★★★★★

“Fein’s direction and Julia Cheng’s muscular choreography is marked by sublime precision”

In its Barbican transfer, director Jordan Fein’s revelatory Fiddler on the Roof retains the elemental power that made it a five-star phenomenon in Regent’s Park. He strips the beloved 1964 musical of its nostalgic veneer to expose something more potent and contemporary: a raw and resonant meditation on tradition, displacement, and the endurance of community.

Fun, too, in case there should be a misunderstanding. Great fun.

Set in 1905 in the menaced Jewish shtetl of Anatevka before the Russian revolution, Fiddler follows Tevye, a weary but devout milkman, as his five daughters begin to choose love over arranged marriage, and the outside world encroaches upon his way of life.

Anchored by songs like Tradition, If I Were a Rich Man, and Sunrise, Sunset, it’s long been cherished for its warmth and wit. But Fein’s version – subtly but decisively restaged – asks more interesting and topical questions too: what happens when the traditions that once sustained a community begin to fracture under the weight of change? What is the true impact of displacement, of a people menaced from their homes?

Where the musical was once critiqued as “shtetl sentimentalism,” this staging leans into pared-down grit, stoic humour, and haunting lyricism. There is a modern feel to the witty script – and to the resolutely ambiguous ending.

Tom Scutt’s gorgeous design is emblematic of the approach: instead of quaint rooftops, we see cornstalks uprooted and suspended above the stage, evoking both harvest and trauma. The titular fiddler (a magnetic Raphael Papo) becomes not just a symbol but a shadowy companion, echoing Tevye’s inner world with eerie cadenzas and an eventual duet with Hannah Bristow’s Chava – whose marriage outside the faith breaks her father’s beleaguered heart.

The huge cast is potent, using impressive numbers to magnificent effect, a dream sequence appearing like a fully-realised Hollywood dance number. Meanwhile, Adam Dannheisser’s Tevye is no grandstanding showman but a wry, tired father trying – and failing – to hold his family together through reason, prayer, and rueful monologues. His comedic timing is sharp and he plays out with great relish the classic sitcom paradigm of the father and husband who declares his dominance only to have it slyly eroded by the headstrong women around him.

But it’s his gentleness that resonates most, particularly opposite Lara Pulver’s commanding Golde, whose grounded and wary pragmatism keeps the domestic scenes taut and touching.

Fein’s direction and Julia Cheng’s muscular choreography is marked by sublime precision. The Bottle Dance at Tzeitel’s wedding is performed under a canopy that rises and falls. On top of that precarious canopy, and ominous, the fiddler makes clear that everything is poised on the brink of a mighty disaster. The Russians are coming.

The cast functions as a true community, especially in the spine-tingling finale as they sing Anatevka, their voices braided with longing, resilience, and bitter clarity. In a final image, the toppled milk cart, beautifully lit, appears like an oil painting. Everywhere, indeed, there is beauty and catastrophe.

One of Fein’s many achievements lies in his refusal to oversell modern parallels. The production trusts its audience to make the connections – to recognise in Anatevka’s forced dispersal the long shadow of global displacement. It neither moralises nor rants; it simply tells the story with integrity and emotional intelligence.

For all its sumptuous visual invention and musical flair, Fiddler is most powerful in its silences: a father cut off from his daughter, a community carrying candles into the dark, a fiddler playing an aching lament.

A joyous and moving triumph from beginning to end.

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

★★★★★

“an electrifying mix of tradition and tragedy, with the flashes of humour searing through it like bolts of lightning”

Towards the end of the first act of “Fiddler on the Roof”, the sun is gently sinking behind the trees of Regent’s Park and candlelight casts its quivering, magical glow across the stage. A lone fiddler plays the opening bars of the achingly beautiful wedding song, ‘Sunrise, Sunset’. When we reach the bittersweet and hypnotic strains of the chorus, it is as though the number was written for this very moment: for this one particular sunset shared by a thousand people beneath a clear, unifying sky. It is one of many instants that make Jordan Fein’s current staging of “Fiddler on the Roof” one to remember for a long time.

When Sholem Aleichem’s “Tevye’s Daughters: Collected Stories” was first published in Yiddish at the dawn of the twentieth century, he was praised for the naturalness of his characters’ speech and the accuracy of his portrayal of life in the Shtetels of Eastern Europe. His writings combined cheerfulness in the face of adversity with the tragedy of the fate of the societies and their traditions. He probably had no idea that it would one day spawn one of the most successful and highly acclaimed musicals. Revived many times over the half century since its premiere, never before has it reflected the true nature of Aleichem’s writing with such accuracy and sensitivity. The creative elements of Jordan Fein’s interpretation come together in an electrifying mix of tradition and tragedy, with the flashes of humour searing through it like bolts of lightning.

The story centres on Tevye (Adam Dannheisser), the milkman in the village of Anatevka who is trying to cling onto his Jewish traditions as the outside world encroaches upon his family’s and the villagers’ lives. Not only that, but he is also up against his rebellious and progressive daughters who question the conventions, shunning the idea of arranged marriages; choosing instead to marry for love. The highly charged yet affectionate subversiveness of his daughters, however, is nothing compared to the dark shadow of the Imperial Russian pogroms rapidly approaching.

Tom Scutt’s imaginative set looms large over the action. A wheatfield uprooted from the ground, wrenched upwards in an arc exposing the name of the village embossed deep into the earth like an indelible stamp. Times are changing but the heritage runs deep. Beneath the canopy the orchestra is visible, the ensemble cast rarely leave the stage and the leading players watch from the sidelines when not in their own scenes. The community spirit is captured before a word is spoken (or sung). Nick Lidster’s clear-cut sound lends fragility to the solo numbers alongside the power of the rousing choruses of the ensemble. Julia Cheng’s choreography conjures a series of grand tableaux, like fine art in real life animation – meticulous yet shapeshifting: the comedy of ‘The Dream’ drifting into a macabre nightmare, or the rousing joy of ‘The Wedding’ that sinks into sinister violence as the Tsar’s officers intrude.

Adam Dannheisser, as Tevye, shifts superbly between the darkness and the light. A dominant figure yet dominated by the women in his life, he brings out the inherent comedy in the script with a true glint in his eye. A standout performance, but one of many; including Lara Pulver, as his wife Golde who really pulls the strings, along with Liv Andrusier’s feisty Tzeitel and Georgia Bruce’s pocket-rocket portrayal of Hodel. These strings snap when it comes to Chava, whose desire for marriage outside the Jewish faith is a line Tevye will not cross. Hannah Bristow adds poignancy with some evocative clarinet playing, endowing her character with a significance almost as symbolic as the eponymous ‘fiddler’ (the virtuosic Raphael Papo).

The pulse of the piece is the score. Jerry Bock’s music and Sheldon Harnick’s lyrics have gained fame and familiarity over time, but the company inject fresh individuality into the songs. Full of imagery they range from intimate to anthemic, from the major to the minor, backed by the twelve-piece orchestra. The emotional impact of the music never fails to stab, and then soothe the heart, culminating in an aching finale that feels global yet is inseparable from its ethnic origins. This is musical theatre at its heartfelt best.

Tag Archives: Dan Wolff

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

★★★★★

Barbican

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

Barbican

★★★★★

“Fein’s direction and Julia Cheng’s muscular choreography is marked by sublime precision”