The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 14

Xeii flit jcle Himei 1" PART IV FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1971 W7 II ii I IILiW CRITIC AT LARGE Tiddler on Roof Labor of Love THE GOSPEL TRUTH Robin Lamonr, Jeanne lange, Roberta Baum, Peggy Gordon and Lynne Thigpen, from left, retell Gospel According to St. Matthew in "Godspell." Times photo by Larry. Bessel STAGEREVIEW a 1 BY CHARLES CHAMPLIN Timei EnterUinmtnt Editor "Fiddler ori the Roof" which has its local benefit premiere tonight at the Fox.Wilshire Theater and begins its regular run on Saturday, has been dons not only with such artistry but also with such evident love, devotion, integrity and high aspiration that watching it is a kind of duplex pleasure. You are warmed by it in its own terms as a superior piece of entertainment. And, if you have any abiding affection for the movies as a form, you have to be knocked out of your seat by the painstaking and inspired craftsmanship you see (and hear) before you.

As a matter of fact (to dismiss the minor reservations as lightly and quickly as possible), the nearest "Fiddler" comes to getting into trouble is over its own conscientiousness and high endeavor. So solid it is that here and there it hints of becoming "violinist on the roof," stately rather than agile, solemn more than earthy. It could be en-brisked, especially in the second half without any loss at all. But even as it is, we are never very far from the marvelous and quickening presence of Topol as Tevya. And since any production of "Fiddler" is good or great depending on the strength of its Tevya, Norman Jewison's film is blessed in its choice of Top-, ol.

The Tel Aviv-born actor who, amazingly, ia only 36, plays Tevya with a rich-voiced maturity and a beguiling charm that is deeply satisfying to watch. Restraint is conceivably not the word to use about a man who talks to God as if to a next-door neighbor, but the charm of Topol's Tevya ia that he is a theatrical man rather than an actor acting broadly, He sings loud but carries a small stick. He (and director Jewison) know that the smallest shrug, a flicker of an eyebrow, is eloquence itself. Tevya is a man, not a creation, whose wry humor is the more touching because it is contained, not burlesqued, and whose anguish becomes the more affecting because it seems unfeigned and not a rearrangement of organ stops. Musical acting often haa a flamboyance which may be entrancing but Is several verses away from life as we k.

it. Topol's Tevya is his own Everyman. The other performances are almost equally affecting: Norma Crane as Tevya's enduring wife, Rosalind Harris, Michele Marsh and Neva Small as their daughters. Leonard Frey (unrecognizable as the leader of "The Boys in the is gently comical as Motel of the sewing machine. Paul Mann as the elderly butcher eager for one of the daughters, Michael Glaser and Raymond Lovelock as younger suitors perform handsomely.

dsp Gil 3H of Gospel in Retellirig did seem a little bit dumb. Was this the New Testament, or "Winnie the Rohrer cleared up the metaphor beautifully, if tardily, early in the second act when just for a minute he dropped the dumb-bunny pose and tried to tell the other kids what he and they were in store for after the Last Supper (that is to say, picnic.) They looked blank, and he brightly but a little sadly started a follow7the-leader game as if nothing had happened. But the point was made: Kid talk is all that God's children are up to understanding. Had this, been established earlier, the cutsey-poo business would have been a good deal easier to take. Also, as "Godspell" stars coming to grips with its subject and stops showing off, you begin to sea what marvelously skillful performers these kids really are beneath their love-me-I'm-only-9 faces Please Turn to Page 17, Col.

2 Youth this intent on being irresistible turns some people a minority, judging' from the pleased reaction of most of the Taper crowd Wednesday night quite definitely off Your reporter falls among this curdled group and he returned to the second act of "Godspell" with a sigh. How much more charm could we take? But at this point "Godspell" grew up, alienating no doubt a good number of people who had found it just darling up to then. And in the growing up, justified some of its earlier silliness. Up to then, Rohrer's Christ had been a winsome Charlie Brown playing fun Sunday school games with the rest of the kids Story Theater pantomimes about sheep and goats and prodigal sons whose fathers' hearts went out to them (business of pushing a pretend heart out of your chest and saying lup-dup-lub-dup.) Cute. Kute.

But what, you wondered, did the show really think about Christ? The fooling around was too harmless to seem offensive, but it BY DAN SULLIVAN Tlmt StMf Writ: I know, what, gang! Let's put on a crucifixion! Pardon the sarcasm; "Godspell" at the Mark Taper Forum wants to be taken as cheeky but basically reverent retelling of the Gospel 'According to St. and eventually does seem to be about Jesus. But for too long the whole first act it might be a free form throwback to one of the dippier Judy Garland-Mickey -Rooney musicals of the 1930s, based on the well-remembered text from the Gospel According to St. Louis E. Mayer.

