The story of Fiddler on the Roof takes its viewers away from the theater in whichever bustling city they are sitting in, transporting them to the world of Anatevka — a small village in Russia in the 1900s, where we meet a Jewish family led by Tevye, the dairyman of the village. The musical speaks of tradition, and the way that families viciously hold on to them at a time when their entire identities are at stake. Fiddler is one of the most celebrated musicals of all time, having first opened on Broadway in 1964 and with its most recent Broadway revival in 2015.
On November 14, 2018, during intermission at a Fiddler on the Roof performance at the Hippodrome theater in Baltimore, Maryland, a man began to shout “Heil Hitler, Heil Trump” repeatedly, while holding up his arm in a Nazi salute and frightening many (if not all) of the theatregoers. The disturbance comes a month after 11 people were shot at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.
The man who caused the disturbance was identified as Anthony M. Derlunas II, a 58 year-old man who reported he had been “drinking heavily through the night”, and yelled the slogans because of his “hatred for Trump”. Regardless of intention, the remarks caused a widespread fear throughout the theater as many patrons anticipated a shooting was about to occur, with many theatregoers rushing out of the theater in fear.
Anti-Semitic behavior, though thought by many to be a thing of the past, is unfortunately alive and well. The Anti-Defamation League has revealed that anti-semitic incidents have jumped a whopping 60% since 2017. The comments are made even more powerful and disturbing when taken into the context of the play, whose content deals with rampant anti-semitism within the community of Anatevka and Russia at large.
Derlunas was swiftly escorted from the theater and is now banned from the Hippodrome. He has since apologized and discussed his actions in an interview with the Baltimore Sun.