By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – The narrowness of the stage at San Diego Musical Theatre obliged director Omri Schein to develop an imaginative set for the forthcoming Fiddler on the Roof production that will run Thursdays through Sundays, February 9 through March 10.
Instead of having sets that need to be moved on and off stage, various pieces of luggage and trunks will be schlepped around and configured on-stage into a roof for the Fiddler, a bed for Tevye’s scary dream, chairs and tables for the celebration of Tzeitel’s wedding to Motel, and, oh yes, suitcases for when the Jews are ordered to leave Anatevka.
Luggage, says Schein, are a metaphor for the Jewish experience. “The Jews throughout history always had to have a suitcase ready in case someone knocked at the door to tell them that they needed to move to the next place,” he said.
Actors will move the suitcases and trunks around the stage “rather than having anything coming from off-stage, so we are keeping the wings basically free and open, so the actors have space to enter and exit from,” Schein explained.
With a chuckle, Schein said “I’m almost calling the production ‘Fiddler on the Luggage.’
The luggage metaphor may extend to Schein’s own life. The son of an Israeli surgeon “Moshe” and a Swiss mother “Heidi,” he was born in Switzerland, grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Haifa, Israel, and lived during his teenage years in Milwaukee and New York City. From there, he went to college at SUNY Oneonta, came to San Diego State University for graduate school in musical theatre, returned to New York, and when he and his wife, Elizabeth, decided to raise a family, they moved back here to San Diego, his wife’s hometown.
In San Diego County, Schein also is peripatetic. He teaches theatre at Southwestern College in Chula Vista, and at Grossmont College in El Cajon. He frequently acts at the North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach, where he also wrote the musical The Remarkable Mr. Holmes with artistic director David Ellenstein. He has another musical, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, soon to open at the Lamb’s Theatre in Coronado. The San Diego Musical Theatre, where he previously directed Anything Goes, is located at 4650 Mercury Street is located in the Kearny Mesa neighborhood of San Diego,
While the set may look different than those of Fiddlers produced on large stages and in the movie, fans of the 60-year-old musical will get to enjoy all of their favorite songs, dances, and melodies including “Tradition,” “Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” “If I Were a Rich Man,” “Sabbath Prayer,” “To Life,” “Miracle of Miracles.” “Tevye’s Dream,” “Sunrise Sunset,” “The Bottle Dance,” “Now I Have Everything,” “Do You Love Me?” “Far From the Home I Love,” “Chaveleh,” and the concluding “Anatevka.”
Schein said nostalgic theatregoers are one part of the audience he must consider. There also are the first-timers, people who never have seen Fiddler on the Roof nor are very familiar with Jewish culture. He said that the cast is 50 percent Jewish, 50 percent non-Jewish, so the Jews in the cast can help the non-Jews develop a sense of Yiddishkeit.
A pogrom in far-away Russia may have seemed like something that happened far back in the past, until October 7th when Hamas terrorists conducted the largest pogrom against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, Schein said.
While nothing in the musical directly references Oct. 7th, the ever-growing affliction of antisemitism may be in the minds of many audience members, making the finale of Fiddler even more poignant, he told me in a telephone interview.
Among the cast members are Mathew Henerson (Tevye), Debra Wanger (Golde), Tamara Rodriguez (Tzeitel), Tori Hitchcock (Hodel), Ina Lelevier (Chava), Zane Camacho-Riddle (Motel), Kenny Bordieri (Perchik), Ian Black (Fyedka), D. Candis Paule (Yente), Bryan Curtiss White (Lasar Wolfe), Sasha Weiss (Grandma Tzeitel), and Sheira Stein (Fruma Sara).
Ticket information and seating charts of the 144-seat theatre may be viewed via this website.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via sdheritage@cox.net