- Fiddler: Miracle of Miracles
4/8/22 (Sat)
This disappointing 2019 documentary explores the origins and influence of Fiddler on the Roof, the 1964 work that is one of the crowning achievements of the musical stage. Fiddler, at one point the longest-running show in Broadway history, is nominally about the life of a poor Jewish milkman and his family in a Ukrainian shtetl in the early 20th century, but on a wider level it portrays a community struggling to maintain its identity in a changing world. That universal theme has made the show extraordinarily popular worldwide; it has been a tremendous success for decades here in Japan, which staged one of the first of many foreign (and foreign-language) productions. However, the documentary has other ideas, as suggested in its Wikipedia summary: “Scholars examine the play’s themes of xenophobia, gender equality, civil rights, and religion.” Therein lies the problem.
sekenbanashi 