Before there was the musical, “Fiddler on the Roof,” there was the novel penned by the great Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem. The stories on which the musical was based were originally written in Yiddish by Sholem Aleichem and first published in 1894.
As Tevye the dairyman "tells" Sholem Aleichem the tales of his family life, six of his seven daughters are named, and of these, five play leading roles in Tevye's stories. The stories tell of his business dealings, the romantic dealings and marriages of several of his daughters, and the expulsion of the Jews from their village by the Russian government.
The Tevye stories were adapted for stage and film several times. However, Sholem Aleichem's own Yiddish stage adaptation was not produced during his lifetime.
However, the first production was adapted and staged in Yiddish by Maurice Schwartz in 1919 at New York City's Irving Place Theatre. He also played the title role twenty years later in the Yiddish film, “Tevye,” which was based on the play.
The play, “Tevye, the Dairyman,” or "Tevye, the Milkman" as it is sometimes called, starred Schwartz, who played Tevye, the main lead, along with the excellent actors of his Yiddish Art Theatre. Maurice Schwartz was tfohe Yiddish Art Theatre’s founder and director.
The following quote comes from Martin Boris' unpublished biography of Maurice Schwartz, entitled "Once Upon a Kingdom":
“I send you, through my friend Jacob Saperstein, a play which I have composed from several works written by me twenty years ago,” wrote Sholem Aleichem to [the famous Yiddish actor] Jacob P Adler. “You will find only a simple Jew, the father of five daughters, an honest, clean, wholesome and greatly suffering character who, with all his misfortunes, will make the public laugh from beginning to end.”
Of course, the playwright was describing his Tevye the Dairyman, offering it to Adler around the turn of the century. But “The Eagle” (a name ascribed to Adler) declined the gift, as it had no romantic part for him. The play with which Maurice Schwartz opened the 1919-1920 season at the Irving Place Theatre was the one Adler had refused.
With Sholem Aleichem dead for three years, Schwartz bought the production rights from his widow. A condition imposed by her was that Isaac Dov Berkowitz, who was married to her daughter, work on the stage adaptation. Berkowitz, a highly regarded writer in his own right, had come to New York with Sholem Aleichem, remaining there until 1928, then settling in Palestine."
The play worked on by Berkowitz and Schwartz, opened to superb reviews in the Yiddish press on August 29th, and enchanted packed houses for sixteen straight weeks. Schwartz felt redeemed; his artistic yearnings justified. He’d survived the profound loss of the actor Jacob Ben-Ami, the idol of the intellectuals, and the other less-worshipped defectors ...
"Mrs. Sholem Aleichem was very happy. She’d been afraid that "Tevye," Sholem Aleichem’s favorite work, wouldn’t make a glorious impression. [When it did] she exclaimed, "Thank you so much. You’ve removed a stone from my heart, from my family’s hearts."
A press release for Schwartz's 1929 tour of "Tevye, the Dairyman," states thus:
"With a unity of purpose which has not allowed itself to be side-tracked from its original course in the eleven years of its existence, the Yiddish Art Theatre under the leadership of its founder and director, Maurice Schwartz, has achieved such a success with its production of Sholem Aleichem's "Tevye, the Dairyman," that this alone would have been worth the struggle for artistic existence. This group of players ... has steadfastly refused to waver in its original purpose, and this despite the continual attempts of commercial producers to head them into the more remunerative commercial channels.
But Mr. Schwartz has a nobler purpose before him than the mere holding of shekels. He founded his theatre eleven years ago with a little company of actors eager to play universal classics in the Yiddish language and has steadily been offering the public the world's finest plays in a repertory ... He is making not only a distinct contribution to the Yiddish drama, but is headed towards a revivification of the power of the stage ..."
There is no doubt that Maurice Schwartz was very creative and was untiring in his desire for a better Yiddish theatre. His work in this regard was exceptional, and he will be remembered for his great contribution to the quality of Yiddish theatre productions.
His performance in both the play, "Tevye, the Dairyman," and the film, "Tevye," places him in the pantheon of the Yiddish theatre.
Next we will delve into the glorious Broadway productions of "Fiddler on the Roof," which first starred the wonderful Zero Mostel, which first opened in 1964.
