Theatre
Jackie Hoffman: "Doing Fiddler in Yiddish has made the old Jewy thing become really cool.”
Fiddler on the Roof is Yiddish is an off-Broadway hit. Sherry Amatenstein talked to Jackie Hoffman who plays matchmaker Yente.
May 9, 2019 10:23
Fiddler on the Roof is Yiddish is an off-Broadway hit. Sherry Amatenstein talked to Jackie Hoffman who plays matchmaker Yente.
May 9, 2019 10:23When Jackie Hoffman was asked to star as Yente the matchmaker in a Joel Gray-directed Yiddish version of Fiddler on the Roof for a limited run at New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage last year, the actress’ immediate reaction was, “Oy, Fiddler again!”
The 58-year-old’s exposure to the classic musical based on Sholom Aleichem’s stories began early — the original canary yellow 1964 cast album with Zero Mostel as Tevve was “always around” the home she shared with her parents and three siblings in Queens.
While she’d never performed in Fiddler, Hoffman had seen her aunt and uncle perform in “a stellar production at their shul”, as well as attending a Fiddler revival in the mid-seventies starring Mostel.
The actress/comedienne has won raves for her performances in, among other shows, Feud, Hairspray, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Addams Family, as well as starring in a string of one-woman monologues based on Jewish themes with titles such as The Kvetching Continues and Chanukah Charol. Yet her role in Fiddler, recently transferred to Broadway, connects Hoffman to her heritage in a whole new way.
Watching her in Fiddler was an emotional experience for me —my late parents were Holocaust survivors and watching the musical performed in the language which I heard around my home as I grew up made it feel like Mom and Dad were with me in the theatre. I told Hoffman this when we spoke after a Tuesday night performance.
“Thank you, mamela. That’s very special to hear. I’ll share that with the cast. How wonderful we were able to bring your parents back for the night. A lot of audience members cry. Mandy Patinkin stood in the lobby after a performance at the museum and cried.
"He told the cast, “I didn’t realize how special being in Sunday in the Park with George was until years later when I listened to the CD in the car. Don’t lose sight of the fact that you are part of something really special.”
Hoffman grew up with a very religious mother and a barely observant father. She had nine years of yeshivah education. How neurotic did this make her? “It was always a conflict. I’m the youngest of four and everybody went through every possible stage of Judaism from most to least intense. We always did the basic tenets — a kosher house and observing Shabbos.
"At my most religious, in my teens, I was a member of the National Conference of Synagogue Youth— a youth group arranged through Orthodox Shuls. That was the happiest time of my mother’s life until I started performing in Fiddler. As soon as I moved out to go to college, I experimented with treyf, and not observing Shabbos and that unfortunately continued.
Now, she says she’s “everybody else’s idea of Judaism unless you are religious. I’ve stayed very ‘Jewy’ and informed of Yiddishkeit, but I’m still just a slob. With my background, I’m in too deep to say I’m just a cultural Jew. I still torture myself for whatever I’m not doing, carrying the cliché of self-loathing to new heights.
“I hate that it takes being attacked for us to assert our identity. A lot of young people don’t know anything about what that identity is. Some of the young Jewish cast members in Fiddler were barely connected.
"Now they’re learning of a frum way of life and it’s cool and beautiful to see. It makes it even cooler to be performing this play with swastikas being painted in Europe and there’s such a rise of anti-Semitism.
So, how has playing Yente affected her personal sense of being Jewish? “I now think of my ancestors who came to Ellis Island, and how lucky I am they got out of Poland because I wouldn’t have been here. I haven’t lit Shabbos candles in years and now I’m lighting them eight days a week.
"Performing in this play feels so guttural, taking me back to such a pure place, a time when Jews weren’t so assimilated. Doing Fiddler in Yiddish has made the old Jewy thing become really cool.”
Her mother spoke Yiddish and always wanted her to learn. “But because it was something my mother wanted me to do, I never did. But the language was a very strong part of my life — key words here and there. As we began rehearsing words would come back, words that I hadn’t thought of since I was six or 12 like underhemd which is undershirt.
"My performance is still growing. Until recently the Yiddish coach was still correcting me on word order, which is different in Yiddish and English. I’d be saying, “What have I there to do?” because I thought I was saying, “What will I do there?”
The cast have a bulletin board backstage with a Yiddish saying of the day. Hoffman quotes one to me: You’re lucky, God that you live high. Otherwise people would break your windows.
What about life post-Yente? “I read for the role of a nun yesterday. I’m sure that won’t go anywhere.”
Fiddler on the Roof is on at Stage 42, New York.
