Fiddler on the Roof

Fiddler in performance

The idea for a musical version of Shalom Aleikhem’s stories began in 1960. Composer Jerry Bock, lyricist Sheldon Harnick and librettist Joseph Stein had already worked together on other successful shows, and a friend suggested they read Aleikhem’s Wandering Star. Although they didn’t think it was a suitable case for musical treatment, they read more of Aleichem’s stories and settled on those about Tevye and his daughters.

They took Stein’s first draft to producer Harold Prince, who turned it down, but did advise the team that the director they needed was Jerome Robbins. Eventually they got both Robbins and Prince on board.

Stein took the theme of Tevye’s storytelling and created the action of the musical play around him. Tevye is the central character and many of the thoughts and emotions of the other characters are expressed through him, a device which reinforces both the importance of the character himself and the central place of storytelling in the Jewish faith and tradition.

Fiddler on the Roof had its premiere at New York’s Imperial Theatre on 22 September 1964 with Zero Mostel as Tevye. The British premiere followed in 1967 with a cast including Miriam Karlin and Topol. The show was the longest-running Broadway production (including non-musicals) and the ninth longest-running musical in London’s West End. Productions in many other countries soon followed.

In 1971 a film was made, directed by Norman Jewison. Although the film was a huge success, some people felt that Jewison went too far in depicting the harsh realities of life in the shtetls and the brutality of the pogroms. But the director responded to this criticism in the Hollywood Reporter and said, ‘A bad musical film is one that sticks to the play. With Fiddler on the Roof, the first thing I did was forget the play'.

Topol again took the role of Tevye in the film and many other famous names have been associated with the show over the years, such as Bea Arthur, Ruth Madoc and Bette Midler.

For a show which takes as its major preoccupations the problems of parenthood and the persecution of minorities, Fiddler on the Roof has an amazing track record. But the theme of a group of people trying to preserve their traditional way of life in the face of a hostile and changing world was one with which large numbers of people found it easy to identify. Even though it deals with situations and events nearly a hundred years away in time, the humour and pathos of the show and the promise of at least the chance of a new start at the end of the story makes it a truly feelgood experience for modern audiences too.