With only a 48 hour turnaround from closing night into my New Delhi departure, I had no time to look back on the run of Fiddler on the Roof and what had happened in the past year and a half of unexpected successes.
I came back from Mumbai on January 26 in time to make it to a Holocaust Remembrance event with the old cast members of Fiddler, and after 3 weeks away from one another it was a breath of fresh air and a delightful reunion.
We sang selections from th show in one of the largest Synagogues in the world, Temple Emanu-El, beside Itzhak Perlman.
Our klezmer orchestra pounded out the downbeats again to the opening of Tradition and it all came rushing back. From my perspective, the music sounded better than before, since we didn't really get the full effect of the sound design during the show on stage.
People always ask about what it's like to perform the same show 8 times a week for months on end. It was no easy task trying to stay engaged during each show. Your body soon starts to perform without you consciously thinking about it. Your mind can wander and you come back to consciousness your inner monologue screams, "Oh my god! Did I just sing the right lyrics? Did my body do the choreography?!"
Fortunately, this is one show that I didn't have to convince myself was worthwhile. The story and the score are one of the best written in theater and the material was still relevant. It was also a thrill getting to perform in New York City in my first principal acting role AND dance soloist roles by Jerome Robbins' himself, all of which we immortalized on our original Yiddish cast album.
I always say that performing a show in a foreign language was always a goal of mine, but I didn't know how to do it. What are the odds that I ended up doing it in New York City off-Broadway???
I'll miss the music and cast parties, awards and notoriety, guest appearances and extension announcements. This show was a career highlight and offered numerous other highlights along the way.
We started our closing performance like any other, except the emotions would end up being unstoppable. As we waited in the wings for the opening monologue, our Tevye entered as always, except this time to endless applause.
"A fiddler on the roof, crazy, no?" Tevye began, prompting Yente to burst into tears in my left hand ready to march on. "Bad timing!" she joked. But we were all struggling to maintain our composure.
Performing that show was one of the hardest times of my life, trying to sing my favorite Yiddish scores while choked up holding back the tears, basically having to SCREAM just to get the words out.
We performed our last 3 hours. The wings of the stage were a revolving door for the the cast to file through, watching the final moments of Fiddler with the stage lights highlighting their tear-soaked cheeks. A sight that's impossible to avoid as you're doing your show on stage.
I'm left now only with the international legacy of the show and 30 plus new colleagues and friends.
Just like Hal Prince, the producer who 'fathered' the original production of Fiddler on the Roof, he believed in meeting about a new project after every opening night; whether the show was a success or a flop, he was already moving on to the next thing, because as we say, "every show must close."
The best thing for me after our emotional closing night was getting approved for my e-visa and travelling across the globe to check another longtime goal off my list, an adventure in India, the farthest I've traveled to date. I didn't have time to wallow and mourn. My final moments before take-off were consumed with survival preparation measures in a developing country.
The door to "Yiddish Fiddler" was swiftly and cleanly shut and I wasn't looking back. I was ready to look forward into the endless horizon of the Thar desert and what lies ahead!
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