Fiddler on the Roof, music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, book by Joseph Stein. Directed by Bartlett Sher. National tour production in Philadelphia through October 28, 2018.
Fiddler on the Roof is a perfect musical theater creation.
Other iconic shows have been altered, tinkered, or fiddled with (please pardon the pun.) But Fiddler has remained as Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick and Joseph Stein presented it in 1964. No songs added or subtracted, no change of dialogue. The story about Tevye the Dairyman, written by Isaac Bashevis Singer in Yiddish about a village in Czarist Russia remains as compelling as ever.
The costuming of one silent observer in the opening and closing scenes has been updated to a man in a red parka — presumably a present-day descendant of Tevye, and to suggest that what happened with immigrants in 1905 still occurs today. That’s the only addition.
The story appeals on several levels: Its evocation of tradition, its depiction of religious and racial prejudice, the inevitability of change, and the offering of hope for a better future in another country. All of this is wedded to beautiful and emotional songs.
So, as we enjoy this show once again, our focus has to be on the performances of this exceptionally good cast as it launches a 30-city national tour (after a preview in Syracuse).
The Tevye of Yehezkel Lazarov is different than the norm. We’ve had Tevyes who were primarily comic (Zero Mostel), Actors Studio (Luther Adler), folksinger (Theo Bikel), cantorial (Jan Peerce), gentle (Topol, and Danny Burstein), universalist (Alfred Molina), and haimische (Harvey Fierstein). Lazarov started his career as a dancer with the Bat Sheva company in Israel, and has been an actor, stage director and set designer. His Tevye is bold and enthusiastic, and he has a deep, rich singing voice. He’s the most youthful-looking Tevye in memory.
Lazarov is age 44 and the production makes no attempt to make him look older. Tevye, married for 25 years, is probably in his own mid-forties, so this is appropriate. But previous actors tended towards an older look, and here’s why: Tevye is respected by his fellow-villagers and by the Russian police and military. Yet he is only a poor milkman. He is not really a scholar and his quotations from the “good book” are almost-always inaccurate. The townspeople turn to Tevye for advice, not because he’s rich or he’s a scholar, but because of something in his personality. Therefore, actors try to endow him with characteristics that earn such esteem. Lazarov could do more in this regard.
The young women who play his daughters are as fine a trio as I’ve ever seen. Mel Weyn as Tzeitel, Ruthy Froch as Hodel and Natalie Powers as Chava are perfection in acting and in vocal beauty. Maite Uzal as Golde has an excellent voice too. Jesse Weil as Motel the tailor sings sweetly and emphasizes the insecure and nerdy aspects of his character.
Ryne Nardecchia as Perchick the radical activist is not as strong as I’d like, and his voice doesn’t ring out. Joshua Logan Alexander, on the other hand, is compellingly Russian in appearance and behavior as Fyedka, who takes Tevye’s third daughter to his Orthodox church to get married.
Jonathan Von Mering is very amusing as Lazar Wolf and Carol Beaugard is moderately so as Yente the matchmaker. She lacks the wry humor of the role’s originator, Bea Arthur. All of the performers sing accurately, on pitch, with fine vocal quality and without trying to re-interpret, which is a tribute to musical supervisor Ted Sperling.
When this Bartlett Sher production opened on Broadway in 2015 I was ambivalent about Hofesh Schechter’s choreography, because it varied from the Jerome Robbins original which I loved so well. But it’s grown on me. Schechter’s dancers evoke Robbins’ spirit and add an Eastern-European ethnicity that personifies the tradition of these people.
In the wedding scene, the bottle dance brings down the house, as it deserves, and on opening night we saw an unusual event as a bottle fell from the hat of one of the five dancers. This proved that there’s never been any glue which holds them in place.
Below, the bottle dance:
