"Fiddler on the Roof, Sri Lankan Version

 

 

I was amazed by seeing "Fiddler on the Roof," a musical drama at the Lionel Wendt last night. This stunning drama was directed by Jerome L. de Silva. This musical was based on the 1971 film "Fiddler on the Roof, directed by Norman Jewison. The film is based on Tevye, a Jewish milkman who was living in Imperial Russia a few years before the Bolshevik Revolution. Tevye is living with his wife and four daughters in a poor Jewish village that is subjected to social upheavals and pogroms. He is trapped between the old Jewish traditions and the emerging new world. However, he never forgets to keep his faith. The family lives in poverty and has a hand-to-mouth existence. Yet they are happy and cherish life.  Tevye and his fellow Jewish villages constantly face racial discrimination by their non-Jewish neighbors. Eventually, the Jewish village was subjected to forced eviction, and Tevye migrated to New York.  It is a powerful story about traditions, faith, and human suffering in an eternally changing world. Their story has certain relevance to Sri Lanka, which has experienced racial conflicts for a number of decades. The Sri Lankan version of   Fiddler on the Roof" is Choreographed by Joshua Fernandez, and the actors did a marvelous job bringing  "Fiddler on the Roof," to Colombo.

I give it two thumbs up. 

Fiddler on the Roof
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Fiddler on the roof
Playing his melody
It is sweet and stunning
I am mesmerized
When I close my eyes
The melody still reverberates
The fiddler’s tune
Makes me blissful
When I listen to the fiddler
I forget time and space

Ruwan M Jayatunge M.D PhD

Toronto

Canada