ERTAINME
Photos by Glenn Triest
ENTERTAINMENT
Liz Walters as
Golde and Sue
Carson as Tzeitel.
FIDDLER in
The Bloomfield Players are set to stage a 'tradition.'
STEVE HARTZ
Special to The Jewish News
I
Jac Cortes brings
a Spanish
background to
Tevye.
t's been quite a few
years since Steven
Victor last performed
on stage. As a matter
of fact, it's been half a
century.
The year was 1934 when, at
age 8, the young Detroiter
last heard the roar of the
crowd. He performed in
amateur contests.
Now, 57 years later, Mr. Vic-
tor, an attorney who resides
in Bloomfield Hills, will once
again smell the greasepaint.
This time, he'll be playing
the rabbi in his favorite
musical, Fiddler on the Roof,
which opens March 6 at An-
dover High School. The show
runs through March 15.
This will be the fifth
musical production for the
Bloomfield Players, which
formed three years ago. The
Players are headed by June
Hamilton, the executive pro-
ducer, who is also the director
of Bloomfield Hills recreation
and community services, an
advisory board made up of
Bloomfield Hills residents.
No stranger to Fiddler is
Keego Harbor resident Jac
Cortes, who will be playing
'Thvye for the fifth time in the
past 12 years. He's been per-
forming on stages all over
Detroit. He was last seen as
Tevye at the Jewish Corn-
munity Center three years
ago.
Mr. Cortes, a structural
engineer by day, grew up in
Mexico. Although he is not
Jewish, he doesn't feel in-
timidated portraying a
Jewish character with a sup-
porting cast of Jewish actors
on stage beside him.
"When I was about to per-
form the role of Tevye for the
first time, I made it a point to
read the book, Tevye, The
Dairyman, in order for me to
understand what a Jewish
person is like," Mr. Cortes
said. "I come from Spanish
parents. The traditions were
the same; the father was the
law.
"The man (Tevye) has all
his heart on his children," Mr.
Cortes explained. "Inside,
he's at peace. He works by
tradition; all of his life has
been built by the Jewish
tradition, the tradition of
1905. He's a lovable person
who tries to do everything for
his children.
"I understand his problems,
and that's why I like playing
Tevye," Mr. Cortes said. "The
nuances of the character be-
come better and better as I do
the show again and again."
Playing opposite Mr. Cortes
as Golde is Liz Walters of
Southfield. She, too, is repris-
ing the role.
"Golde is a liberated
woman in a time when
women were not supposed to
be liberated," Mrs. Walters
said. "She lets Thvye think
he's running the family, but
she really runs him." As far
as any similarities she shares
with her character, Mrs.
Walters admitted to one.
"I let my husband, Jerry,
think he's running every-
thing," she joked.
Making his theatrical
debut in the production is
Mark Bello, who plays Jessel,
the hatmaker.
"This is my first anything.
I was a shower singer before
I did this," said Mr. Bello, an
attorney. "It's a very in-
teresting, hard experience;
I'm having a lot of fun."
A senior at Andover,
18-year-old Lawrence Shy
looks forward to playing
Fyedka, the Russian who falls
in love with Thvye's daughter,
Chava.
Mr. Shy, fresh from his per-
formance as Moonface Martin
in Andover's production of
Anything Goes, also played
the evil Bill Sykes in Oliver
this past summer in New
York.
"Evil people, like Bill
Sykes, are hard roles for me
to play," Mr. Shy said. "But
this guy (Fyedka) is not as
evil as Sykes, so he's not as
tough to portray."
Fyedka's foil is Motel, the
tailor, played by Farmington
Hills resident Stuart Pinsky.
"I play a wimp," Mr. Pinsky
said. "I have to be pushed by
the eldest daughter, Tzeitel,
to confront 'Ibvye, her father."
What does tradition mean
to a 43-year-old like Mr. Pin-
sky? "Tradition is very impor-
tant to my family," Mr. Pin-
sky said. "My family has liv-
ed the role I play. I have
grandparents who came from
Europe. They used to tell us
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
67