Pittsburgh Arts, Regional Theatre, New Work, Producing, Copyright, Labor Unions,
New Products, Coping Skills, J-O-Bs...
Theatre industry news, University & School of Drama Announcements, plus occasional course support for
Carnegie Mellon School of Drama Faculty, Staff, Students, and Alumni.
CMU School of Drama
Thursday, July 11, 2019
Yiddish 'Fiddler On The Roof' Is A 'Dream Come True' For Lead Actor
NPR: A new, Yiddish language production of the musical is currently running off-Broadway. Steven Skybell, who plays Tevye, and Joel Grey, who directs the show, explain why the play still resonates.
1 comment:
Anonymous
said...
There are so many different aspects to this that I find interesting. Firstly, I think it’s fascinating that this story is being translated and performed in Yiddish. And jumping off of that, I think it’s really interesting how a story is translated from one language to another. One thing that stuck out to me from this article was how “If I Were a Rich Man” was changed to “Ven Ikh Bin A Rotshild” or “If I Were A Rothschild.” I found that change really interesting, because, not only does it allow the song to keep the same rhythm, but it also uses a phrase that wouldn’t make sense in English. It transforms this version from just a pure translation to a performance that Yiddish speakers can really connect to. Gross mentioned that “it’s a story about Jewish people, but so many Americans who are immigrants come from their version of that story,” and I think translating the story to Yiddish helps reinforce how many Jewish immigrants from that time came from a similar history; I know that there are certainly similar stories in my family history. Earlier this year in my history class, I did a research paper on American Jewish immigrants in the early 1900s and I learned that Yiddish theater was a very central and important part of Jewish immigration, and it seems very full-circle to perform a story that many people can relate to in a way that used to be so important to the same people depicted.
1 comment:
There are so many different aspects to this that I find interesting. Firstly, I think it’s fascinating that this story is being translated and performed in Yiddish. And jumping off of that, I think it’s really interesting how a story is translated from one language to another. One thing that stuck out to me from this article was how “If I Were a Rich Man” was changed to “Ven Ikh Bin A Rotshild” or “If I Were A Rothschild.” I found that change really interesting, because, not only does it allow the song to keep the same rhythm, but it also uses a phrase that wouldn’t make sense in English. It transforms this version from just a pure translation to a performance that Yiddish speakers can really connect to. Gross mentioned that “it’s a story about Jewish people, but so many Americans who are immigrants come from their version of that story,” and I think translating the story to Yiddish helps reinforce how many Jewish immigrants from that time came from a similar history; I know that there are certainly similar stories in my family history. Earlier this year in my history class, I did a research paper on American Jewish immigrants in the early 1900s and I learned that Yiddish theater was a very central and important part of Jewish immigration, and it seems very full-circle to perform a story that many people can relate to in a way that used to be so important to the same people depicted.
Post a Comment