Theatre Journal

Abstracts:

From a theatre's protest against losing their space, to a themed restaurant, to a shabbat ceremony, Skrzypek na dachu (Fiddler on the Roof) appears in Poland in unexpected places. This essay explores the performance's many iterations from its prewar context as Tevye the Dairyman, to the postwar translation of the American musical in the turbulent early 1980s, to Anatewka Restaurant established in 2000, and beyond, to examine how elements of the piece have come to encapsulate certain intangibles of Polish cultural heritage stemming from its Jewish past. In examining its history of performance in Poland, this essay theorizes how Skrzypek as a performance and cultural touchstone comes to stand in for engagement with Polish-Jewishness in Poland today, mapping out Skrzypek and its earlier iterations as they perform a transhistorical bridge spanning pre- through postwar eras. Contextualizing the narrative's historical appearances and collective impact, this essay traces how Jewishness, vis-à-vis Tevye to Skrzypek, has been taken up over time and in changing political contexts to redefine Polishness in various moments. The musical is an important entry into a broader field of inquiry into performances of Jewishness in Poland that collectively perform a broadened Polish narrative that includes the country's now-lost multiethnic past.