If you’ve ever wondered what happened to Tevye and his family after the curtain went down on Fiddler On The Roof, Tom Dugan imagines the fabled milkman’s new life in America in Tevye In New York, a solo performance that reopens The Wallis in an open-air setting just outside the theater’s Beverly Hills digs.

Told as a 90-minute monolog delivered to an assembled crowd awaiting the start of The Big Apple’s annual 4th Of July parade circa 1914, Tevye In New York not only gives Dugan the plummest of roles, it’s a particular treat for those already familiar with the Jewish milkman’s life in Tsarist Russia, providing updates on what happened to Tevye’s three older daughters, who married for love albeit not necessarily with their father’s approval.

Under ordinary circumstances, our hero/narrator would be taking advantage of this year’s Independence Day parade to sell “Best Cheese, Milk, and Sweet Cream” on the Lower East Side. Unfortunately, a certain Maria has neglected to return the icebox key to its owner, leaving poor Tevye with nothing to do but sell an occasional pickle as he recounts his life story while awaiting word on a cherished family member’s impending Ellis Island.

Among the tidbits Fiddler fans will find of particular interest are the set of circumstances that allowed Tevye to ply his trade. (No, he wasn’t always Tevye the Milkman.) Those unfamiliar with the Sholem Aleichem stories on which the classic Broadway musical is based may be surprised to know that Tevye’s youngest daughter had a twin sister whom Tevye calls “Abel.” (And yes, Abel is a boy’s name, though I’ll leave it to Tevye to tell you why.) And if you’ve ever wondered whether the “Jewish Mark Twain” (that’s what Tevye calls Sholem Aleichem) based his most famous creation on someone he knew in real life, Dugan’s latest play will supply you with the answer.

Co-directed by Michael Vale and Dugan, Tevye In New York makes imaginative use of Vale’s barebones set (scaffolding suggestive of an early 20th-century NYC street), Tevye’s milk cart, and a then fairly recent “public telephone machine,” props supervised by Joshua Shelden, all of which Elizabeth Harper lights with accustomed finesse, with sound designer Cricket S. Myers not only amping Dugan’s voice to be heard over Santa Monica Blvd. traffic but providing its own ambient street noises and occasional voices.

Indeed, by setting Tevye In New York on a busy urban street, Dugan makes contemporary noises (ambulance sirens, revved engines, and Michael Jackson blaring as one particular driver waited at a red light) considerably less of a distraction than they would be were it set anywhere else.

Above all, Tevye In New York gives its writer-co-director-star a chance to put his own warm, funny, charming spin on a character we’ve seen many times before, though probably not as a speaker of English as a second language. (Dugan’s Yiddish accent is just what you’d expect from a Russian Jew who’s made a new life for himself in the American melting pot.)

Katherine Barrett is production stage manager and Phil Gold is assistant stage manager. Laura Stegman and Libby Heubner are publicists.

As audiences eagerly await a return to indoor performances at the Wallis, Tevye In New York gives lucky ticketholders the chance to once again experience a thrill that has at times seemed but a distant memory these past sixteen months. And that alone is reason enough to celebrate its arrival in Beverly Hills.

Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd, Beverly Hills.
www.thewallis.org

–Steven Stanley
July 10, 2021
Photos: Lawrence K. Ho

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, The Wallis Annenberg Center For The Performing Arts, Tom Dugan