Good Or Shit: Fiddler On The Roof

She’s doing the Jewish bottle dance!

I got a text from a friend a few months ago. It was a photo of my Aunty-who-is-the-same-age-as-me, her back straight, her knees bent so that she was closer to the ground, a glass bottle balancing on her head. I recognised it instantly, it’s one of the gazillion things her and I have shared in the lifetime we’ve spent with each other.

These little reminders of our treasures often appear on my Facebook wall, or are sent to my phone; photographs of her television screen, on it, a reference to something from our childhood; Beaches, the 1962 version of Jack the Giant Killer, Anne of Green Gables, Midsomer Murders, the BBC’s Chronicles of Narnia.

Last week, on a cold, rainy Sunday, when I was supposed to be at a friend’s house having lunch, I was sitting on my couch doing some work with the TV on in the background, because why the hell shouldn’t I have the TV on when I’m sitting at home working on a Sunday?

Flipping through the channels, I came across the film with the Jewish bottle dance in it – 1971’s Fiddler on the Roof.

My finger hovered over the button on the remote control — should I?, shouldn’t I? — Oh, why the hell not.

It was already forty minutes in, so I had a good 140 left to go.

It must be around twenty years since I watched this musical about a Jewish peasant whose daughters severely test his ability to hold on to tradition – each one picking a husband less and less within the cultural conventions – while anti-Semitic sentiment in pre-revolutionary Russia rises.

I might not have been able to remember the specific format for the URL links I was creating that day, despite having to do them every day, but I still remembered the lyrics to Sunrise Sunset, Do You Love Me, Far From the Home I Love, and Anatevka. Even becoming mildly disappointed I’d missed Tradition, If I Were a Rich Man and Matchmaker, Matchmaker.

Elated is the only way to describe what I felt when the main character, Tevye, pretended to wake from a nightmare, telling his wife that her dead grandmother had come to him. It’s a ploy to convince the wife that they should let their daughter marry her childhood sweetheart, the poor tailor, and not the three-times-her-age rich butcher they’d arranged for her.

Tzeitel who you named for me, Motel’s bride was meant to be! A blessing on your head mazel tov, mazel tov. To see a daughter wed, mazel tov, mazel tov. And such a son-in-law, like no one ever saw, the tailor Motel Kamzoil.

I sang along with the TV, waving my hands in the air, the only other accompaniment – the sound of my housemate slamming his bedroom door.

“Oh, it’ a musical.” My friend groaned when I told him about it.

“What’s wrong with that? Why do you say it like that?”

“I don’t like them. Everyone’s talking and then all of a sudden they start singing. It’s weird.”

It’s not an uncommon response. People have an aversion to musicals. Musicals have a reputation for the being the least cool form of entertainment. Watching porn is cooler. I can tell people I love Gossip Girl and be judged for it less than I am when I quote The Sound of Music in conversation.

That is, unless we’re talking about Family Guy or South Park or The Lion King.

I have a friend who doesn’t like The Mighty Boosh specifically because there is “too much singing.” She doesn’t like Family Guy either. And yet, she was moved to tears by Frozen.

I remembered all of Fiddler’s tunes, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover an entirely new appreciation for the story, which is based on Sholem Aleichem’s 1894 fictional memoir, Tevye and his Daughters. As an adult, I found Fiddler not only moving, but sharp, funny, full of great characters.

And in its exploration of the vicissitudes of society and culture – the way things change, and the way they often don’t – I found it cutting and very sad.

That some of this story was portrayed through song and dance only heightened the emotion.

The bottle dance at Tzeital and Motel’s wedding has to be one of the best scenes in not just this film, but all films, ever. If you cannot appreciate this mystical, joyous display of music and dancing, you must be dead inside.

Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps people who don’t like musicals can’t handle the wanton display of emotion – so much straight out joy and tears. Wanting to be in control of their own feelings, they prefer the controlled tension of drama with its dialogue pregnant with hidden meaning and clever camera work. Musicals just feel a bit stupid. Or, as my friend said, “weird.”

But while drama can fray the nerves and leave you tense, singing along to a good musical can leave you feeling like you’re at the top of a mountain, looking out over the world – euphoric.

I guess Aunty and I don’t see musicals as weird because we are weird. We sing ourselves through some of life’s most joyous, unhappy, or mundane activities. Singing lines cracking lyrics like – I'IIII have to goooo, and do the dishesssssssss; and, Are youuuu driving me to work to-dayyy, to-dayyy, to-dayyy.

Just now I was standing over a frying pan singing Why oh why is it so hard to get beef sausages in England? Why do English people only eat porrrrkkkkk? I’m going to have to go to a halal butcher on Saturdayyyyy.

Anyway, I took a picture of Tevye singing to his dead Grandmother on my television screen and sent it to Aunty. The next day she sang back –

Sunrise, Sunset.