How can I hope to make you understand
Why I do what I do,
Why I must travel to a distant land,
Far from the home I love.
Once I was happily content to be
As I was, where I was,
Close to the people who are close to me,
Here in the home I love.
Who could see that a man could come
Who would change the shape of my dreams.
Helpless now I stand with him,
Watching older dreams grow dim.
Oh, what a melancholy choice this is,
Wanting home, wanting him,
Closing my heart to ev'ry hope but his,
Leaving the home I love,
There where my heart has settled long ago
I must go, I must go, I must go,
Who could imagine I'd be wand'ring so
Far from the home I love
Yet there with my love, I'm home.
Let's take a minute and recall the perfection of "Far from the Home I Love," the high-point in a basically perfect musical. Hodel is leaving her family for a man with unsettling politics/personality traits; this is the story of "Romeo and Juliet," "In the Heights," "The Little Mermaid," "The Light in the Piazza," "Once on This Island." (I'm sure we've all bought our tickets to the Broadway revival of "Island," which will put Lea Salonga in a juicy role for the first time in years. "Ti Moune" has to be anyone's favorite moment in that show: "What I am, you made me. What you gave, I owe. But, if I look back, I'll never go." "Ti Moune" is very clearly a modern re-write of "Far from the Home I Love.") Anyway, in such a lovely, effortless way, "Home I Love" gives us a memorable Divided Self. It's a journey song. The Ordinary World is like a womb; it's where I'm "close to the people who are close to me, here in the home I love." (The line plays with two meanings of "close": I'm physically close to the people who are emotionally close to me, or vice versa.) A stranger comes to town; he "changes the shape of my dreams." And then these beautiful lines: "Helpless now I stand with him, watching older dreams grow dim." Maybe not the most progressive sentiment. I love the crispness: WATCHing OLder DREAMS grow DIM. I like the dreams/dim alliteration. I like the making-literal of the Divided Self: Hodel is both a woman relinquishing old dreams AND a woman watching in horror as some strange interloper Self relinquishes old dreams. So smart!
Hodel goes on to provide other images for her condition. She wants home; she wants him. (The alliteration makes us recall the dream/dim moment from a few seconds earlier. Long vowel, short vowel.) The act of renouncing Anatevka is an almost physical thing; Hodel is forcibly "closing" her own heart. (We imagine dreams like suitors at various doors, and Hodel is slamming one door after the other.) But: let's move on. Let's be real, Tevye: My heart made its choice long ago. My heart is already settled in Perchik's new land, though my body is not. Then Bock and Harnick do something Sondheim would approve of. They find a neat grammar-centric way of wrapping up the song. As Hodel crosses the threshold toward her new life, the words of the song do something new. Form follows content; the newness of Hodel's life is echoed in the newness of the last line. For the first time in the song, "home" and "love" are inverted: "There with my love, I'm home." Home is no longer Anatevka; it's the place where my love lives. A definition has shifted; a pairing of words has reversed itself; Hodel has announced a change. Such an economical and satisfying way to bring an end to the story. You might get goosebumps. ("Far from the home I love"--"home" is a noun, "love" is a verb. "There with my love, I'm home"--"love" is now the noun, "home" is an adverb.)
OK--do you want some "Fiddler" trivia? Of course you do. Zero Mostel almost didn't take the role. He viewed it as his birthright, then dragged the producers around for several months. (I think he did this just be an ass.) Mostel was the opposite of Robbins; Mostel was vulgar, rude, coarse, living out loud; Robbins was a waspish, prissy, repressed mess. (Neither was a spiritually attractive human being.) Robbins approached Austin Pendleton one day and said, "I'm NOT going to have you play Perchik; I'll have you play Motel. He's this loser who just keeps trying. He's such a loser! He IS you!" (Who would say these words to another human? And yet Robbins didn't bat an eye.) Sam Waterston was considered (for Tevye?); some dude from "Fiorello!" was, as well. Mostel had no respect for Robbins because of the HUAC business, but the two could *work* together. ("You never said I had to have lunch with him.") Jackie Kennedy--fan of "Camelot," "don't let it be forgot that once there was a spot"--saw "Fiddler" one year after JFK's death and loved it. The casting directors found odd ways to mention, indirectly, when a character was meant to have some stereotypically "Jewish" attributes or behaviors. Robbins was hesitant to cast Jewish actors in some roles; for Yente, oddly enough, he was interested in a non-Jewish performer. Any actor who came in doing broad East Village Yiddish Theater stuff was turned away. Robbins wanted a sense of religious zeal to grow out of the character; he didn't want a big stereotype that would water down any idiosyncrasies in the writing. Do you know who worked on this show? Harold Prince. He worked on all shows throughout history. My partner is now telling me I need to see "Prince of Broadway," despite the reviews. Time will tell. I strongly recommend "Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of FIDDER," which is catnip and which is also unusually well-written. I saw "Fiddler" over and over throughout childhood, and once auditioned to play Lazar Wolf (oddly). The material--the idea of shifting family dynamics, judgments, bristling against tradition--resonates with me, of course, as it resonates with everyone. I think I didn't notice how brilliant Bock & Harnick were--in my youth--because their songs are sort of quietly elegant. There are few pyrotechnics. How nice it is to make discoveries--even in your wizened old age.
