Joan Marcus
Natalie Anne Powers, Mel Weyn and Ruthy Froch in the 2019 touring production of "Fiddler on the Roof."
Broadway is back at Overture Center and the first offering is simply stunning; it’s the touring production of Bartlett Sher’s 2015 production of Fiddler on the Roof, here through Nov. 21. The sixth iteration of the classic tale to grace Broadway’s boards, Sher’s take on Tevye the milkman and his five daughters living in a close-knit, Jewish community in turn-of-the-century Russia is at once traditional and startlingly new. Whether you have seen Fiddler before — in countless high school and community theater productions or in the 1971 movie featuring Chaim Topol — or if you are new to the story of family, religion, social change, and political unrest, this is a production you should see. Here are a few reasons why:
The lead. The main character in Fiddler on the Roof is a plum role for any actor. Tevye is at times funny and introspective, at other times weary and stubborn, and always conscious of his devotion to his Jewish faith, his love for his family, and his struggles to adapt to changing times. He is the throughline of the show, as well as its heart. In this production he’s played masterfully by Israeli actor Yehezkel Lazarov, who carefully picks and chooses his moments, instead of dominating every scene. With his more naturalistic take on Tevye, one that eschews stereotypes, Lazarov doesn’t grandstand during his lamentations to God, his difficult conversations with his daughters, or his solos, including the iconic “If I Were a Rich Man.” With a strong, warm baritone that’s naturally more comfortable in the higher range, he dreams, argues, muses and prays as a simple man who is trying to balance every part of his difficult life, often relying on humor and kindness to guide him. And when he is asked to do the unthinkable, to banish one of his beloved daughters for marrying outside the faith, his heart breaks all over the stage. The nuanced performance trades in bluster for courage and comic antics for love.
The dancing. Just as the characters in Fiddler on the Roof sing about — and cling to — their traditions, productions of the show have remained largely faithful to the original 1964 Broadway choreography by Jerome Robbins. But this Fiddler starts with Robbins’ ideas and then shakes things up with powerful, additional choreography from Hofesh Shechter. The beloved bottle dance remains, and each group of villagers has signature movements in the opening number “Tradition,” but both numbers are enlivened with exuberant flourishes and more complex, challenging choreography. Particularly in songs showcasing the men — “L’Chaim” and much of the dancing at the wedding — the interludes are injected with more athleticism, creative flourishes, and frenzied, stylized movement. The result is breathtaking.
The Dream Sequence. In this big production number in the first act, Tevye must convince his wife that the fiance she’s picked for her eldest daughter Tzeitel (a buoyant Kelly Gabrielle Murphy) should be abandoned in favor of the poor tailor Motel (an excellent, menschy Daniel Kushner) since they are in love. To break this news, Tevye manufactures a message from beyond that he receives in a dream. This scene is often played like a graveyard full of ghosts at a haunted house, but this production makes a creepier and more elegant choice. The cast of dearly departed relatives is dressed in round masks with grotesque faces and outfitted with long, pointy fingers, reminiscent of Eastern European folk tale figures. Some spirits tower over the humans, some seem to float high above the action like possessed matryoshka dolls. Linking the horror scene to the time period and culture gives it a freshness and authenticity that makes the dream both scarier and more fascinating than usual.
The abstract staging. There are many lovely, eminently theatrical moments in this production of Fiddler that move stridently away from the literal, trading elaborately realistic sets for suggestive set fragments that allow the audience to focus more intently on the people onstage. By replacing the specificity of one small Russian town in the early 20th century with the mere suggestion of a place, they also make the story universal and timeless.
Early in the production, wooden panels on wheels stand in for a variety of walls, a disconnected door represents Motel’s clothing shop, and a delicate scrim separates Tevye from a memory sequence with his daughters. Throughout the musical, trees move across the stage, marking travel and the passage of time, and a bare stage with a bench and a suspended sign fills in for the Anatevka train station. At the end of the show, the cast is bathed only in bright light, silhouetting their journey to an unknown future. These moments that give the audience credit for filling in the settings with its imagination are transformative. The economy of set pieces makes the whole show lighter and sleeker. These scenes are unfortunately interspersed with more traditional, flat, painted drops that feel out of place with the overall concept, and may be a concession to the needs of touring.
The connection to now. For those familiar with the show, the opening and closing moments of this production will come as a surprise. Instead of thrusting the audience headlong into the hardscrabble life of Anatevka during an era of Jewish persecution under the Russian tsar, the production actually begins a few minutes before it begins. In a tiny prologue, Lazarov appears bare-headed, wearing a modern red windbreaker and carrying a book. He reads the first lines of the play as if he is a member of the 2021 audience encountering the story for the first time. After an interaction with the mysterious, wiry fiddler, he jumps into the story. Similarly, at the end of the show Tevye turns back into that contemporary spectator to consider the themes of the show and the struggle of a community being turned out of their homes. As the production reminds us clearly in these moments, it’s important not to see Fiddler on the Roof as a quaint fable about persecution from a century ago. Instead it is the story of refugees who are forced to leave their homeland hoping to find a new place to live, and to thrive. Relevant parallels from the news are too numerous to name, but the production makes clear that those refugees deserve the same kind of empathy that audience members extend to these characters.
Shows at Overture run through Nov. 21.
