David Leveaux’s revival of Fiddler on the Roof, starring Alfred Molina (as “Tevye”) and Randy Graff (as “Golde”), opened less than joyously at the Minskoff Theatre. Tragic irony ascended on the evening when Sonia Cullinen, sister of the late Jerome Robbins, the show’s original director and choreographer (who died in 1998 at the age of 80), suddenly collapsed from a heart attack while waiting for the curtain to rise. The show was detained for 30 minutes as paramedics rushed the 91-year-old arts philanthropist and former modern dancer to the hospital, but she was sadly pronounced dead on arrival. We at The Sheet would like to offer our deepest sympathies to Ms. Cullinen’s family and friends.
Apparently, the orchestra, which added so much heart to the production of Fiddler, was lacking a bit of soul when, a week later, according to the NY Post’s Michael Riedel, its union demanded overtime pay for the time they sat and waited for medical assistance to arrive and remove the stricken woman from the theater. Audiences may sit and enjoy their music, and would certainly miss them if they were replaced with computerized equipment, but don’t expect any humanity if we have the inconsideration to collapse on their time ....
Nevertheless, in true Broadway tradition, the show did go on. Based on the short story “Tevye and His Daughters,” by Sholom Aleichem, the musical is a metaphor for the great balancing act we all must maintain between happiness and pain, comedy and affairs of the heart, tradition and innovation.
Fiddler originally opened in 1964 at the Imperial Theatre, starring Zero Mostel, before its successful transition to the screen in 1971 with Chaim Topol in the leading role. Unlike these earlier productions, Levreaux’s Fiddler appears to be ethnically subdued. The show’s life force, though, shines through in the musical numbers written by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, including “Tradition,” “Sunrise, Sunset,” and “Miracle of Miracles.”
Following the show, we headed next door to the Marriott Marquis, where we mixed with producer Jimmy Nederlander Jr., original book author Joseph Stein, Glenn Close, Calvin Klein, Terry Allen Kramer, Anna in the Tropics (Pulitzer-Prize-winning) playwright Nilo Cruz, and Kiss Me, Kate‘s Brian Stokes Mitchell. Also in the Broadway mix were: Bebe Neuwirth, Daryl Roth, Charles Busch, Kathie Lee and Frank Gifford, Ann Reinking, Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson, Julie Taymor, Alan Campbell and Lauren Kennedy, Jeff Goldblum and fiancée Catherine Wreford (42nd Street and Oklahoma), Rue McClanahan and Justin Bohon (Oklahoma’s “Will Parker,” there to celebrate his sister Melissa Bohon’s Broadway debut as Fiddler’s “Anya”), Brad Oscar (The Producers), and Craig Bierko (Music Man).
Fiddler on the Roof remains a buoyant magical experience. Just like “Tevye” and friends, the night went on as a celebration over adversity, with our cocktails clinking to the evening’s toast: “To life!”
