After Anatevka - Review

****

Written by Alexandra Silber

Alexandra Silber’s first novel After Anatevka is a carefully crafted study into love and life in Russia in the early twentieth century. Much like Marc Chagall was to paint enchanted images of that era, so too do Silber's words offer a painstaking picture of a world long since disappeared. 

Not just a writer, Silber is amongst the finest musical theatre performers of her generation and on both sides of the Atlantic too. The novel however marks her own remarkable and professional journey which in this instance, and unconventionally, has gone from “stage" to "page”. Read on... 

Every now and then an actress can come along who leaves an indelible impression upon a role. Think here perhaps of Imelda Staunton's Momma Rose or Glenn Close’s sensational take on Norma Desmond. Far more intriguing however, is when the role turns out to have left its own indelible handprint on the heart of its performer. 

So it was in 2006, when Lindsay Posner chose Silber to play Hodel in what was to be his acclaimed production of Fiddler On The Roof at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre. With Henry Goodman as Tevye the show was a sensation, becoming  swiftly earmarked for a West End transfer, playing at London’s Savoy for nearly two years.

Hodel of course is the second eldest of Tevye and Golde's daughters. When Perchik, the Jewish revolutionary firebrand blazes his way into the shtetl of Anatevka to steal her heart, what emerges is an onstage love story that is as sweet and inspirational as it is heartbreaking. It was 1894 when Sholom Aleichem breathed life into his fictional characters in his series of short shtetl-based yarns, collectively called Tevye The Dairyman. Some 70 years Joseph Stein was to draw on that creation in writing the book for Fiddler (a work that was only to be enhanced by Sheldon Harnick's Tony-winning lyrics). It has taken a further half-century for Silber to add a further thread into Aleichem, Stein and Harnick's golden literary tapestry.

One of the most poignant scenes in musical theatre's canon takes place on the platform of Anatevka's railway station. Some time earlier Perchik, branded as a political criminal by the tsarist regime, had been banished thousands of miles away to Siberia. His brief stay in the shtetl however had been long enough to win Hodel's committed and passionate love.  

Hodel realises that she must follow her heart to Siberia, and as the train approaches in the distance, she promises her father that she and Perchik will, one day, be married under a traditional Jewish canopy. Amidst the combined whirlwinds of political revolution, the impending destruction of Anatevka and the dispersal of its inhabitants across the globe, both father and daughter know that they are unlikely to meet again. When Hodel says to Tevye "God alone knows when we shall see each other again", the audience's hearts are broken. 

This scene is a manifestation of love at its most raw and pure. The exchange is carefully crafted prose which in the hands of skilled actors (and this scene has rarely come finer than with Silber and Goodman) can be a performance masterclass. Silber and Goodman did indeed break our hearts - but few (if any) in the audiences will have been aware of Silber's own tragedy that she brought to the role. Barely 23 years old at the time, she had borne the pain of losing her own and much loved father to cancer not long before taking on the role. The impassioned, blazing soul that fuelled Silber's performance was unforgettable.

And so, from the novel's background, to the tale of After Anatevka itself. It is a meticulously detailed story that paints a strangely recognisable picture of Russia’s imposing and corrupt hierarchy and the hardships wreaked upon those who offended the State. There are nosings of both Dostoevsky and Pasternak in Silber's work and she paints a picture of violence and violation as the backdrop to Hodel's remarkable quest to reach her betrothed and the life that they were to build amongst the salt mines of the East.

Silber's research has been thorough. Aside from studying archives of the vanished Jewish world of the Pale of Settlement she visited Siberia to understand for herself the detail and character of the region.

And yet, as well as the projecting the characters into their imagined futures, Silber also offers some charmingly imagined back-stories from the world of Anatevka that can only have come from a woman who has well and truly got under the skin of Tevye's daughters. For not only did Silber play Hodel in the UK, but two years ago in New York, when producers were searching for a Tzeitel for Bartlett Sher's (also acclaimed) revival of Fiddler, it was Sheldon Harnick himself who was to call Silber and ask her to re-visit his show, this time playing Tevye’s oldest daughter. Silber of course was again magnificent on stage and as an aside, the bond between Harnick and Silber is clear for the gifted lyricist has penned a sage and heartfelt foreword to the book.

Silber explores how the sisters grew up together. She offers Hodel's wistful perceptions on her older sister's strengths and capabilities, describing their shared childhood and how much their mother imbued in them the strengths and spiritual importance of 'tradition". The paragraphs in which Hodel recalls Golde instructing the girls in how to bake challah (the Jewish plaited loaf eaten on Sabbath) are but one example of the delightful detail with which Silber fleshes out her world.

There's also a fascinating back story to Perchik. Who would have guessed that this inspirationally handsome communist had started life as an accountant? Though while Perchik is surely no Leo Bloom, Silber breathes a fascinating life into his own troubled past  

After Anatevka is an impressive published debut. Alexandra Silber offers a profoundly perceptive yet quintessentially female take on a world in which tradition was both revered and challenged. Silber also gives us a stunning study into the power of love.

