Dear "Fiddler on the Roof" Fans,

When the show is put on live, do Tevye's daughters have to have a specific look? I mean, does every single daughter have to look something like Tevye? Does the director insist that they all have brown eyes? Does he or she say that everybody from the family must "look distinctly Jewish"?

I know that whenever I watch the movie version of "FotR", I can't help but notice the fact that Tevye's oldest daughter seems to have what I would call "a distinctly Jewish look," while the other two daughters look, for all the world, to be more European or American. I'm sorry, but in my opinion, the oldest daughter most closely resembles Barbara Streisand, and I only know one or two other Jewish people in real life, anyway, so the oldest daughter seems to look both the most Jewish, and the most like Tevye.

I realise that you can be non-Israli AND Jewish at the same time, but is everybody from Tevye's family SUPPOSED to have descended from Israli ancestors? I love the show, but I don't know much about its back story, with regards to the roots of Tevye's family.

Thank you in advance for your replies.

I suppose it's going to depend on a couple different factors:

1) What type of theatre is doing the show (professional, community, school)
2) How stubborn the director is in terms of casting according to the type s/he wants
3) The available talent

So, I would think a professional production is more likely to insist on casting individuals who have stereotypically Jewish features, whereas a community theatre or school is just going to have to take what they can get.

As far as whether they need to look like Tevye, I imagine this is not a concern at all. On stage you wouldn't be able to discern that sort of thing too easily.

As far as ethnic heritage, the characters in FotR are Eastern-European Jews living under Tsarist Russia's rule (which I believe would be Russian Orthodox (Christian). The denizens of Anatevka would ultimately trace their lineage to Moses and Abraham and all that stuff (so, yes, some Mesopotamian and Palestinian roots). Now, the original show was ultimately written by three American Jews based on the writings of another Jew. So while the setting is 1905 Russia, it's definitely got a 1960s Borscht Belt, New York Jewish shtick about it. In any case, I don't think any director/casting committee is going to be looking only for people who could pass as Eastern European Jews.

Vichysois has got it right. I will just add that when my middle school did the junior version, our Hodel sorta resembled our Golde and Bielke somewhat looked like Tzeitel. On the flip side, our Chava was African-American in a family of white actors. It really depends on your casting pool, and this is going to vary from theatre to theatre.