"Fiddler on the Roof" may have inadvertently begun as a modernist work of multicultural art. Today, however, amid so many other multicultural offerings, it has been adopted, recycled and deracinated of its uniquely cultural imprint.
It may have reached the widest of possible audiences by universalizing its message (unfortunately the same could be said of "The Diary of Anne Frank"), but in doing so it may have also overshadowed the inherent tragedy of Anatevka, with all those uprooted lives, and traditions that never made it through Customs.
