Sixty years after it was first heard on Broadway, the haunting sound of that Fiddler on the Roof I now heard in Regent’s Park. It still stirs a thrill of expectation, and Jordan Fein’s striking production doesn’t disappoint, though its staging is somber.
Fiddler Raphael Papo isn’t on a roof but amidst a cornfield, a corner of which designer Tom Scutt has peeled off to curve over the bare stage where the action is played out below it. We are in Anatevka, a Jewish shtetl in Russia in the first years of the twentieth century. Anatevka is a fictional village, but this dark story of antisemitic pogroms and forced migration and of new ideas challenging tradition is rooted in history.
Muted colours match the harsh life that is lived here, but the vitality of the people bursts through in contrasting, joyous celebration. As milkman Tevye sings of "Tradition'and the villagers join in its foot-stomping rhythms, we are quickly caught up in his world. Life is tough, but when there is something to celebrate, it is expressed in exuberant dancing. Juiia Cheng’s choreography can explode in wild abandon or, in a nod to Jerome Robbins’s original creation, show the control of a dance with bottle balanced top of heads.
Tevye is making his final deliveries. His horse is lame, so he is having to haul the cart himself. He has a habit of talking directly to God, but at the same time, he is talking to us. Meanwhile, matchmaker Yente is informing his wife Golde that she can broker a marriage for his eldest daughter Tzeitel with the well-off but much older butcher, Lazar Wolf. Tevye doesn’t like Lazar, but he has five daughters and they need husbands as the three eldest are well aware, singing their aspirations in "Matchmaker, Matchmaker", with Tzeitel intending to marry her childhood love, penniless tailor Motel.
Adam Dannheisser has a strong presence but presents a gentle Tevye who splendidly sings his heart out. He may be a bit intimidated by his wife Golde (Laura Pulver) but invents a dream to explain his U-turn about Tzeitel’s marriage that Fein has the whole company hilariously act out, and his "Do You Love Me" duet with Golde is moving without being sentimental, like the rest of this production. The marriage of Tzeitel takes place under a traditional canopy with the singing of "Sunrise, Sunset" fortuitously taking place when the real sun is setting, but that magic mood is shattered by what comes after.
Tevye’s two eldest daughters, Tzeitel (Liv Andrusier) and Hodel (Georgia Bruce), who falls for revolutionary student Perchik from Kyiv, win the support of their father, but daughter Chava (Hannah Bristow) marrying a non-Jewish Russian he can’t accept. That is a tradition that he can’t give up.
The matchmaker is a tradition too, one that Beverly Klein’s Yente, who talks endlessly, fits well. It is a performance carefully judged not to go over the top. Anatevka is a village full of real people. Michael S Siegel’s Lazar Wolf seems quite reasonable with just a glimpse of why Tevye doesn’t like him, Dan Wolff presents Motel’s determination despite lack of confidence, while Daniel Krikler gives Perchik ideological certainty.
The Fiddler is not just on the roof but seems constantly part of the action, still able to play even when just roused from drunken stupor, but this Fiddler has a final touch: it is not the violin but Chava on her clarinet who plays overhead as the rest of her family and all other Jews leave Anatevka.
Jordan Fein’s production doesn’t try to impose contemporary relevance. It doesn’t need to, that is inherent already. It is also full of great songs and performed by a fine ensemble and makes a great night out.