Interview: Hannah Bristow on playing Chava in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

Ahead of a major revival of Fiddler on the Roof officially opening at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre on Tuesday (6 August), we spoke to Hannah Bristow who plays Chava in this new outdoor production.

What appealed to you about being part of Fiddler on the Roof at Regents Park Open Air Theatre?

I’m really interested in storytelling that incorporates music to take audiences on big emotional journeys and plumbs emotional depths. Walter Pater said “all art constantly aspires to the condition of music”, and what he’s saying there is that music effortlessly takes us places that lots of other art forms have to fight to do. I think plays that engage with that have the power to move us so much more profoundly. The musical, as a form, harnesses that truth and takes it full throttle to its conclusion. Just before I was cast in this, I’d said to myself I wanted to do more work that used music to tell serious stories. Then the audition for this came in. Saying yes was a no-brainer!

This musical in particular is pretty brilliant, and seminal and also special for me personally because it connects to my Jewish heritage, which I’m always keen to explore through creative projects. There are few plays as Jewish as “Fiddler”.

I also really love trees and nature, and being amongst them for these months is a true joy.

Can you tell us a bit about your character please?

Chava is the third of five sisters. Chava is a reader. Chava is clumsy. Chava feels like an outsider. Chava loves potently and powerfully. Chava adores her father. Chava often enjoys being in the imaginary world of books more than the real world, and despite how much she loves her family, the places she has travelled to in those stories have left her yearning for more than her small, traditional life in Anatevka seems able to give her.

How much of yourself do you see in Chava?

Probably more than I’d like to admit. I’ve never lived in Anatevka. I don’t have any sisters. But maybe thereafter the differences begin to dwindle. No further questions, your honour.

Fiddler on the Roof is a beloved musical having seen many productions over the decades. What fresh perspective and ideas does this production bring to the show?

I think Jordan Fein, the director, has a reputation for innovating and bringing new perspectives to musicals. However, in the room, that never felt like something that was being chased or manipulated or imposed on the work we were doing. We always worked from the emotional moment of the text and the story, and what seemed to be happening moment to moment, and then tried to tell it with the best of ourselves and who we are as people coming to tell this story today. The effect of that has been that we have created something that is perhaps a new perspective on this story. But that seems to be an accident of truthfulness.

I guess if I had to spot the areas that maybe are more unconventionally, I’d say: the locus of the story is no longer around Tevye alone but now encompasses the women in the story too and especially the three eldest daughters and their journeys far more than perhaps other productions have done. Our production is a story about the whole family. It also really involves the rest of the town. What has been created really is an ensemble piece that fully asks the question: What is tradition, how does it impact everyone involved in it, and what is the benefit and cost of progress and change for everyone?

There have been some very exciting and innovative changes made to the score by our masterful musical supervisor Mark Aspinal, which again were executed to help find the emotional guts at the core of the story, and really dive into them with strength and chutzpah. I’m excited for audiences to hear them - but again, they fit so well, I think lots of people won’t notice they weren't there in the first place.

What do you think performing this show outdoors will add to the piece?

There is a song in the musical called ‘Sunrise Sunset’ that underscores a marriage and talks about time passing and seasons changing. We perform that as the sky turns pink and darkens behind us. That’s really something. Slowly as the story progresses into the darker place of Act Two, night falls and natural darkness descends us into that place of heavier emotion and greater theatricality too. That’s very cleverly done. Also, some of our tech was in the rain. And it looked truly incredible: so there’s that too. Come for the sun. Come for the rain. Nature and the elements feel like a potent and integral part of the show we have made.

It’s a story about people who work and live on land and are dependent upon the weather and crops to survive. So many of the scenes occur outside anyway: we haven’t really changed very much.

On top of that, in his opening monologue, Tevye talks about his society’s “constant devotion to God”, and he continues to talk about and to God throughout the play. To do that beneath the true expanse of the sky; to look up on those lines and see ‘the firmament’, the clouds, the blue, the stars…is kind of insanely magical. It makes so much sense to be doing it at the Regents Park Open Air. I can’t quite imagine it not being performed outside, to be honest. Did they ever really do that?

Which part of the musical are you most looking forward to sharing with audiences?

The heart, the guts and the roar of it. The dancers doing Julia Cheng’s choreography are unspeakably good. Come for them alone, and you’ll get the rest as an exploding brilliant bonus.

On a slightly more selfish note too, in the original production, my character did a ballet in Act 2. I don’t do ballet. I can’t. We’ve changed that to something else. I’m excited for people to see what we’ve done there.

You've done a lot of new work in your career so far. How does the process of rehearsing a major revival differ from putting on a new production?

I’d say the script changes less. With new writing, you’re often asking questions like, “What are you trying to say here? Well, if you shift it this way, we might be able to help you do that better?”. Or the writer will go away on their own and do that anyway and throw something new at you halfway through rehearsal or previews. The play is a more fluid object with new work. As with any classic though, we don’t have the writers in the room for Fiddler, we can’t ask questions, so the challenges are quite different. You’re working with what you have, and mining your choices from that. You’re more likely to be asking questions like: “What is this moment and how do we find it?”, “What have they written here?”, “Why is that stage direction there?” “What were they doing then? Do we still want to do that now or what can we do instead?” etc. It’s a different challenge.

I guess also with a piece like this, you also have the weight of every other production that has gone before - the famous performances, the film, people’s preconceived ideas - sort of hanging around and breathing heavily in the wings, and the knotty bit of the work is to try and forget those and come at the piece as rawly and truly as you can as a human with these words and these musical notes in this moment, now.

Why should audiences come and see this new production of Fiddler on the Roof this summer?

It’s a huge play that talks about some of the biggest questions of the human condition. How do we look forward whilst holding onto things from the past that are valuable? How do we reconcile and hold opposing truths at once? How do we find our sense of autonomy while still holding onto love and connection and community? What is the place of love in our lives? What is the place of home and religion in our lives? What do we do when faced with violence and prejudice? What do we do when people leave? What do we do when we can’t stay? How do we deal with change and time and money and this big old mess that is being human?

I think it’s going to be a really, really, good play. It’s all love and guts and heart. It's full of songs you didn't know you knew, but you do and wow, there they all are in this one play. It’s extremely funny, still, nearly ¾ of a century later. It's moving. It’s powerful. It’s important. It looks beautiful, Tom Scutt’s designs and Aideen Malone’s lighting are out-of-this-world. The cast are a sickeningly talented bunch.

I think you’d be a fool not to see it, in all honesty.

That’s why.

Fiddler in the Roof plays at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre until 21 September, with further info here.