Friday, my mom flew in from Texas to join me for a night of Chicago theater. We went to see "The Fiddler on the Roof." It's her all time favorite musical and one of my favorites too, although I'd only seen the movie, not the actual play. And it was really cool. First of all, it was the farewell performance for Topol. Who's Topol, you ask? He's the Israeli actor who played the Oscar nominated lead role of the father, Tevye, in "Fiddler" the movie. And really ... anyone who's known by a one-word name already scores mega-cool points in my book.
And he was awesome. Tevye is such a rich character with so much personality. And it's hard for me to imagine anybody being able to play his role with the same depth as Topol does. Amazingly (I didn't realize this), the original movie in which Topol played Tevye was a 1971 production. That was 38 years ago and he's still playing that same character at age 74. And the dude was as spry as he ever was in 1971!
It was a great show. Watching live theater is, of course, so much more enjoyable than watching a movie, but it had even been awhile since I'd seen the movie, so it was kinda like hearing the story for the first time on Friday night. It was a great night. The theater was beautiful (the Oriental), the music was great, the sets were amazing . . . It was all great.
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