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Ironically, Jordan Fein’s outstanding production of Fiddler on the Roof began life at a venue entirely open to the night’s sky — it was the summer hit for Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre last year. And, given the dazzling electricity of its choreography and the fizzing energy of its superb cast, it may yet raise the roof of the mighty Barbican.
Fein’s staging of the beloved Broadway musical loses that spine-tingling natural backdrop — a perfect match for the gradually darkening tale — but it fills the giant theatre with story, spirit, song and sorrow. Set in a small shtetl in the Pale of Settlement in 1905, the tensions between tradition and progress, love and duty, remain as keen as ever. And without pushing any points or changing Joseph Stein’s script, it finds bleak resonance in today’s world.
It’s the eloquent mix of light and shade that distinguishes this show and the tiny shifts that make the characters feel real and fully-fledged. Adam Dannheisser as Tevye, the hard-pressed Jewish milkman, is, as always, the beating heart of the production. He emerges as a decent, flawed man grappling with a rapidly changing world. He feels his way into the famous “If I Were a Rich Man”, as if the thoughts were occurring to him afresh, the live band picking up the melody and accompanying him as his fantasy takes wing.
Dannheisser is very funny, debating his condition with the Almighty and building a warm rapport with the audience, but he also brings a mix of wrath, vulnerability and affection to a man bewildered by his beloved daughters’ resolution to make their own way in life. He’s matched by Lara Pulver’s formidable Golde and their duet “Do You Love Me?” is a sudden oasis of bemused tenderness amid the daily chores.
The daughters who marry for love (unthinkable!) are vividly defined: Tzeitel’s quiet defiance (Natasha Jules Bernard), Hodel’s idealism (Georgia Bruce) and Chava’s curiosity (Hannah Bristow). There’s sparkling work too from Dan Wolff as Tzeitel’s beau, Motel the tailor, all gangling limbs and awkward infatuation. Famous numbers by Jerry Bock (music) and Sheldon Harnick (lyrics) soar — “Matchmaker” delivered with the giddiness of teenage excitement; “Sunrise, Sunset” given beautiful, candlelit wistfulness.
Julia Cheng’s sizzling choreography creates a vibrant sense of community, filling the stage with life, while retaining Jerome Robbins’ original bottle dance (aptly for a show about tradition and innovation). But there’s also an edge to it — a drunken bar dance, infiltrated by antisemitic Russian thugs, suddenly acquires menace. And, throughout, Tom Scutt’s wheat-field set, with its looming peeled-back roof, and Aideen Malone’s atmospheric lighting create a sense of precariousness and simmering danger. This is a story of pogroms and persecution, of destruction and displacement. Seen now, it comes freighted with all that followed in the 20th century and with all that is happening across the globe today.
And what of The Fiddler? Well, he’s sublime here. Played by the extraordinarily pliant Raphael Papo, he could be a figure from a Chagall painting, haunting the action constantly like some spectral, shape-shifting spirit of resilience.
★★★★★
To July 19, then on tour throughout the UK and Ireland, fiddlerontheroofuk.com
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