Joseph Stein: The Guy With The Plot

The playwright Joseph Stein is probably best known for his phenomenally successful Broadway show "Fiddler on the Roof," winner of both the Tony and Drama Critics Circle awards for best musical in 1964.

Oddly enough, despite Mr. Stein's book, lyrics by his good friend Sheldon Harnick, music by Jerry Bock, and the great Jerome Robbins's choreography, nobody wanted to produce the show at first. "What'll we do for an audience after we run out of Hadassah benefits?" potential backers kept asking.

"We wrote it because we loved it," Mr. Stein said. "We just hoped it would eventually be staged."

Finally the producer Harold Prince came forward, Zero Mostel signed on for the lead, and the rest is history. "Fiddler" is still playing in theaters around the world today.

Zero Was The Best

The convivial Mr. Stein showed a recent interviewer around the handsome East Hampton colonial he shares with his wife of 22 years, the actress Elisa Loti, now a psychotherapist. Then he settled down to talk at the dining-room table.

"When Zero was 'on,' he was the best there is," he began, "but he was not terribly disciplined. Every once in a while he'd get out of character and go off into his own little schtick - not too professional. I loved him, but he certainly could drive me crazy."

"Fiddler" was a huge hit in Japan, according to the playwright. "I was amazed. The Japanese loved it, but expressed concern about whether Americans could understand the show. 'What?' I said. 'It's so Japanese!' they explained."

Cultural similarities abounded: the custom of the matchmaker, the generational conflict between the young daughters and the old traditions, and a shared history of dealing with hostile forces.

That Jewish religious rituals were less understood in Japan became clear during the previews.

"When the rabbi entered he was carrying a Bible with a big cross on it, which is how the Japanese thought all Western religious leaders walked around. I set them straight. 'No cross,' I said."

The long, happy history of "Fiddler" is not unlike the long, happy story of Mr. Stein himself. He seems to have gone from triumph to triumph in a life of crescendoing fulfillment.

How People Think

"I come from a very unwealthy family in the Bronx, somewhere between working class and lower middle class," he said. "My pop was a pocketbook designer who went through the Depression with five kids to support. We never starved, but I needed to start working in high school."

Writing for his school and college newspapers, he took a bachelor of science degree at City College of New York and a master's in social work at Columbia University. Mr. Stein earned his living as a psychiatric social worker in New York from 1938 until 1945.

He liked it, and what he learned about how people function and think proved helpful later on. But writing kept beckoning, and he wrote scripts for two radio comedy shows on the side.

Moving up eventually to a major national network, he started writing for a show called "Raleigh's Room," collaborating with "a fella named Alan Jay Lerner."

"We were both kids, and it was a wonderful show to get experience with. Hildegarde [the star] was in a nightclub talking to celebrity guests of all kinds: comedians, actors, Tallulah Bankhead, Clifton Webb, famous authors, whatever, and we had to adjust to all their different styles."

Mr. Stein worked next for "The Henry Morgan Show." The comedian had "a very original kind of mind," he said, "and we had to write his kind of material - not gags, but high-level comedy."

Shifting over to television, he did comedy sketches for "Your Show of Shows" and "The Sid Caesar Show."

"It's a talent like any other, and I was comfortable doing it. Working with that gang of comedy writers was a high point - a lot of pressure, a lot of fun."

"Plain And Fancy"

In 1955 Mr. Stein wrote his first Broadway show, "Plain and Fancy," a conflict-of-cultures comedy about an Amish community in Pennsylvania being invaded by a couple of New Yorkers.

"It was quite successful, to everybody's surprise. Neither the director nor the producer nor any of the writers had ever been on Broadway before."

Mysteriously, royalty checks kept rolling in from a theater in Indiana long after the show closed in New York. Finally, an invitation to attend its 10th anniversary of continuous performances arrived. It turned out that "Plain and Fancy" had been embraced by an Amish tourist center - where, now in repertory, it's still going strong.

