Judges 15:15 is a column by Joshua Bolchover, SY ’25 and Judah Millen, PC ’24. The name of the column refers to the Old Testament passage in which Samson slays a thousand philistines with the jaw of an ass. Make of that what you will.
Our last column ruffled some feathers. A criticism was that we should judge Yale theatre relative to other student productions rather than theatre writ large.
Simply put, we will not lower our standards, and Fiddler on the Roof showed exactly why we shouldn’t. What set Fiddler apart was not its more expensive stage design, but rather the ingenuity of its directing, the emotional tenor of its acting, and the dramatic unity it exuded throughout. If we were to praise all shows, the following praise would be worthless.
The play takes some time to get its feet beneath it. It begins in a rather confusing fashion, with the entire cast on stage drawing slips of paper from a hat. The first two scenes then had the entire ensemble sitting at the rear of the stage, visible the entire time, rising to deliver their lines. Maybe it was a way to introduce us to the cast, but it was a directorial addition that did little to add new shape to the play.
However, the audience was soon grounded by historical context with the announcement that the year is “1905, on the eve of the Russian Revolutionary period.” (Apparently, the production was supposed to be set in 1930s Poland. However, there was no indication of this at any point, and given the proclamation we will assume that we remained throughout in the familiar setting and time-period as the original Fiddler). This proclamation is an early break from Joseph Stein’s book—it is not supposed to be spoken out loud—and it sets the tone for how this production will occasionally, and at times radically, break with “tradition.”
In the middle of a rendition of “Tradition,” Tevye abruptly becomes aware of the audience in front of him. Like the beginning of the play, it was confusing and unsettling. After a minute of Tevye eyeballing at the audience, the curtain behind the primary stage set lifts to reveal a live orchestra behind, as stage lights illuminate a more expansive set.
What was the aim of the director (Drewe Goldstein, who is not a Yale student) with this big reveal? For one, it forced the audience to think. Sitting back and enjoying the catchy tunes does little justice to the actual gravity of the script. This is not a Jewish Wicked—it is a lesson, a Cartesian wake-up call, asking the audience to reckon with the message and modern resonances of the script. But the second step is to decide what you are thinking about. Why audience recognition and the expansion of the stage? For us, it played into the universal message of Fiddler on the Roof. The narrative of Fiddler on the Roof is not limited to Anatevka (the Jewish village, or shtetl, of the play) nor, crucially, to a stage. Rather, its underlying message is neither place-bound nor time-bound. It is about grappling with change, love, and identity. Do our ties to a land and custom contradict progress and change? Do we sometimes have to choose duty over individual morality or vice-versa? Is anything permanent?
The play is highly self-aware. The main set, slightly elevated from the stage, allows it to function as a play-within-a-play, as characters ascend to partake in scenes and then descend to two rows of chairs oriented perpendicularly to the audience to watch the unfolding action along with the audience. At the end of the first act, the actors all ascend to the platform as the lights dim, reading off of scripts to describe how the wedding between Motel and Tzeitel was shockingly curtailed by a pogrom.
This decision to read rather than act the pogrom both highlights the feature of pogroms in Jewish history and also a refusal by the director to allow them to define Jewish experience. The “constable” is an electronic voice piped in from the side of the stage, making antisemitism appear not only coercive but unnatural and invasive. Goldstein depicts antisemitism into a cyclical historical phenomenon, not a one-off; something that follows a discernable script and has occurred time and again throughout history. But also Goldstein fights the instinct to understand a Jewish play through the prism of anti-Jewish prejudice and violence. Violence is demoted from the realm of acting. Maybe acting would have made ‘play,’ of antisemitism’s place in the Jewish experience, or maybe the violence did not deserve the invigoration that acting manifests.
The arguments of the play are subtle and often double-sided. The brilliance of the play is that while mulling over these, the stage is filled with brilliant acting, singing, and dancing. A couple of actors and scenes require particular note.
First is Tevye played by Jacob Kaufman-Shalett (BR ’24). Kaufman-Shalett puts in a Herculean performance singing his heart out for numbers such as “If I were a Rich Man” in a Chaim Topol-esque accent. He balanced Tevye’s light-heartedness and profundity, misquoting “the good book” and lamenting his poverty. Tevye was equally matched by a mightily impressive performance from Golde (Daya Butler, BR ’24). Her singing during “Do you love me?” was particularly moving, extending the non-traditional romances of the children to the traditional parents. Golde also refused to be cast in Tevye’s shadow, and at points brilliantly expressed how the dominance in the relationship was not necessarily male. The house was her domain, and the home is the primary location of the play. Butler was one of many whose singing lifted the play from good to great. The cast was chock-full of acapella stars—Ian Berlin (PC ’25) as Motel, Veronica Zimmer (SM ’25) as Tzeitel, and Lara Yellin (BK ’25) as Shaindel/Fruma Sarah are but a few.
Yellin’s and Josie Reich’s (DC ’26) duet in Tevye’s dream scene represented a moment of true theatrical innovation and excitement. Grandma Tzeitel, played by Reich, ascended to the low-platform as unnatural light bathed the scene. She acted out the words spoken by Tevye, dancing on the table as the assembled ensemble pretended to sleep. As the song reached its crescendo, she began to ‘conduct’ the sleeping ensemble who rose to dance and writhe on the stage in a zombie-like fashion. Simultaneously, Yellin as Fruma Sarah took the stage, orchestrating the crowd that Reich had gathered, and shrieking furiously about the possible engagement between Tevye’s daughter Tzeitel and her former husband Lazar Wolf. It was a mighty performance. The scene provided an unexpected and powerful twist on a minor part of the script, earning rapturous applause from the crowd.
The cast drew great strength from its secondary characters: the confident communist Perchik (Josephine Stark, PC ’25) wooed the incredibly moving Hodel (Evie Kissinger, DC ’27); Solenne Jackson, BK ’25 was perfect as the gossipy match-maker Yente; Isaac Mukamal, GH ’25, switched between the butcher Lazar Wolf and the Rabbi, often in the same scene, to the rightful amusement of the audience.
The choreography was central to the play’s success. Directed by Isabel Menon (PC ’24) and led on stage by Fyedka (Lexi Dalrymple, ES ’25), the entire cast moved synchronously around the stage. The rendition of “L’chaim” in the tavern was a masterpiece. All these were backed by superb musicians, expertly directed by Isaac Yu, BK ’24. The set was modern and airy, allowing for the choreography to take center stage without obstruction. Also, by having such a sparse, wide stage, we could observe multiple scenes simultaneously. This worked particularly well when witnessing the developing relationship between Chava and Fyedka happening in hidden corners.
The relationship between Chava and Fyedka requires further note for its inclusion of a unique but unobtrusive modern twist. Despite being referred to as a man, Fyedka wore a knee length pleated skirt and pink overcoat, appearing for all intents and purposes to be a woman, while Chava wore a pair of trousers, the only woman on stage to do so. This staged the taboo nature of the Jew-Gentile relationship as parallel to the shifting mores regarding homosexual and otherwise non-traditional relationships.
All in all, a grandiose performance. It was a fantastic advertisement for theatre at Yale. So, here’s to the best student performance reviewed so far by this column. L’chaim.
Verdict: 4.5/5
Length: 2 hrs 30 minutes (with a 15 minute interval)
Theatre: University Theatre, 222 York Street
Playing: November 15th-November 18th
Written By: Joseph Stein (book), Sheldon Harnick (lyrics), Jerry Bock (music)
Directed By: Drewe Goldstein
