Off Broadway in May: How 'Fiddler' Feels in Yiddish, An Insane Idea About Slavery, A Premature Funeral for Racism and International Travel Tips

FOUND IN TRANSLATION Steven Skybell, center, plays Tevye in a Yiddish-dialogue,

Yiddish-lyrics production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” directed by Joel Grey.

FIDDLER IN YIDDISH

Allow me a moment of self-congratulation: Of all the lead paragraphs I have written for publication, one of my favorites is from a 2013 theater article in The New York Times: “You think ‘Waiting for Godot’ is depressing?” my review began. “Wait till you hear it in Yiddish.”

This remarkable “Fiddler in Yiddish,” directed by Joel Grey, does just the opposite. If you thought the 1964 stage musical “Fiddler on the Roof” or its later movie version was full of warmth, heart, joy and tears, well, Yiddish multiplies everything. There are surtitles (English and Russian) onstage, but you can read them or ignore them, go back and forth, experience the show on one level or two or many.

My press-nights guest, HW, cried. I always get teary in the scene when the middle daughter and her father say good bye at the train station (She: “Papa, God knows when I shall see you again.” He: “Then we will leave it in his hands.”), and I’m not even Jewish.

In case you don’t know the plot: There’s a village milkman named Tevye living in early-20th-century Russia. He has three daughters, and in the process of getting them married (with and without the help of the local matchmaker), he has to face the reality that the religious and cultural traditions that have guided his life are changing. But some truths are deeper than rules.

“Fiddler on the Roof” (“A Fidler Afn Dakh”), Stage 42, 422 West 42nd Street, telecharge.com. 3 hours. Open run.

THE BIG CHILL The cast of “White Noise,” about four old college friends and a crazy idea. From left, Thomas Sadoski, Zoe Winters, Sheria Irving and Daveed Diggs.

WHITE NOISE

Here are this drama’s most obvious assets: It stars Daveed Diggs, who was a dazzling Thomas Jefferson in the original Broadway cast of “Hamilton.” It was written by Suzan-Lori Parks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of “Topdog/Underdog.” It also gives new meaning to the word “thought-provoking.” Four old college friends, now divided into two interracial couples, have remained close. When the black guy has a bad experience with city cops (he’s pushed down violently, face on sidewalk, for no good reason), he questions everything, asks his white male pal to do him a favor: Buy him. As a slave. Temporarily. He can learn from this, he feels. To say that things go badly is an understatement. “White Noise” is absolutely believable (well, 90 percent), entertaining, then depressing, then intriguing (to the end).

“White Noise,” Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, publictheater.org. 3 hours 15 minutes. Limited run. Closes on May 5.

AIN’T NO MO

It starts with the funeral service of a man named Brother Right to Complain. After all, it’s November 2008, the president of the United States is a black man, and surely everything is going to be better now. On the other hand, maybe things aren’t as clear-cut as we’d hoped. The play also includes an episode of “Real Baby Mamas” and several scenes in which black Americans are accepting free airfare “back” to Africa. The most striking moment: All the elements of African-American culture are packed into a bag for traveling, but a question arises. Does it want to stay or go? Where does it really belong?

“Ain’t No Mo,” Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, publictheater.org. Limited run. Closes on May 5.

17 BORDER CROSSINGS

Elizabeth Vincentelli, writing in The New York Times, liked the staging, and she liked Thaddeus Phillips, whom she calls “an ingratiating writer and performer.” But looking at his world travels and his attitudes, she concluded, “Alas, being starry-eyed seems less poetic than naive nowadays.” I was probably the only person in the audience whose press-night guest (IGA, an Egyptian-born friend) had been through most of the same border crossings that Phillips had and knew about the drug ayahuasca. Truly, she’s lived everywhere. It was an intelligent and well-done production, but I didn’t get any sense of cohesion until the very end, when our narrator found himself overseeing a Mexico crossing into the United States. And he, like the rest of us, just wanted to say, “Go for it!”

“17 Border Crossings,” New York Theater Workshop, 79 East Fourth Street, nytw.org. 1 hour 30 minutes (no intermission). Limited run. Closes on May 12.