MC Joel Grey: Master of Anatevka

On the surface, it may not seem obvious why the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene would ask Joel Grey, yes the original Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret, to be the director of their Yiddish Production of Fiddler on the Roof. But if you dig just a little deeper, past his Oscar- and Tony-winning performances, you will find layers of Yiddishkeit. 

Joel Grey recently joined Elliott Forrest in studio to talk about his career, his Yiddish-loving father Mickey Katz, his new production of Fiddler, and the significance of Yiddish in America today. 

You can see the production at the Museum of Jewish Heritage downtown through December 30th. After a January hiatus, the production moves to an Off-Broadway stage in midtown.

The following transcript has been edited.

[music]

Elliott  Forrest: I'm Elliott Forrest from WQXR, WNYC, and American Standards. Joining me today is award- winning actor, author, photographer, and director Joel Gray. Great to see you again.

Joel Grey: Wow. That's a mouthful.

Elliott: You've done a lot of things.

Joel: I think so.

Elliott: Let's talk about this beautiful, new production of Fiddler on the Roof (in Yiddish) at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in lower Manhattan. I loved it.

We laughed we cried I laughed at jokes that I've heard for 50 years.

Joel: How great.

Elliott: What do you make of the success of this?

Joel: I think we're in very difficult times. And I think people are responding. I don't know but I think that the essence of people being kicked out of their homes, immigrants not being admitted. And people are responding to the fact that Yiddish is real. It's authentic. And the fact that we're hearing it without any judgment particularly but we're hearing it tell a story that we all know so well. So many non-Jews are coming to the show and responding exactly the same. A lot of actors who are you know they're a tough audience there. They're getting it.

Elliott: Anatevka is a made-up town, but the prototypical shtetl that Jews would have come to the United States from. I imagine that if Anatevka had put on a production: this is what it would look like. This is what it would sound like. This is how those people spoke. I think that's part of the authenticity.

Joel: I also think that the audience is in on the fact that half of the cast is not Jewish. They learned Yiddish for this. And we had about 2000 people apply to audition.

Elliott: That's amazing that people wanted to jump into that kind of challenge.

Joel: I know. And they were passionate actors and dancers and singers who really responded.

Elliott: So explain the process because if I understand it right, and many of us who've seen, you know, five or six productions and many shows of those five or six productions of Fiddler on the Roof and heard the album over and over and over and over and over again. But, that original (both the lyrics and the book) were translated into Yiddish, and then the Yiddish was actually translated into English for the subtitles. So it's not 100 percent what you know.There is enough to keep you on your toes.

Joel: I think that's true. And it's also keeping you on your toes because it's somebody's idea of what it is. Maybe it wasn't yours. I also think that somehow the fact that it is blatant and open and above-board and loving, the Yiddish stands for almost any other thing that somebody might be. I had friends who came who were Jewish and had no feeling about being Jewish, and all of a sudden something touched a nerve.

Elliott: I don't know how it can't. It's not only a universal story, of course. I think Sheldon Harnick has told the story a million times that it's done in Japan and they have. And the Japanese don't understand why we get it.

Joel: Right, we're taking it away from them, right.  I know I love that.

Elliott: It's certainly universal but the specificness of it: and and the progression of the three daughters and the wearing away of tradition I think for a lot of us makes us feel guilty to a certain extent for our own traditions, maybe that we've let them .

Joel: And for going along with it. Going along with the loss.

Elliott: Right. You've worked with some great directors: Harold Prince, Anthony Newley, Walter Bobby. Did you bring those directors into this project for you as the director of the show?

Joel: I think you always do. I mean one is made up of one's experiences and if they're powerful they become part of you. But I never thought consciously, what would Harold do what would Robert do. Well what would blahblahblah. I didn't. First of all it was so short: the rehearsal time, and nobody knew how to tell this story what it was that we should be doing. I enlisted some friends from Broadway: Ann Hould-Ward, the great costume designer and Beowulf Boritt and Peter Kozlowski and we just said, how should we tell the story. And it was almost like let's be a company of actors who want to tell this particular tale. And how do we do it simply, because there was not there was not a big budget, but that was our strength.

Elliott: Yeah. I don't want to, as they say, give away too much but this is the first moment when you have a table. And a chair.

And two chairs on the table and the fiddler comes in and steps on the chair and the table and the chairs: you're on the roof.

I don't need a roof: here on the roof. I'm with you 100 percent. Again it was almost as if you know the song that comes later with Anatevka, a pot, a hat. It was as minimal as Anatevka.

Joel: I loved that.

Elliott: And I think that's part of the beauty of the play. [music].

I was wondering about all of the possible Yiddish coaches that it probably took to get half-Jewish half not-Jewish cast to learn this entire Yiddish.

