Why should Americans care about Ukraine? An answer from 1960s Broadway.

Transcript

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:

Why should Americans care about Ukraine? That's a question some commentators have been asking, and it has echoes going back many years. Here's one version from a 1964 stage classic that centered on people of that region.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FIDDLER ON THE ROOF")

PAUL MICHAEL GLASER: (As Perchik) You should know what's going on in the outside world.

SHIMEN RUSKIN: (As Mordcha) Why should I break my head about the outside world? Let the outside world break its own head.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Well-put.

(LAUGHTER)

RASCOE: Critic Bob Mondello says that argument made him think about the many ways these characters still speak to us today.

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: The news has just arrived in town.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FIDDLER ON THE ROOF")

ALFIE SCOPP: (As Avram) Look what it says in the paper.

MONDELLO: And the one man who can read is telling all his neighbors who can't.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FIDDLER ON THE ROOF")

SCOPP: (As Avram) It's nothing very important - a story about the crops in the Ukraine and this and that. And then I saw this. In a village called Rajanka, all the Jews were evicted, forced to leave their homes.

MONDELLO: We are near the start here of "Fiddler On The Roof," having just been schooled in the traditions that govern the town and its people. The musical, based on "Tevye And His Daughters" by Solomon Rabinovich - better known by his pen name, Sholem Aleichem - takes place in the town of Anatevka, which Aleichem modeled on the town of Boyarka, near his birthplace in central Ukraine. And when the musical welcomes new arrivals, they tend to have traveled from the nearest big city.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Where are you from?

GLASER: (As Perchik) Kyiv.

MONDELLO: Life in Anatevka is mostly peaceful, but there is a lurking danger in the musical represented by the presence of Russian soldiers. The year was 1905, and in real life, when more than 170,000 workers in Ukraine went on strike, the Russian Army clamped down hard. In the musical...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FIDDLER ON THE ROOF")

LOUIS ZORICH: (As Constable) There's trouble in the world, troublemakers.

MONDELLO: ...They do that by claiming land for Russians and exiling the Jews.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FIDDLER ON THE ROOF")

ZORICH: (As Constable) Your people must leave all the villages - Zolodin, Rabalevka. The entire district must be emptied.

(CROSSTALK)

ZORICH: (As Constable) I have an order here.

MONDELLO: The instinctive reaction of Tevye and his neighbors and the Russian response can't help resonating today.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FIDDLER ON THE ROOF")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) We will defend ourselves.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) We'll stay in our homes.

(CROSSTALK)

ZORICH: (As Constable) Against our militia, our army? I wouldn't advise that.

CHAIM TOPOL: (As Tevye) I have some advice for you. Get off my land.

MONDELLO: A people displaced, a history ravaged. Sholem Aleichem's story was just 50 years old when it was musicalized as "Fiddler On The Roof." But in another sense, it was as old as time - a thing of tradition because history, sad to say, repeats itself. I'm Bob Mondello.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ANATEVKA")

TOPOL: (As Tevye, singing) Anatevka, Anatevka - underfed, overworked Anatevka. Where else would Sabbath be so sweet? Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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