Fiddler On The Roof - Review

Barbican Theatre, London

****

Book by Joseph Stein

Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick

Music by Jerry Bock

Directed by Jordan Fein

Raphael Papo

Jordan Fein’s revival of Fiddler On The Roof first seen at London’s Open Air Theatre last year, returns to the city’s Barbican Theatre before a nationwide tour to last the rest of the year. As Tevye and Golde, Adam Dannheiser and Lara Pulver remain in their leading roles with both having matured from 2024.

Dannheiser always commanded the essentials of a Tevye . A big, bearded, Bear Jew of a man devoted to both family and faith and convincing as he deploys both humour and perfectly pitched pathos in his wrestling with life’s challenges, Dannheiser’s performance is one of the evening’s delights.

Pulver has grown in the last 12 months. Her role is now fully formed and be it gossiping with Yente, nagging Tevye, or just being the all-caring matriarch to her family, hers is a great Golde. While Tevye gets most of the juicy singing numbers in the show, Pulver, who’s musical theatre credentials are impeccable, makes fine work of the duetting balladry gifted to her by Harnick and Bock. Natasha Jules Bernard steps up to the role of Tzeitel, with Georgia Bruce returning as Hodel and Hannah Bristow as the clarinet playing Chava continuing to give Tevye one of the toughest challenges that can face an orthodox Jew.

Fiddler On The Roof is a Broadway classic and this production’s details are a treat. Beverley Klein’s maturely considered Yente and Raphael Papo’s enchanting Fiddler are fabulous. Julia Cheng’s choreography excites, while Tom Scutt’s ingenious design has beautifully translated the shtetl of Anatevka from the elements of Regent’s Park to the conventions of traditional theatre.

This musical remains a story of hope interwoven with never-ending tragedy. The show is set in Tsarist Russia around the turn of the 20th century when state-sponsored antisemitism was the norm, and the dark clouds of the Holocaust that was to befall European Jewry hadn’t even begun to form. Playing out in 2025, as calls for the destruction of the Jewish state echo around the world, the United Nations spouts blood libels that are echoed by governments and the media and murderous Jew-hate is manifest from Washington DC to Colorado, it feels like little has changed. 

This is a beautiful production playing to a very ugly world.

Runs until 19th July, then on tour

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

Fiddler On The Roof - Review

Open Air Theatre, London

***

Adam Dannheiser

Book by Joseph Stein

Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick

Music by Jerry Bock

Directed by Jordan Fein

Much like the village of Anatevka itself, Jordan Fein’s production of Fiddler On The Roof is a microcosmic melting pot, not only of the marvellous but also of the mediocre. It gives a curious message that the show's producers have decided that its main publicity image promoting and celebrating the show, should be of Chava (played by Hannah Bristow), the one daughter of Tevye and Golde who deserts her Jewish heritage to marry outside the faith, rather than upholding 'tradition'. Notwithstanding this unusual bias, Fein’s interpretation has managed to retain the show’s cultural essence.

This is of course the first Fiddler On The Roof to play in London since the horrors of October 7 2023. The pogrom that befalls a community of dancing, celebrating Jews and which closes the first act, leaving Anatevka in flames, chills in its identical ideology of hatred that led to the massacre at Israel’s Nova Music Festival last year.

Hannah Bristow as Chava in the show's main publicity image

Fein makes gorgeous use of Raphael Papo as The Fiddler. His violinist serves as a musical interpretation of Tevye’s (Adam Dannheiser) Jewish conscience, and intriguingly is rarely offstage. This is a beautiful touch, for Jerry Bock’s melodies written for the Fiddler deserve the centre-stage attention given to them by Fein.

Dannheiser himself (last seen by this reviewer as an outstanding Lazar Wolf on Broadway) is an adequate Tevye. Vocally strong, but occasionally disconnected, particularly in his brief exchanges his God, that feel as though they are played more for laughs than for sincerity. Lara Pulver is Golde, in possibly the worst miscasting to have been seen in years. Pulver is one of the more gifted musical theatre performers of her generation but her Golde lacks a shtetl-based warmth. Clipped and reserved, she appears more Lucille Frank (her outstanding 2007 role of an Atlantan Jewish spouse subject to horrific antisemitism) rather than Tevye’s loyal wife of 25 years.  Vocally strong, but with barely any detectable acting through song, her Golde disappoints. Similarly Dan Wolff’s Motel fails to convince us of the sincerity of his love for Liv Andrusier’s Tzeitel. The show however is in its early days and both of these flaws can yet be remedied by Fein.

Tom Scutt’s set is enchanting, a roofed canopy across much of the theatre’s stage, itself topped with fields of corn. It is a visual that works stunningly. Tevye’s Dream too is a comic delight that has been cleverly conceived. Upstage, Dan Turek’s 11-piece band are a delight. Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s songs are timeless works of genius and for the most part, especially in the company numbers, are worth the price of the ticket.

Runs until 21st September

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

Rags - Review

Park Theatre, London

****

Music by Charles Strouse

Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz

Book by Joseph Stein

Revised book by David Thompson

Directed by Bronagh Lagan

Carolyn Maitland

Rags from Stephen Schwartz and Charles Strouse is a show that is set in New York City’s Lower East Side around the turn of the 20th century. Seen through the eyes of Rebecca, a penniless seamstress straight off the boat together with her young son David, the tale largely of Manhattan’s impoverished Jewish community, but with enough references to the Jews’ Italian migrant neighbours to define it as a non-denominational commentary upon immigration.

