FIDDLER ON THE ROOF Tag

If Anatevka is like a fiddler balancing on a roof, then the show Fiddler on the Roof also performs an impressive balancing act between its cultural specificity and enduring appeal. Whether or not audiences can relate to the practice of arraigned marriages in Orthodox Ashkenazi Jewish communities, they can understand the tension between personal desire and the social expectations around marriage. The relatability of Tevye’s world—made of hay and cows but also the love of family and dreams of wealth—stems from its timelessness. As a show that premiered 78 years ago and takes place half a century before that, Fiddler on the Roof’s greatest feat is that time does not chip at its relevance.

Here are the answers to the study guide’s trivia questions. How many did you get right?

Before there was Fiddler on the Roof there was the collection of short stories by Sholom Aleichem called Tevye the Dairyman. These stories were highly popular which led their to being adapted into the musical we know and love today. That being said there are some significant differences between Fiddler on the Roof and Tevye the Dairyman that I came across while I was preparing research for the actors about the source text for this musical. One major difference that shocked me was that Aleichem wrote the character Yente, the matchmaker, as a man named Ephraim. I was quite surprised to find this as Yente has become such a well-known name in Yiddish English to mean a woman who is a bit of a gossip or a busy body. The use of this word doesn’t date back to Aleichem, as I expected, or even Fiddler. The origin of Yente’s meaning dates back to Yiddish Theatre in the 1920s and a series of comedic sketches that were written about a woman who was the town’s busybody (for more info about the origin of Yente check out this website).