By Alex Biese
Tradition is a tricky thing.
Tradition can bring families and entire communities together. Tradition can provide structure and ceremony to everyday lives that are otherwise chaotic and/ or mundane. Tradition can unite and even uplift – but tradition can also restrict; when the wishes of one’s heart come into conflict with the traditions of one’s community, tradition can potentially deprive that person of choice.
“Tradition” is also the opening salvo as well as the primary recurring thematic and musical motif of “Fiddler on the Roof,” the Tony- and Oscar-winning musical theater staple now on stage at the Algonquin Arts Theatre in Manasquan, running through April 21 as part of the theater’s Algonquin Broadway Series.
And “Fiddler” is, in and of itself, a tradition, 60 years after its initial Broadway bow. It’s become conversational shorthand for grand musical theater at its sturdiest, as several of its songs – especially the initial trio of “Tradition,” “Matchmaker, Matchmaker” and “If I Were a Rich Man” – have become inextricably part of the American cultural fabric.
Over time, tradition has a way of being taken for granted, its origins and intentions obscured – it’s there in “Fiddler,” in one of the show’s first big laugh lines, delivered with warmth and aplomb by Algonquin Arts Theatre technical director Jan Topoleski as the show’s heart, Tevye – “How did this tradition get started? I’ll tell you, I don’t know.”
Likewise, “Fiddler,” with its book by Joseph Stein, music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, working from stories by Sholen Aleichem that are now more than a century old – feels like it is potentially at risk of being taken for granted at this point in pop culture history.
What’s so wonderful about director Gina Lupi and company’s Algonquin production of “Fiddler” is how hard it hits and with how much conviction it tells its tale. This is a wonderful story of a community at a crossroads, and in bringing the village of the Russian village of Anatevka at the turn of the 20th century to life on stage, the joy of this production is seeing one community – the players onstage and behind the scenes – embody the joys, loves, sorrows, fears and lives of another. Shows like “Fiddler” and theaters like the Algonquin were made for each other.
With Topoleski anchoring the proceedings as Tevye, the town’s poor milkman and father of five spirited daughters, the Algonquin company ably unfurls an intimate epic (running about three hours including a 15-minute intermission). Tevye’s eldest daughter, Tzeitl (here wonderfully played by Ilana Schimmel), would rather marry the poor-yet-beloved town tailor instead of the wealthy butcher several decades her senior, and like rebellious dominoes other daughters of Tevye and Golde (Lynne Truex, in a nuanced performance at once firm, tender and hilarious) begin to express agency of their own.
Tevye, in turn, experiences what can only be described as a crisis of, well, tradition, as he weighs his daughters’ happiness and freedom against what he expects of them and what the community expects of the family as a whole. It’s a nuanced rumination on the concept of cultural institutions beautifully summed up in a line that’s at once a throwaway gag and a profound assessment of progress delivered with lived-in humanity by Topoleski in the play’s tumultuous second act: “Our old ways were once new, weren’t they?”
It turns out one of the oldest traditions of them all is change. And the presence of Russian troops in Anatevka and talk of pogroms in nearby villages serve as a constant reminder that this community is not settled on the sturdiest ground.
But that’s the beauty of tradition in the end, isn’t it? No matter how time, geography, culture and customs may change, some things persist – family, community and, in the world of musical theater, “Fiddler.”
“Fiddler on the Roof” runs through April 21 at the Algonquin Arts Theatre, 60 Abe Voorhees Drive, Manasquan. For tickets and more information, visit algonquinarts.org.
The article originally appeared in the April 11 – April 17, 2024 print edition of The Two River Times.