The book is by Joseph Stein and it has long been suggested that Rags represents a sequel to his earlier Fiddler On The Roof. But where that show achieved it’s punch through simple human challenges, beautifully told, Rags is more of a melting pot of issues that, combined, lack the same emotional heft. There is a narrative here that veers too easily into cliche and this perhaps is the reason behind the show’s failure to achieve lasting Broadway success.

That being said, director Bronagh Lagan has assembled some gifted talent in her Park Theatre company with Carolyn Maitland as Rebecca driving the show. Maitland is never less than magnificent in all her work and here she both captures and stirs our hearts in her take on the beautiful, driven young mother that she plays - her solo delivery of the closing number Children Of The Wind is stunning.

Dave Willetts puts in a strong turn as the kindly Avram who takes Rebecca into his home. There is a confidence in Willetts’ performance that captures moments of complex nuance. Opposite him, is Rachel Izen’s Rachel in another genius delivery that masterfully displays understated humour finely contrasted with the wry and wise experience of a long life, fully lived. The pair’s duet of Three Sunny Rooms is a highlight.

In charge of Strouse’s compositions is musical director Joe Bunker, who not only manages half of his 8-piece band from across two lofty corners of the stage but also conducts 4 onstage actor-musos too. Credit to all the musicians - the score straddles a multitude of genres with Bunker’s band deftly delivering across the evening.

Rags may be more schmaltz than substance but in this, its London premiere as a fully staged production, it is still a fine example of off-West End musical theatre.

Runs until 8th February

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

Fiddler On The Roof

Mayflower Theatre, Southampton

****

Book by Joseph Stein

Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick

Music by Jerry Bock

Directed by Craig Revel Horwood

Paul Michael Glaser

Making his UK stage debut, it’s a treat to see Paul Michael Glaser step up to the challenge of Tevye in Craig Revel Horwood’s take on this classic musical. Some 40 years ago the actor enjoyed global stardom as the Starsky of Starsky & Hutch fame, but to mis-quote Michael Caine, not many people know that around the same time he also enjoyed a supporting role as Perchik in Norman Jewison’s movie of Fiddler. Thus it was almost destined for Glaser to rise to the mantle of the story’s leading man and as a father and husband who has known profound personal tragedy in his life, his performance at times evokes real pathos. When Glaser's Tevye reaches out from the stage to share his deliberations with the audience and we share his monologue debates with God, there are moments of truly wry observation and a shrug so authentic that it symbolises a person familiar with enormous challenge. Not quite the finished product, Glaser occasionally stumbles in word and performance, though these are but bumps that a few performances into the tour will iron out.

Revel Horwood again directs a musical that has been set around a cast of actor-musicians. To explain, all the cast are on-stage members of the orchestra and have responsibility for giving life to Jerry Bock's wonderful score. To their credit, this is quite possibly the best actor-muso production to have been seen in some time. As musicians the performers are spot on, no small task given that they are denied the luxury of sheet music that a typical pit-orchestra would enjoy and all play entirely from memory. Bravo to them and to the slick musical direction and orchestration from Sarah Travis that allows them to blend in effortlessly with the staging. Extra special credit to Jennifer Douglas who as the most nimbly gamine Fiddler gives the show a perfect haunting klezmer-esque violin signature.

It is easy for a Fiddler On The Roof to slip into cliché and the meerkat-Russian accents that plague the dialogue, though thankfully not the songs, would be best dropped. Together with some of the ridiculously glued on beards, they distract from the otherwise beautifully simple design of the show and at this early stage in the run, these points can be easily addressed. A more permanent irritation is the Hebrew text written on the timbers and the roof tiles of the village buildings. Whilst Anatevka may be fictional, it is not some Disney created fantasy village. It represents a beautiful if at times grim snapshot of a culture destroyed and Diego Pitarch's whimsical lettering cheapens that memory.

The supporting cast prove that they can act as well as play a tune. Daniel Bolton’s Fyedka is a beautifully voiced Cossack dancer. Liz Kitchen gives a wonderfully gossipy Yente as well as a touchingly hilarious Grandmother Tzeitel. Jon Trenchard’s Motel is a delightfully plausible and sincere schlemiel whilst Claire Petzal’s Chava broke hearts as she clawed in vain at the rock of her father’s faith in choosing to marry Fyedka. The audience on press night were warm and enthusiastic, laughing in all the right places and even clapping along to To Life. That they laughed however at Golde’s (Karen Mann) raw grief at Chava’s marriage suggests that the structure of that moment needs to be re-examined by Revel Horwood.  

The choreography, as to be expected from such an expert in movement, is divine. Revel Horwood has reproduced Jerome Robbin’s original Broadway staging and Glaser's Tevye, swaggering in his celebration of life is glorious, whilst the highlight of the Bottle Dance exceeds expectations with sweetly synchronised movement that is as always, breathtaking.

Playing at Southampton until September 14, the show tours Britain and Ireland until well into next year. It’s an affectionately crafted production, crammed full of familiar numbers that are sung to perfection and makes for a grand night out.


To find out tour dates and to book tickets visit the production website here