Mt. View staging ‘Fiddler on the Roof’

BY TOM FONTANA
Correspondent

The curtain will go up on the classic musical “Fiddler on the Roof” at Mt. View High School on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, March 7, 8 and 9, at 7 p.m.
Tickets are $5 for adults, and $3 for students.
Drama Club director Margaret McCarty said the show is one of the most challenging staged at the school in several years.
“The songs are some of the most popular and well-known ever written for a Broadway show,” McCarty said, “and some of the most difficult. Many are based on religious music of the Jewish tradition, so have some complicated harmonies. It is also a serious musical with deep meaning, unlike most Broadway musical comedies.”
The story is set in a small Jewish village in Russia at the end of the 19th Century, right before the Russian revolution, leading to the persecution of the Jews and forcing them to leave their homes. In the middle of these troubles, a Jewish father of daughters must deal with his children coming of age, their interest in marriage, and the need to go against the marriage traditions of their religion.

The father, Tevye, is played by junior Peter Maloney; Laura Moser portrays his wife Golda, and the daughters are played by Caroline Miller (Tzeitel), Haley Maloney (Hodel), Jolie Winemiller (Chava), Jen Yeo (Sprintze), Bryanna Visneski (Bielke). In the role of Motel the tailor is senior Lucas Jodan, Mark Fontana is Perchik, and Kyle Heide is Fyedka.
“The hardest part about playing Tevye,” Peter explained, “is learning about the character, who he is and how he feels about the world that’s changing around him. He talks to God out loud a lot, so those speeches help to tell me about how he feels and what he’s thinking.”
Unlike Tevye, the character of Motel the tailor is less complicated. “He’s awkward, quirky, poor, meek, has low self-esteem, and doesn’t think there’s anything special about himself,” according to Lucas. “He and Tevye’s oldest daughter fall in love, and to them it’s a very natural love. They just know how they feel about each other, and don’t question it.”
Near the end of the play, Tevye loses his third daughter to a non-Jewish, young Russian rebel, something Tevye cannot accept. “Chava becomes dead to the family,” states sophomore Jolie in the role. “It’s really sad. Her father won’t talk to her, and she leaves the family. When I play her, I think about what it would be like to lose my own family. When I cry on stage, they’re real tears from the thought of that feeling of loss.”

Other cast members are Ben Maitland, Alexa Suchnick, Jake Baranski, Ryan Martin, Jon Wiggins, Katie Tyson, Hannah Wassel, Lizie Miller, Doug Martin, Tim Hill, David Miller, Emily Miller, Kelsey Murphy, Denise Vonada, Courtney Russell, Genna Maloney, Bethany Klees, Alesha Kazmierski, Alie Pollack, and Emily Sipancik.