1 Yet:' a song replete with references to plucking chickens and baking challah. Also scrapped were such songs as "A Butcher's Soul" and "Dear Sweet Sewing Machine:' "Do You Love Me?" Tevye's query of his skeptical wife, Golde, emerged in Detroit, while Robbins' inimitable Bottle Dance took shape in Washington, D.C. While their first Tevye, Zero Mostel, often sprinkled too much shtick over his performances, sometimes squeezing Tevye's wet rags over the orchestra pit or joking with an audience member in the front row, he was a comic genius. The show's first review in Detroit was dismis- sive of everything and everyone else, yet Mostel was praised as "extraordinary" and in New York, Newsweek's cover headline was "Hail the Conquering Zero." The day after Walter Kerr's lukewarm review, favorable word of mouth was offered by the rest of the critics. Ticket sales didn't flag, and on July 21, 1971, just months before the Fiddler film's premiere, the show became the longest- running musical on Broadway. Prince's office reported that Fiddler had already returned nearly $7 million on its original $375,000 capitalization. Six other per- formers had succeeded Mostel as Tevye on Broadway, and the show had played 32 countries, from Spain to Rhodesia. As Fiddler traveled the world, few countries embraced the show more than Japan. Its first performance there, in 1967, has been followed by hundreds more over the years. Playwright Stein said their first Japanese producer asked him if they understood the show in America. "When I responded, 'Why do you ask?' recalled Stein, "He said, Zero Mostel as Tevye in the 1964 Broadway production `Because it's so Japanese:" In much the same way that The Diary of Anne Frank is not just a Jewish story, neither is Fiddler on the Roof Fiddler's strong themes of tradition, repression, prejudice and diaspora continue to evoke common ground for audiences — wher- ever they are. The well-crafted book and memorable songs don't hurt, but they are augmented by a plot that has something for everyone, whether ifs the importance of family, friction between generations or the difficult choices that accompany emigration and assimilation. The universality and timelessness are captured in Norman Jewison's movie, which has also traveled the world since its 1971 release. Production designer Robert Boyle created 1905 Anatevka in the villages of Yugoslavia, and the large cast represented 10 nationalities. Cinematographer Oswald Morris shot through women's stockings to get the film's earthen colors and textures. While the film's star, Chaim Topol, says 1 billion people have seen the movie by now, Jewison had challenges making the film. First he worried that he wasn't Jewish — although his agent reminded him that he wasn't black yet made the Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night — and also anguished over casting. Convinced that Mostel was "too big" for the role onscreen, Jewison was besieged by phone calls from actors and agents; Walter Matthau, Danny Kaye and, says Jewison, Frank Sinatra expressed interest. But when he saw Topol play Tevye on a London stage, Jewison knew he had found his Tevye. "Chaim Topol breathed life into Tevye," he told the audience at a 2011 Fiddler screening in New York. For Frank Rich, former New York Times drama critic, the creators of Fiddler on the Roof similarly breathed new life into the American musical. Director-choreographer Robbins and producer Prince, working separately and together, "redefined the musical to dramatize such serious concerns as the street gangs of West Side Story, the semi-psychotic mother of Gypsy and the pogroms of Fiddler on the Roof' observes Rich. "Fiddler, coming last, ended the Broadway supremacy of escapist hit musicals like Funny Girl and Hello, Dolly!" Will it still move audiences in 50 more years? Actor Harvey Fierstein thinks so. "I've played the show in San Francisco, Fort Worth, Atlanta and Toronto ... and the reaction is the same. When I was on Broadway, I'd look out into the house and there would be Chasidic Jews and nuns or maybe a high-school cheerleader team in town, and they all sat with rapt attention. They all got it. The day the boys finished writing it and put it up on the stage, it was part of our cultur' * Open Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day! Now Serving Brunch! Sat & Sun 10am-2pin! 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