By Joel H. Cohen
NEW YORK — “Dress British, Think Yiddish” is an unknown philosopher’s formula for success.
I didn’t ask actor Steven Skybell his favorite clothing style, but I’m absolutely sure of his smashing success in the lead role of Tevye in the all-Yiddish Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof.
When first approached with the idea, most of us would respond: “Bist meshugah?”/“Are you insane?” But Skybell had already played Tevye twice, first at age 17 at music camp, and then at 22 at Yale, and wanted to play him again as an adult. Knowing that Joel Grey was directing the Yiddish production made the prospect even more enticing.
Skybell grew up in Lubbock, Texas, a town with about one hundred Jewish families. Like many others, his grandparents spoke Yiddish only when they didn’t want the kids to understand what they were saying.
When he first got the part in the Yiddish “Fiddler,” Skybell had studied Yiddish but he “certainly wasn’t fluent.” And at the start, only three of the 26 members of the cast spoke Yiddish. So getting ready for the show was a mammoth task, with most of the actors learning the language phonetically from tapes.
But opening night in 2018 was “electric,” he said, with the audience deeply and immediately in love with the show. The production was extended numerous times from its original six-week run at the Museum of Jewish Heritage and moved to different venues, including Off-Broadway, into 2023.
The show and individual cast members have won numerous awards, including the Drama Desk award for Outstanding Revival of a Musical, and Skybell received the Lucille Lortel award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Musical.
Plans to bring the production to China and Australia had to be cancelled due to the pandemic. Skybell believes the international popularity of “Fiddler” is due in part to the fact that its theme is not only Tradition, but Love. He thinks many plays would lend themselves to being performed in languages other than English.
Of all the actors he’s seen perform the role of Tevye, Skybell’s favorite is the late Topol, who played the lead in the movie, which he saw as a child. “I was very impressed and moved and encouraged by it. And as an 11-year-old boy who was hoping to be an actor, to see a movie that had a Jewish protagonist was very empowering for me,” Skybell recalled.
Playing Tevye brought emotional rewards, as well. Already a proud Jew, “the play made me feel even prouder, and I’m much more sympathetic to the plight of immigrants,” he said. “And today, when we want authenticity in casting in movies and TV and film, I’m delighted to be recognized and to be utilized as a Jewish actor.”
Skybell said performances with immigrants, refugees, and Holocaust survivors in attendance have been particularly meaningful for him. He recalled a conversation after the show with a survivor who asked him whether he thought the ending was positive or negative. Skybell answered that “the last gesture of Tevye to the fiddler, saying ‘come with us, we’re not going to leave you behind,’ is a very positive gesture. I felt it was a positive ending in that we may be getting thrown out of Anatevka because of our Jewishness, but we’re going to take our Jewishness with us.”
His favorite “Fiddler” moments are when Tevye’s wife, Golde, tells him that her responding to his needs over the years is evidence of her love…and then at the train station, where he is saying a sad goodbye to his daughter Hodel.
Skybell is currently in rehearsals for the Broadway production of Cabaret. He’ll be playing “the Jewish role of Herr Schultz, and I’m very much excited about that.”
Skybell made his Broadway debut in two Eugene O’Neill plays in 1988, shortly after graduating from the Yale School of Drama. He’s also appeared in the Broadway productions of Love, Valor, Compassion, The Full Monty, Pal Joey, and the most recent Broadway version of “Fiddler.” It was while performing in Wicked that he used his time between scenes to learn how to quilt from a production crew member, and it remains his favorite hobby.
If asked for an autograph, does he sign in English or Yiddish?
“I usually have written transliterated Yiddish “mazel tov” or “dank” but my name in Yiddish would be something fun to do as well,” he said.
Why not, like Skybell and Tevye, do it in both?
Thanks to Fay Schiff for her part in arranging this interview.
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Joel H. Cohen is a freelance writer based in New York City.
What a wonderful interview. I got it clear picture of the actor and of the interviewer.. Please keep writing. I love to read what you have to say.