After Anatevka is published on 4th July 2017 and will be available from all good online book distributors

Fiddler on the Roof - Review

Broadway Theatre, New York

*****

Book by Joseph Stein

Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick

Music by Jerry Bock

Based on the Sholom Aleichem stories

Directed by Bartlett Sher

Alexandra Silber and Adam Kantor

Bartlett Sher’s interpretation of Fiddler on the Roof casts fresh eyes over one of the most beloved shows in the canon. Sheldon Harnick's lyrics remain as written, but much of the dance has been deliciously expanded, transforming a 20th century classic, about 19th century Russia, into a 21st century masterpiece.

Memorable Fiddlers have always been about the Tevye - and on this review visit, the much lauded Danny Burstein was replaced by understudy Adam Grupper. To be fair, as the evening played out, Grupper grew wonderfully into the role with the classic narrative losing nothing through the re-shuffle, for in this Fiddler, above all, it is the sum of its parts that define its magnificence.

Jessica Hecht's Golde is as wise and all-knowing as Harnick and Stein intended. Torn between her maternal love for her kids and her spiritual commitment to her faith, the pain as these two worlds collide with daughter Chava's marriage to the gentile Fyedka, she breaks our hearts, struggling with her dilemma. Whilst Sholom Aleichem’s characters may all have been larger than life, Hecht keeps her Golde inspirationally grounded – and beautifully voiced!

Perhaps the most enchanting dynamic on stage is the love that blossoms between Alexandra Silber's Tzeitel (Tevye and Golde's eldest child) and Adam Kantor's Motel the tailor. Silber is no stranger to the show having been a delightful Hodel in London's West End 8 years ago. Here however, and in a role that convinces as a teenager, she brings a well-crafted interpretation to the complex nuances of the young woman she portrays. Her terror at the thought of marriage to the much older Lazar Wolf is palpable, whilst her love for Motel is as believable as is heartwarming. And, of course, Silber possess one of the finest musical theatre presences of her generation, bringing a piquancy to Matchmaker that explores new depths within the famed lyrics.

Likewise, Kantor's Motel is a delight. I last reviewed the actor in his recording of Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years and it is clear that he is as comfortable in portraying a young Jewish man's angst irrespective of the century his character is placed in. His take on Motel, the charming nebbish who grows a spine, makes us love and laugh with, the tailor – with his take on Miracle Of Miracles proving a delight.

To be fair, Samantha Massell's Hodel alongside Melanie Moore's Chava both offer an enchanting and revived look as the elder of Tzeitel's four siblings - and in a nod to another understudy, George Psomas' Perchik was a class act too. 

Bartlett Sher's direction is at once sensitive and inspirational. The opening scene sees "Tevye", anorak clad in the modern day, arriving at Anatevka station, guidebook in hand. As he reads his guidebook aloud, it is clear that this Fiddler is not just celebrating the Jews of Tsarist Russia, it is also memorialising the Jewish communities of Europe, so throughly eradicated by Hitler some 40 years later and with a gruesome efficiency that the Tsar could only have dreamed of. Sher's use of the Fiddler too - weaving throughout so much of the action only enhances the music's roots. The final expulsion from Anatevka - the characters silhouetted only in relief, is as tragic as it is brilliantly simple.

It's the little touches too - as the Jews of Anatevka are dispersed we see Lazar Wolf (in a wonderful turn from Adam Dannheisser), unnoticed and seeking no thanks, slip a wad of cash into the impoverished Tevye's luggage.

Michael Yeargan’s set design is ingenious, combining simplicity with world class stage technology. In a show that memorialises the destruction of European Jewry as much as telling the fabled tales from the shtetl, characters don’t just come on from the wings they emerge, walking up steps from an upstage pit, enhancing the setting's spirituality. Some of the scenery is wooden cottages that the characters inhabit, whilst other constructions are smaller homes that hover, ghost like, above the action, suggesting the style of the Marc Chagall pictures that so famously inspired Bock, Harnick and the show's original director Hal Prince, back when Fiddler was evolving in the 1960's.

Hofesh Shechter’s choreography is visionary. His routines respect Jerome Robbin's original themes, but with more music to play with, there is even more of Bock's fabulous fusion of klezmer and cantorial to set the movement to. The big numbers of Tradition and Tevye's Dream are re-imagined here in an explosion of dance that brings this forgotten world of orthodox Judaism bang up to date. And where The Wedding is usually remembered for its breathtaking bottle dancing, Schechter doesn't disappoint - but rather expands the celebration into a joyous explosion of dance that sees the gender barriers taken down with wit and subtlety. 

There is also something re-assuringly "authentic" in seeing the show in New York, and with a significantly Jewish cast. Whilst theatre does not need to be confined to racial or gender constraints, remember that this show was originally written by the descendants of European immigrants, for an American audience. Listen carefully to the self-deprecating Jewish humour that Harnick delicately sprinkles over his lyrics and there's echoes of Frank Loesser and Damon Runyon, along with an ironic seam that continues to this day in the work of Mel Brooks and others. 

Fiddler on the Roof works beautifully on Broadway. As its timeless message demands to be unforgettable, so is this show unmissable.

Booking until 31st December