This whistle-stop, tour of Fiddler on the Roof is visiting each of 17 venues for just one week, apart from Birmingham, where it will end with a four week Christmas run. It follows a sold-out eight week residency at London’s Barbican Theatre, which it played on the back of rave reviews and multiple awards for its opening season at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in the summer of 2024.
The first thing that grabs you as the curtain goes up to reveal Tom Scutt’s striking set design is that this production still feels as though it is in the open air. We meet Tevye and the Anatevka community ironically surrounded by the fields of wheat that they were largely not permitted to farm. One such field is rising from the stage at the opening, coming to form the roof on which the titular Fiddler spends some of his time playing, when he is not following behind Tevye like a shadow. More rows of crops to the rear of the stage partially conceal the excellent onstage band.
There is a strangely timeless quality to director Jordan Fein’s reading of the text. He brings us a cast who deliver the dialogue for the most part in their own natural dialect, so that our Tevye, played by Matthew Woodyatt, hails from somewhere in Wales, and lives among a family and community who appear largely to be from London’s East-End.
Looking past the disparities of dialect, however, the cast are a splendidly cohesive ensemble, who move as one, as is powerfully demonstrated in the first big company number ‘Tradition’ which sets the tone for the show. This is the where the production finds its greatest strength, with these big set-pieces coming thick and fast throughout. Highlights are Tevye’s dream and the captivating bottle dance at the wedding, in both of which choreographer Julia Cheng more than hints at Jerome Robbins’ original work.
There is a very fine supporting cast around the obvious star, with Jodie Jacobs’ Golda being in similarly glorious voice to Woodyatt. Among other strong individual performances, the real standout in the cast is Greg Bernstein, whose Perchik outshines almost everyone around him, both in vocal and choreographic terms, and he makes a far stronger case as suitor than the more eagerly accepted young tailor Motel, whose portrayal by Dan Wolff is perhaps a little too simpering.
Beverley Klein, meanwhile, is a great fit for the bustling and irrepressible matchmaker Yente, although even with her assured delivery the song ‘The Rumour’ doesn’t work any better than it ever did – easy to see why it was dropped from the film score, because it always seems to fall flat on its face on stage.
What works less well here are the heart-to-heart scenes between father and successive daughters. The expansiveness of the staging robs them of the sort of close-up scrutiny fans of the screen version will be familiar with, and Liverpool audiences in particular may well find themselves yearning for a little of the intimacy of Gemma Bodinetz’ supremely focused 2017 Everyman production.
But in the grand scheme of things, this is a story that speaks of bigger issues than the minutiae of one family’s extraordinary but nonetheless everyday life. Sadly we are still unable to avoid the reflection that entire communities are still subject to persecution and displacement, and works like Fiddler stand testament to the continued ability of the human race to commit such atrocities in the name of politics, power and religion.
There is a reason why Fiddler on the Roof has continued to be a perennial favourite since it first appeared onstage in 1964, and it goes beyond the success of the 1971 film version. This is a story that has family and community at its heart, and its use of music, which grows seamlessly from the action, is among the most natural in the genre.
Unsurprisingly with the punishing schedule of such a tour, the cast includes a full complement of alternates, understudies and on-and-offstage swings so, if you are attending the show, please take a moment to check for daily notices letting you know who is appearing onstage in the performance you are seeing.
Fiddler on the Roof is at Liverpool Empire until Saturday 27th September, with tickets available here, after which it continues touring through to January 3rd.
Star rating: 4½ stars
.jpg)
The London Barbican cast of Fiddler on the Roof - Picture by Marc Brenner
This review was originally written for publication by Good News Liverpool
Comments
Post a Comment