This past week, the students of the Lamont School of Music and the Department of Theatre delivered a visceral rendition of Tony Award- winning musical, “Fiddler on the Roof” this past Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The show will continue next Friday and Saturday at 7: 30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.
“Fiddler on the Roof” is set in pre-revolutionary Tsarist Russia in 1905. It tells the story of a poor Jewish milkman named Tevye whose five daughters are constantly challenging his traditional values. It is a story of familial and romantic love, community, religion, tradition and political tumult.
Taking place in the Byron Flexible Theatre and directed by Pamyla Stiehl, a professor of Musical Theatre, Acting, Theatre History and Women’s Studies at DU, “Fiddler” made full use of the intimacy that can be accomplished between audience and cast in a theatre-in-the-round format.
The Byron Flexible Theatre can be arranged in any configuration according to the set designer and director’s wishes. Stiehl wanted to rethink the traditional way in which “Fiddler” is performed, and did so by using an atypical theatre format.
“We wanted to make it different,” Stiehl said.
Theatre-in-the-round, or Arena theatre, is a format of theatre in which the audience surrounds the stage. The blocking and choreography integrated the actors into the midst of the crowd. The audience was enveloped in the music and movement of the production.
Through candlelit ballads, rejoicing odes and eerie dream sequences, the audience became intermingled into the feeling, movement and intensity of the production.
Choreography ranged from boisterous and celebratory to deliberate and unadorned, and was complemented by a rustic and minimal set.
Stiehl, who also choreographed the production, included the traditional Eastern European and Russian folk dance known as “the bottle dance” in which men balance bottles filled with sand on their hats and dance in unison.
Featuring Russian folk music akin to Hava Nagila, the tunes were performed by a small pit orchestra. Senior music major Lucia Thomas from Evanston, IL played fiddle numbers with ease and vitality.
Director Stiehl hired Denver actor John Arp, 44, to fill the role of Tevye, which he did with natural and utterly human vulnerability.
Stiehl chose to hire Arp because she knew what a burden the role of Tevye was. She knew Arp from his work in Denver and his respectable reputation as a character actor. The strenuous role even challenged a professional actor like Arp.
“He would come in hours before rehearsal to rehearse his own stuff,” said Stiehl.
She also wanted him to act as a mentor for students in the production.
Arp has been active in the Denver theatre scene for 17 years and performs at a variety of venues including the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities. Arp said he loved working with students.
“They are so hungry to make it work. It has been a blast,” he said.
Jerica Khosla, a junior French and theatre major from Pueblo, portrayed Tevye’s alter ego, the Fiddler. Her depiction of the Fiddler was subtle and playful. The Fiddler, a separate character functioning as Tevye’s conscience, appears on the stage with Tevye as he struggles with moral and ideological questions. Khosla’s depiction of the Fiddler was subtle and playful.
“The Fiddler embodies the tradition. It represents the disjuncture between tradition and Tevye’s love for his daughters,” said Khosla.
Khosla’s role is a non-speaking role. She discussed the challenges of portraying a character without the aid of words.
“I firmly believe you can portray as much with your body as with your voice,” said Khosla. “Physicality is universal.”
Junior Opera Major George Arvidson filled the role of Perchick, a student and Bolshevik revolutionary, who falls in love with Tevye’s daughter Hodel. Arvidson portrayed a virtuous and passionate Perchick, and was also one of the three spectacular bottle dancers.
Arvidson said the cast got along well and that the production had positive energy.
“This has been a really positive experience,” he said. “Pam is a phenomenal director.”
Characters range from a boyish and eager Motel, to a comical and fumbling Rabbi who seems to have lost his words, to a love-struck and vulnerable Chava, this production certainly succeeded in pulling heart strings and fiddle strings alike.
The production was far from elaborate, but its sincere and understated display of human emotion was anything but simplistic.
Begin the plunge into finals week with tradition, feeling and entertainment. Tickets can be purchased at the Newman Center Ticket Office for $15 with a student ID and $22 for the general public.