Joel: And Zalmen Mlotek who is the head of the Folksbiene for years. He's a killer in terms of it being right. He is a very passionate Orthodox artist. There was no fooling around with him and he had an associate: Motl Didner and my brother who lives in California says how are Motl and Zalmen. You know it's not Hal Prince and it was really, he use to love to call me and ask me how they were but they were very passionate and they are passionate.

Elliott: But for those who don't know: there was a lot of Yiddish in your home. Your father was very well-known for these Yiddish parodies.

Joel: But Yiddish was not spoken ever in my house. My mother didn't speak any of it, didn't want any part of it. She wanted to be a movie star and my father had Yiddishkeit from his parents who came from Latvia and he loved Yiddish and he loved the sound of it, the music, and that really really transferred deeply to my brother and myself and I never learned to speak Yiddish. Never.

Elliott: But you knew, I mean I've heard you sing many of the songs.

Joel: Well that's singing. That's not speaking.

Elliott: That's not conversing.

[music]

Elliott: Your father was Mickey Katz and he had a huge career with these Yiddish parodies.

For those who don't know and there would be half English and half Yiddish.

Joel: Right. [singing] Herring boats are coming with bagels and lox. Herring boats are coming [continuing in Yiddish]. You got to hurry up, you got to leave Herring's kosher [continuing in Yiddish]. Herring boats are coming.[continuing in Yiddish].

Elliott: From Home on the Range in Yiddish. So I'm guessing sitting...

Joel: It was his way of, seriously, I think assimilating and and carrying his parents background and history and making it part of his being an American. And sharing some of that because he took hit songs, hit parade songs and Yiddish-ized them. And I always thought that it was about: we're all in this together.

Elliott: I remember the first time I heard one of your dad's albums, thinking this language that I had heard with my grandparents and and to a certain extent less with my own parents, it was the first time I heard that it could be funny. That there was comedy connected to it.

Joel: Not tragedy.

Elliott: Right. Right. Unlike everything else related to one's family that seems to be a direct tragedy. Right.

That there was comedy in all of this.

Joel: And we were all living amidst serious antisemitism then. Felt it, knew it, and this was a place where we could have some fun and be proud. And I think that some of those elements were involved in my saying yes overnight: the fact that I couldn't speak it. I knew I wanted to do it.

Elliott: Fiddler on the Roof. That you are bringing that tradition back in a way almost full circle. And there's such a music to the language that you have, whether you sung it or not spent a lot of time speaking it that you must really hear as a director and know when it's right on stage.

Joel: Absolutely and I know when the English is right too. And that's how we rehearsed it.

Elliott: In both languages?

Joel: Yes.

Elliott: Very interesting.

Joel: Had to do it in English first, especially with the actors who didn't understand Yiddish. They had to know it to feel it to tell the story. They had to understand what they were saying. So I took a lot of time before we got to the Yiddish.

Elliott: This cast is amazing. Talk about Stephen's Skybell to start with. He's unbelievably painful in this role.

Joel: It's a star performance. He deserves everything that he's going to get. It's just beginning for him.

[music in Yiddish]. 

Elliott: As you watch your Fiddler On The Roof in Yiddish, even as a Jewish person, you see all the traditions carried out whether it's spitting, praying, breaking of the glass it's like I'm not sure I would have gotten half of that right.

I mean you know I broke a glass on my own wedding, but other than that I'm not sure how you hold your hand. Like was there was there a specialist involved to get all those things right?

Joel: Well we were very lucky to have Stas Kmiec, who was in Fiddler years ago as a dancer, and he was one of the bottle dancers and he restaged it many many many years over these past 50 years. Over the past 10, 15 years I think he staged full productions of Fiddler and he's so talented, and then we've got these great dancers: great.

[music in Yiddish]

Elliott: I'm just curious about your own connection to a song like Sunrise, Sunset. I know the song took on a new meaning once I started to have children. Does a song like that change over years for you?

Joel: It kills me, it kills me in my... My father played it on the clarinet and recorded it. It's it's beautiful. And it meant so much to him and therefore me too.

Elliott: When I first moved here and this is 30 or 40 years ago my grandfather who came here from eastern through Ellis Island. I'm sure our family tree is similar in that way, but going to some of the Yiddish theater on the Lower East Side and knowing that it never felt like it would ever be something that would be popular entertainment.

Joel: Or that would have respect. You know, Yiddish was held in disrespect for a long time. And I don't know what this means that it's popular, that it's rich and that it's it's being looked upon as something valid.

Elliott: You hit upon something very early on that frankly I hadn't even thought of: that the immigrant story is so much in the news these days. And this is a story of people who are by the end spoiler alert coming to America to find a better life.

Joel: Right. And it was coming to America that was so welcoming. That it's so different now. I'm ashamed. [music]

Elliott: What do you think your parents would say if they came to this production of Fiddler on the Roof?

Joel: I think they'd be so happy. I think they could sleep quietly. [music]

Elliott: Joel Grey always good to spend time with you. Thank you so much.

Joel Grey: So great to be here. [music]