight.

The Fiddler was probably the strangest and most interesting part of the whole play. I’m glad I got to see the whole thing. I thought the Fiddler, the symbol of Tradition, was one of the more important and interesting players, even though it was a seemingly minor role.

I cannot remember everything, only having seen it once. I can remember that it was both humorous and moving at the same time. Probably the most touching part was toward the end, when Tevye, with his back turned, in a barely audible voice tells Fyedka and his daughter, “God go with you.” That was very memorable. I guess now I have a reading assignment because I will want to remember everything and I am also interested in the stories that inspired it. I suppose now I will have to pay my library fines.

Anyway, it was an exciting evening and a really wonderful time, but, Oy, getting up in the morning! I slept in until 4:30 this morning! Tabitha doesn’t have to work today and Margaret is sick, so it’s just me right now.

Thanks for reading and remember, As the Good Book says, when a poor man eats a chicken, one of them is sick.