Reviews and Features
HEARTFELT, SENTIMENTAL EVENING… BIKEL’S ‘SHOLOM ALEICHEM’ A LOVE LETTER TO LOST CULTURE
Washington Jewish Review
Reviewed by Lisa Traiger
Arts Correspondent
December 24, 2008
Just a fortnight ago, not far from Sholom Aleichem's hometown in Pereyaslav, Ukraine, the city of Kiev marked the 150th anniversary of the Yiddish humorist and writer's birth. He is best remembered for the vivid shtetl characters he created: Tevye the Milkman, who takes his complaints straight to God; Menachem Mendel, the luftmensch or dreamer; and Beryl Itzik, misbegotten traveler who reports from the goldeneh medina, better known these days as America.
Tevye, of course, gained eternal life and universal recognition in the musical theater when Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock borrowed him as the protagonist of The Fiddler on the Roof. Though the musical romanticized the hard-scrabble, perilous existence of shtetl Jews, generations of Americans, Jews and otherwise, continue to pine for Old Country ways following a Fiddler viewing. Just the strains of the minor violin refrain are enough to set some Jews off.
Among the great Tevyes -- from Maurice Schwartz in a 1939 Yiddish film dramatization, to Broadway's first, the vivacious Zero Mostel, to Hollywood's 1971 Israeli Tevye, Chaim Topol -- Theodore Bikel may come the closest to the milkman's essential nature, gentle and loving beneath a gruff exterior. These days, Bikel, who logged more than 2,000 performances of the milkman on Broadway and the road, returns to his roots and his mameloshen, his mother tongue, in his own one-man show, Sholom Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears, which is onstage at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center through Jan. 18.
Bikel, equally accomplished as a folksinger and activist as he is an actor, has compiled a paean to great Yiddish humorist Sholom Aleichem (real name: Shalom Rabinovitz), which allows him to sing his favorite folk songs, many recorded in his early years on his folk collections, and inhabit a few meaty and fun roles. In this world-premiere production, Bikel culls nuggets from the more than 40 volumes produced by the writer known as the Yiddish Mark Twain.
It's a loving, heartfelt and sentimental evening that, particularly for a generation of a certain age, strikes a chord. With a handful of Yiddish songs interspersed through the storytelling and narration, Laughter Through Tears celebrates and very nearly eulogizes a strain of Jewish culture that is very nearly extinct.
Bikel remains remarkably fit, retaining his vivid stage persona, although his voice on opening night initially sounded a bit subdued, but as the one-act wore on, he warmed and rallied. Bikel brings to life the writer's imagined city of Kasrilevke, and its colorful inhabitants, the funny bumpkins, the overbearing rebbe and the simple milkman.
Like the dissipating circle in the final moments of Fiddler, Bikel's show, too, reminds us that this world, his childhood world, is gone, erased like the hard-working, impoverished Jews of 19th- and 20th-century Eastern Europe. And his reacquaintance with Tevye, now with his daughters all married, living out his final years, is stunning, revealing an agonizing epilogue to the Tevye so many know and love.
In 90 minutes, those pining for days of old, and their children and grandchildren, glimpse that lost world in Bikel's elegy to Sholom Aleichem, the Yiddish language and his own forebears.
While the production, ably directed by Derek Goldman of Georgetown University's theater department, wanes at times, Bikel brightens especially when singing in Yiddish, songs ranging from the oft-performed and maudlin "Oyfn Pripeshik" to the lusty "Der Bal Agole" (Coachman), the celebratory "Di Mezinke" (Our Youngest Is Married) and the subdued "Dem Milners Trern" (Miller's Tears).
The fine onstage accompaniment, Tamara Brooks on piano and Merima Kljuco on accordion, enriches Bikel's rumbling voice, as does the simple, nearly bare stage designed by Robbie Hayes and the engaging projections of writer Rabinovitch, shtetl and Lower East Side scenes by Zachary Borovay.
In Laughter Through Tears, Bikel has written a love letter to his lost culture. He has become somewhat of a regular on the Theater J stage with a few recent local concert appearances and leading roles in Hyam Maccoby's thought-provoking The Disputation in 2005 and Shylock in 2007.
Born in Vienna, raised in prestate Palestine, trained in London, Bikel nearing his 85th year remains vital on stage and in his role as a fledgling playwright -- this is his first work-- he acquits himself nicely.