"During the day visitors wander around looking at the blacksmiths and lacemakers, and in the evening they take in a show in this barn-theater that calls itself the permanent home of 'Plain and Fancy.' I'm very proud of that."

"Mr. Wonderful"

"Mr. Wonderful," written for Sammy Davis Jr., was another Broadway hit until, after a year, its star left. Then came "Juno," not a commercial success but a work of which Mr. Stein is also very proud, based on Sean O'Casey's "Juno and the Paycock."

"O'Casey wouldn't give anyone permission to adapt his work unless he liked them, so I went to England to meet him, and he liked me! I was honored that he approved of my adaptation; he wrote me a letter saying, 'I can't tell which part is you and which part is me.' "

A recent Off Broadway revival of "Juno" was well received in a limited run.

"Zorba"

Mr. Stein's hit parade gathered momentum again with "Take Me Along," based on Eugene O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness" and starring Jackie Gleason. Then came "Enter Laughing," one of the only three non-musicals he has ever written. "Funny, funny, funny," he chuckled. "I loved it."

Next, after "Fiddler," he wrote "Zorba" with his "enormous" friends John Kander and Fred Ebb, of "Cabaret" and "Chicago" fame. Directed and produced by Harold Prince and starring Anthony Quinn, "Zorba" won a Tony nomination in 1968.

"That was one of my best experiences in theater," said Mr. Stein. "I'm very comfortable with folksy, down-to-earth people like the characters in 'Zorba' and 'Fiddler,' who have strong emotional drives and expressive colloquial voices."

"The material I work on doesn't lend itself to vulgarity, which I never use. I can't write very sophisticated stuff, either, it's not in my area. My people have their feet on the ground."

"Rags" To Rich's

"Irene," "King of Hearts," "Carmelina," and "The Baker's Wife," which won an Olivier award nomination in London, followed.

Then, in 1986, came the playwright's favorite show of all, "Rags." It had very successful out-of-town tryouts but was a complete flop in New York after receiving a scathing review from The New York Times's erstwhile theater critic Frank Rich.

"I'll never forget that review," Mr. Stein said. "It was a play about immigrants that got wonderful reviews everywhere else." The show has since been retitled "Children of the Wind," he said, and under its new name, "it keeps playing, continuing life, despite that painful experience."

Prefers Theater

While writing the screenplays for "Enter Laughing" and "Fiddler," which won a Screen Actors Award in 1972, were "comfortable experiences," said Mr. Stein, he much prefers working for the theater.

Not only the greater script control but also the close-knit-family collaborative experience draw him to what he calls "a dangerous way to make a living."

"Every aspect of theater can be heartbreaking," he said, "and everyone is forever heroically fighting the odds. You should only get involved if you know you'll kill yourself if you don't."

Yarn-Spinning

"In the beginning there's always the story," said the playwright. He usually sits down with the other writers to get on the same wavelength and establish a sense of direction; then he outlines the book and sets the process in motion.

"The ability to spin a yarn combines technique, intuition, and a good ear, but unless you love the stuff you're writing, you're in big trouble. Whether your work is eventually a success or not is very secondary to the fact that while you're doing it, you'd better believe in it."

Right now Mr. Stein is on vacation from two shows he's working on in the city, one a new collaboration with Messrs. Kander and Ebb, the other "kind of an odd animal, a holiday show that hopefully will be put on every year at Chanukah/Christmas time."

"Miracles" At The Met

Combining the gigantic talents of Mr. Harnick, the composer Marvin Hamlisch, the songwriters Steven Schwartz and David Shire, and a brilliant young director, Michael Leeds, the latter production will be set in various galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and feature Bible stories told from a child's point of view.

"We hope it will happen fairly soon," Mr. Stein said. "These writers are the best in the business, and we're having a lot of fun."

"It's called 'Miracles,' " he concluded with a grin, "and I'm the guy with the plot."