Kids Are The first act is a kind of vaudeville show based on the parables and sayings of Jesus (Andy Roh- -rer), and you haven't seen so many puppydog smiles and caught -in -the -peanut -butter -jar blushes since the last time "Babes in Arms" was revived at the Melrose. Nursery for Frightened Married 69 Yearsand Still Fighting Youn esters As Yente, the matchmaker, the celebrated Yiddish stage, actress Molly Picon seems to me to be doing her own thing, a performance colorful in its own terms if never fully integrated with the ensemble. But colorful it is. To use an overworked but inescapable term, Fiddler on the Roof" is a movie-movie and Jewison, with the inspired help of Oswald Morris' photography and Robert Boyle's production design, creates a peasant village in the waning days of the czars with totally remarkable scope and fidelity. You see and feel both the isolation and the closeness of czarist persecution, the poverty but also the richness of tradition and the solidarity.

The most memorable Images, I suppose, are those with a golden autumnal glow which suggests the abiding affection Tevya and 'his people have for this land but which also hold wintry hints of the trouble that was to come for the Jews. Joseph Stein has done the script from his own stage version of the Sholom Aleichem stories. The music by Jerry Boch and Sheldon Harnick is perhaps even more impressive than on stage, with choral enrichments and those lustrous visual adornments. "Fiddler" is many things, a thrilling and satisfying experience, a monument (maybe one of the last) to the large-scale movie musical and, perhaps more than anything else, "Fiddler" is a matchless document in the cause of human understanding and brotherhood, an illumination of history which must move Jew3, Gentile and nonbeliever alike. of BY BELLA STUMBO Tlm Staff Writw They live on a wide, tree-lined street in Ontario in a neighborhood so peaceful and still that even a slamming car door attracts attention.

Their house is like all the others on the street small, white and immaculate, from its perfectly trimmed lawn to the sparkling window panes. Inside, the sinking afternoon sun across a worn Oriental carpet, flickered on a wall full of family portraits and caught her white hair in a gauzy glow. It also fell across the face of George Henry Brumfield, 92, whose splendid, two-month-old mustache was under attack from his wife Beth, 90. "Lord, you look just like a fool with fuzz on your face," she was saying uncharitably. "Next, I suppose you'll be growing a goatee, too." Zeroing In on Vanity George Brumfield eyed her silently, fingers tapping his leg.

At this point in life, he wasn't going to defend his vanity. Instead, he zeroed in on hers, as she lit a cigaret. "You know why she smokes? She thinks it's cute," he said, eyes sparkling malevolently. "Four years ago, she even burned up a couch with one of the danged things, when it rolled under a cushion. The memory embarrassed, flustered and quieted her, just as he knew it would.

When you've been married 69 years, you learn a thing or two about the other fellow. That's the first obvious lesson from a visit to the Brumfield household, where one might conceivably learn a lifetime of wisdoms, time and tha Brumfields allowing. "We've been fighting about everything under the sun ever since we got married. I've wanted to knock her head off a few times," he said, chuckling at her glare. "And anybody who thinks you can stay married very long to the same woman without fighting is either an idiot or a "It's so sad, all these divorces nowa- Please Turn to Page 6, CoL 2 i BY SUE REILLY Tlm Stiff Wrllw FULLERTON Margie is a pretty, smiling, blonde child of 5 who comes home from nursery school every day and destroys everything in her path.

She tears sheets, cuts up towels, breaks anything made of glass, pours water on the furniture and then sets about hurting herself. Margie now lives in the home of some older people who want to adopt her; Before that she lived in a series of foster homes, and before that she lived with her mother who. burned, beat and cut her. Margie is not toilet-trained, understands few social conventions and, emotionally, lives somewhere in a foggy, threatening jungle surrounded fear and hate. Margie is fortunate, though, on two counts.

First, she found a family which thinks it has enough courage and strength to help her. Accepted at Center And secondly, she has been accepted as a student at the North Orange County Child Guidance Center's Nursery School and Kindergarten where she's in a class with four other children with problems of less severe magnitude but equal intensity. The guidance center, initiated its nursery program more than a year ago and so far has worked more than 20 youngsters through the program. Basically, it is a venture in parent participation. The program, according to.

Mrs. Ar-leen Brown, project director, has two services: It offers intensive treatment for chil-. dren aged 2 to 7 and at the same time it offers parents an opportunity to better understand their children. In order to be accepted into the programand any child in Orange County with emotional problems is eligible the parents must agree to participate. Families in the treatment program make a commitment of at least three month's involvement and stay longer if Please Turn to Page 8, Col.

3 THE VIEWS INSIDE 5 AROUND ORANGE COUNTY' by Mary lou Hopkins on Page 7. BOOKS: "America, Who Owns and Operates the United States?" by Robert Kirsch on Pag 4. EVENTS: What's Doing in Orange County on Page 13. MOVIES: "The Jesus Trip" by Kevin Thomas on Page 21. TELEVISION: "Black Noon" by Jerry Beigel on Page 24.

AND OTHER FEATURES Dear Abby 9 Art Walk Page 10 Astrology Page 16 Bernheimer 14 Bridge Page 12 Comics 23 Christy Fox 3 Maury, Green 22 A LIFETIME TOGETHER- George Henry Brumfield and his wife Beth eloped and traveled by covered wagon to begin married life in Times photo by Tony Barnard.