Why I do what I do,
Why I must travel to a distant land,
Far from the home I love.
Once I was happily content to be
As I was, where I was,
Close to the people who are close to me,
Here in the home I love.
Who could see that a man could come
Who would change the shape of my dreams.
Helpless now I stand with him,
Watching older dreams grow dim.
Oh, what a melancholy choice this is,
Wanting home, wanting him,
Closing my heart to ev'ry hope but his,
Leaving the home I love,
There where my heart has settled long ago
I must go, I must go, I must go,
Who could imagine I'd be wand'ring so
Far from the home I love
Yet there with my love, I'm home.
Let's take a minute and recall the perfection of "Far from the Home I Love," the high-point in a basically perfect musical. Hodel is leaving her family for a man with unsettling politics/personality traits; this is the story of "Romeo and Juliet," "In the Heights," "The Little Mermaid," "The Light in the Piazza," "Once on This Island." (I'm sure we've all bought our tickets to the Broadway revival of "Island," which will put Lea Salonga in a juicy role for the first time in years. "Ti Moune" has to be anyone's favorite moment in that show: "What I am, you made me. What you gave, I owe. But, if I look back, I'll never go." "Ti Moune" is very clearly a modern re-write of "Far from the Home I Love.") Anyway, in such a lovely, effortless way, "Home I Love" gives us a memorable Divided Self. It's a journey song. The Ordinary World is like a womb; it's where I'm "close to the people who are close to me, here in the home I love." (The line plays with two meanings of "close": I'm physically close to the people who are emotionally close to me, or vice versa.) A stranger comes to town; he "changes the shape of my dreams." And then these beautiful lines: "Helpless now I stand with him, watching older dreams grow dim." Maybe not the most progressive sentiment. I love the crispness: WATCHing OLder DREAMS grow DIM. I like the dreams/dim alliteration. I like the making-literal of the Divided Self: Hodel is both a woman relinquishing old dreams AND a woman watching in horror as some strange interloper Self relinquishes old dreams. So smart!
Hodel goes on to provide other images for her condition. She wants home; she wants him. (The alliteration makes us recall the dream/dim moment from a few seconds earlier. Long vowel, short vowel.) The act of renouncing Anatevka is an almost physical thing; Hodel is forcibly "closing" her own heart. (We imagine dreams like suitors at various doors, and Hodel is slamming one door after the other.) But: let's move on. Let's be real, Tevye: My heart made its choice long ago. My heart is already settled in Perchik's new land, though my body is not. Then Bock and Harnick do something Sondheim would approve of. They find a neat grammar-centric way of wrapping up the song. As Hodel crosses the threshold toward her new life, the words of the song do something new. Form follows content; the newness of Hodel's life is echoed in the newness of the last line. For the first time in the song, "home" and "love" are inverted: "There with my love, I'm home." Home is no longer Anatevka; it's the place where my love lives. A definition has shifted; a pairing of words has reversed itself; Hodel has announced a change. Such an economical and satisfying way to bring an end to the story. You might get goosebumps. ("Far from the home I love"--"home" is a noun, "love" is a verb. "There with my love, I'm home"--"love" is now the noun, "home" is an adverb.)
OK--do you want some "Fiddler" trivia? Of course you do. Zero Mostel almost didn't take the role. He viewed it as his birthright, then dragged the producers around for several months. (I think he did this just be an ass.) Mostel was the opposite of Robbins; Mostel was vulgar, rude, coarse, living out loud; Robbins was a waspish, prissy, repressed mess. (Neither was a spiritually attractive human being.) Robbins approached Austin Pendleton one day and said, "I'm NOT going to have you play Perchik; I'll have you play Motel. He's this loser who just keeps trying. He's such a loser! He IS you!" (Who would say these words to another human? And yet Robbins didn't bat an eye.) Sam Waterston was considered (for Tevye?); some dude from "Fiorello!" was, as well. Mostel had no respect for Robbins because of the HUAC business, but the two could *work* together. ("You never said I had to have lunch with him.") Jackie Kennedy--fan of "Camelot," "don't let it be forgot that once there was a spot"--saw "Fiddler" one year after JFK's death and loved it. The casting directors found odd ways to mention, indirectly, when a character was meant to have some stereotypically "Jewish" attributes or behaviors. Robbins was hesitant to cast Jewish actors in some roles; for Yente, oddly enough, he was interested in a non-Jewish performer. Any actor who came in doing broad East Village Yiddish Theater stuff was turned away. Robbins wanted a sense of religious zeal to grow out of the character; he didn't want a big stereotype that would water down any idiosyncrasies in the writing. Do you know who worked on this show? Harold Prince. He worked on all shows throughout history. My partner is now telling me I need to see "Prince of Broadway," despite the reviews. Time will tell. I strongly recommend "Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of FIDDER," which is catnip and which is also unusually well-written. I saw "Fiddler" over and over throughout childhood, and once auditioned to play Lazar Wolf (oddly). The material--the idea of shifting family dynamics, judgments, bristling against tradition--resonates with me, of course, as it resonates with everyone. I think I didn't notice how brilliant Bock & Harnick were--in my youth--because their songs are sort of quietly elegant. There are few pyrotechnics. How nice it is to make discoveries--even in your wizened old age.
Comments
Post a Comment