Word: fiddlers
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ZORBA. Producer-Director Hal Prince has turned out a non-Jewish version of Fiddler on the Roof. But this time Herschel Bernardi merely inhabits the hero's role rather than being possessed by it, and Maria Karnilova never quite provides the mixture of girlish coquetry and faded carnality that the role of Bouboulina requires. The music sounds as if it is being piped in by Muzak, the lyrics are insipid, the dances are any old folk...
Someone forgot to tell Producer-Director Harold Prince that Zorba isn't Jewish. Prince could not resist the temptation to try to fashion a sequel to his own Fiddler on the Roof, thinly camouflaged with a Greek accent. The resulting musical play is sleek, professional and synthetic, a brassy bit of Broad-wayana that is as far from the Mediterranean basin as is Shubert Alley...
...come in Las Vegas. Owners are finding that, though gross gambling revenues are still growing (up 14.3% last year), their profits are being cut by what Sarno calls "the spiraling cost of customer attraction." A top entertainer like Frank Sinatra can command $100,000 a week; a production of Fiddler on the Roof costs $70,000 a week...
...share the stage with some other people, among them Maria Karnilova. This is the first time in Miss Karnilova's career (which includes performances varied as a stripper in Gypsy and Tevye's wife in Fiddler on the Roof) that we see enough of her to leave the theatre satisfied. As Hortense, the French lady on the hill who lets Zorba share her bed, she becomes a vision of lonely fortitude in the face of life's injustice. In one scene, during a song that tells of the "pretty admirals" who kept company with her in the distant past...
...more than the dull stiff it easily could be. He is, of course, helped out by the writing. Joseph Stein, the author of the show's book, establishes Niko quickly in the second scene and never allows him to fade from view after that. (As in his book for Fiddler, Stein never lets any character slip through his fingers.) When Niko finally forgets pretense, allowing himself to fall in love with the beautiful widow (played with quiet grace by Carmen Alvarez), the transformation is thrilling, as Stein and Cunningham have created someone worth caring about...