Fiddler on the Roof, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - dazzling gem of a production marks its diamond anniversary

If I were a rich man, I'd be inclined to put together a touring production of Fiddler on the Roof and send it around the world, a week here, a week there, to educate and entertain. But, like Tevye, I also have to sell a little milk to put food on the table, so I’ll just revel in the delights of this marvellous show in the theatrical village nestling within Regent’s Park.

The book (by Joseph Stein based on the short stories of Sholem Aleichem) pulls off one of great art’s essential tricks - it finds the universal in the specific. That’s why it ran for 3000+ performances on Broadway and has been revived regularly over the last 60 years. 

We’re looking at a Jewish family scraping a living in The Pale of Settlement as Imperial Russia spirals into its 1905 Revolution. We’re looking at a man trying to be a good father, daughters trying to navigate a route that can preserve the old love that binds a family alongside the new love that binds a marriage. We’re looking at the love of tradition, expressed through religious observation and behavioural norms, that creaks under pressure of social change. Finally, and who knew this theme would be so relevant right here, right now, we’re looking at how peoples with different histories, different values, different priorities can share a living space with tolerance and mutual respect.

The show turns on our reaction to Tevye. As the show's opener, Tradition, tells us, he’s a reactionary even by early 20th century standards, but his love for his daughters tugs him away from the religious bedrock of his life. If we fail to believe in the depth of that dilemma, a fool or a hypocrite will be placed at the centre of the musical and we might as well spend our evening at a pantomime.

Adam Dannheiser (pictured above), a veteran of the 2015 Broadway production, brings charisma to burn to the role. We know that he’s stubborn and wrongheaded about what’s really important in life, but we know that the love that passes between him and the six women in his home is strong - but is it strong enough? We must do more than respect Tevye to feel as he feels - we must love him a little too. And Dannheiser, with a gesture here and a look there that reveals his state of mind, ensures that we do.

Each of the three daughters who challenge him are fully rounded characters in their own right. Liv Andrusier gives steel to Tzeitel, the first to reject the suggestion of The Matchmaker (a comic turn from Beverley Klein) as approved by her father, and to insist that the penniless, but bright and industrious, Motel (Dan Wolff) be her husband. It’s rather a shame that we see so little of Tzeitel after her dazzlingly staged dream sequence that convinces her mother, Golde (Lara Pulver, very good in an underwritten role), of the wisdom of Tevye’s change of mind.

One sees straight away that Hodel (Georgia Bruce) and Perchik (Daniel Krikler) is a match made in heaven but also destined for hell, the student on a road to Siberia via the little village of Anatevka. It’s a nice touch that the radical who espouses revolution against the Tsar calls the big city Kyiv, when everyone else says Kiev - a mark of the attention to detail that lends verisimilitude to this exotic world.

The bookish favourite, Chava (Hannah Bristow) is the most heretical of all, going outside the faith to find her husband, the decent Fyedka (Gregor Milne). That this may be too much, is signposted by a plaintive klezmer intermezzo she plays on the clarinet. By this stage, we’re so invested in the girls that we ache for a reconciliation no matter how sentimentally inaccurate that might be.

No musical lasts 60 years without great songs and the compositions of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick are given full value by uniformly fine singers, especially when singing in harmony. 

 Director, Jordan Fein, maintains a breakneck pace (I cannot recall time passing so swiftly in the stalls) and uses the unique qualities of his stage beautifully, especially in a magical Sunrise, Sunset as twilight descends. To Life is thrillingly choreographed by Julia Cheng on Tom Scott’s wonderful set that also facilitates an unforgettable closing scene. A word too for The Fiddler himself, Raphael Papo, who opens the show from, where else, the roof, and Dan Turek’s 11 strong band who work in complete sympathy with this sometimes challenging venue.

As the 160 minutes run time draws to a conclusion and I reflected on my own choices as a father, reality bites and bites hard. The Tsar’s pogroms force Tevye, his family and the whole community to leave Anatevka and scatter across the globe. He goes to the USA, The Matchmaker to Jerusalem, but others are headed for Krakow, just a short train journey from Auschwitz. 

With so much wit and joy on stage, that poignant reminder of the stakes for these individuals hit hard, as it was its intention, and lent a necessary perspective. The hope that underpinned this musical in the Sixties has, for many peoples in the world today, been eroded by events. That mobs are attempting to burn people out of their homes today, just a short train ride away from a bucolic Regent's Park, is a sobering thought to carry into the night.

• Fiddler on the Roof at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre until 21 September
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