Re: Fiddler and After

[Elliott Raisen <elliott16...>]

Interesting.
        elllll
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "George Robinson" <GRComm (at) concentric(dot)net>
To: "World music from a Jewish slant" <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2001 11:51 AM
Subject: Fiddler and After


> Khaverim --
> 
> Since the subject has come up indirectly, I thought I would pose a
> question to the list regarding Fiddler on the Roof, or more accurately,
> the next Bock-Harnick show, The Rothschilds.
> 
> I have to admit that I have never seen The Rothschilds staged. However,
> I am very fond of the original cast album and know large parts of the
> score by heart. I have always wondered why the show was (comparatively)
> a failure; I actually prefer the music and lyrics to those of Fiddler. 
> 
> I have always suspected that the reasons for its failure were two-fold.
> First, it wasn't Fiddler -- how do you follow a success of that
> magnitude and NOT disappoint people?
> 
> Second, and I think more salient, its attitude towards its Jewish
> protagonists and non-Jewish antagonists is very different. Fiddler
> sentimentalizes the shtetl (as we have established earlier this week ;))
> and makes loveable victims of its Jews. The Rothschilds paints a very
> different picture -- it shows Jews who fight back and do so not with
> conventional weapons but with their financial acumen. And it shows the
> Gentiles as overtly hostile, uniformly so, and pretty damned nasty at
> that (In fact, the casting of Keene Curtis as all the bad goyim sort of
> creates a Universal Bad Gentile who transcends history.)
> 
> Somehow I think it was easier for the theater-party crowds to handle
> long-suffering noble shtetl Jews than a bunch of take-no-prisoners
> wheeler-dealers who beat the Gentiles at their own game. 
> 
> Of course, it's also possible that the book was weak and the supporting
> performances disappointing. Hey, I never got to see the show.
> 
> At any rate, anyone who has looked into this, I'd welcome comments.
> 
> George Robinson
> 
> 

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