Not Just A Musical

Caroline Webber reviews Alisa Solomon’s Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof in the NYTBR . You thought it was just a musical? Think again. Solomon’s book “explores not only the making of the musical, but also the way the show reflects evolving Jewish cultural identity in America and around the world. Its about how gentiles see Jews and about how Jews see themselves. Its about a particular moment in American history when identity politics, feminism, generational rifts, ethnic pride, concerns about authenticity and an interest in immigration history came together in a rich cholent. Its about a particular time in Broadway history when the musical was changing from something stagy and stilted to something more musically and formally challenging. Oh, and its about ‘Fiddler’ productions across cultures and time periods, and ‘Fiddler’ in pop culture from ‘The Simpsons’ to an ultra-Orthodox novel that ‘reads like a kosher version of the evangelical Christian Left Behind series to the Amazing Bottle Dancers (a troupe of fake Hasidim for hire at bar mitzvahs, doing Jerome Robbinss astounding wedding dance choreography with paste-on payes , hats with holes cut into them and shatterproof bottles on their heads).” I want to hire those guys.

It’s also a parable about the irresistible power of American pop culture. Solomon recounts struggles of Tevye’s creator, Sholem Aleichem, “to adapt his own work for the stage presaged the troubles Robbins, Joseph Stein (book), Sheldon Harnick (lyrics) and Jerry Bock (music) had in creating ‘Fiddler.’ They worried endlessly about creating a work that was too sentimental, too much like old Second Avenue Yiddish theater. And the creator of the original Tevye once vowed, ‘I will never permit myself to give in to American taste and lower the standards of art’ . . . until he needed money badly enough, relented and sentimentalized his play ‘Stempenyu.’ ‘What can one do when America commands?’ he asked helplessly.”