Review: FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

The classic 1964 musical exploring love, religion, change and prejudice through stories of a Jewish community in Russia is still relevant thanks to Jordan Fein’s direction of this touching revival at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre.

Waiting for the show to start, the lack of proscenium arch or curtain allows the audience to take in the simple magnificence of Tom Scott’s set, which looks to have grown out of the surrounding trees. Rather than the usual literal rooftop, the roof for this fiddler to play on is a raised field of wheat, a slightly askew column holding it up giving a sense of peril to the stability of the structure and setting a tone for the production. Poignantly, the only evidence of the village Anatevka below this field is the name embossed on the underside of the roof and imprinted onto the floor.

Onto this bare stage, the company performs a strong opening with the song ‘Tradition’, presented, well, quite traditionally and the audience can settle back feeling reassured that this much-loved show will not have been tampered with. Yet any sense of cosiness is speedily but subtly dispelled.

There is no tradition here of the company all taking on a common accent. English, Scottish and American accents jostling along together sounds a little jarring at first but quickly seems so right. Then there are small anachronisms in the stage settings (David Allen, Associate Set Designer). Simple wooden trestle tables are surrounded by mid 20th-century metal and vinyl chairs; brown glass beer bottles are collected up in plastic cases, and amongst the traditional costumes, is a character wearing a bomber jacket?

These touches mean that whilst the story is still set in 1905, there are also nods to 1964 when the show was first produced. Magically, a sense is established of things being somewhat out of time and place, and the production manages to feel both respectful and fresh.

In a programme note, Fein recalls first seeing the show as a community theatre production and the design choices also conjure up echoes of such memories (although the performances here are far from amateur). And community is at the heart of this production. For much of the action, the cast remain on stage (or on nearby grassy knolls) and it is the ensemble numbers that provide the standout moments of the evening. The men’s dancing in ‘To Life’ is not only celebratory but also indicates the tensions in the village, foreshowing the actual violence to come (choreography by Julia Chang with a nod to Jerome Robbins’ original choreography in the wedding scene ‘Bottle Dance’).

Whilst there is no getting round the fact that the first act is very long, ‘Sunrise Sunset’, a superb number in its own right, is elevated to the sublime here by being timed to come in with the growing dusk (nature given a strong helping hand by Aideen Malone’s lighting design). This makes the subsequent violent disruption of the wedding all the more horrific, marred just a little by James Hassett and Nick Lidster’s hitherto excellent sound design becoming painfully amplified.

Act Two returns to a balanced soundscape, moves more swiftly along but does not shirk the emotional punches emerging as both the night and the show get darker. As with his recent production of Oklahoma, Fein tweaks the ending, deftly switching the role of the outsider away from The Fiddler thus reminding the audience of the further horrors that await some of those leaving the village. It is a profoundly moving end to the show.

Adam Dannheisser is a genial Tevye whose dear love of his daughters initially makes his decisions to break with tradition seem all too easy, but that only makes his later rejection of Chava so heartbreaking.

Dannheisser’s gentle reading of Tevye brings the female parts into greater focus. Liv Andrusier (Tzeitel), Georgia Bruce (Hodel) and Hannah Bristow (Chava) are terrific as the three eldest daughters, whilst Lara Pulver as Golde, Tevye’s wife, has the strongest solos. In this family, there is clearly more than one woman behind the throne.

Under the musical direction of Mark Aspinall, the eleven-piece band is excellent and Raphael Papo as The Fiddler not only plays brilliantly, but is seamlessly integrated with the rest of the company, adding another layer to the production.

Any matchmaker would be delighted with this pairing of Fiddler on the Roof with Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. Any lover of musical theatre will undoubtedly be entranced by this production’s delicate balance of joy and sadness.

**** Four stars

Reviewed by: Mike Askew

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