The nagging question hanging over the transfer of Jordan Fein’s hugely-successful London revival of Fiddler on the Roof from Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre to the Barbican was how well it would work once Tevye’s daughters, their parents, suitors and neighbours – the whole of Anatevka, in fact – had been called indoors to play.
For the big win, one of three following an astonishing 13 Olivier nominations for a seasonal summer play, was Tom Scutt’s alfresco set design. He brought the shtetl to life like never before with hay bales and corn sheaves, with the precarious straw roof on which the fiddler perches to follow the milkman’s increasingly tested progress through troubled times – a metaphor for Anatevka itself. Beyond the Pale in Tsarist Russia, even a basic human right like a roof over your head is not to be taken for granted by Jews.
The Brutalist Barbican is as much of a contrast as you can get to a stage in a sylvan park where real trees – and famously for the Regent’s Park production, a real sunset – play their part in enhancing the action, but Scutt has worked his magic again by constructing a mezzanine lined with wheat sheafs on which Raphael Papo’s virtuoso violinist opens the action. This harbinger of doom perches above a white-faced cast, stock-still and frozen in time, presciently playing the ghosts they will soon become when forced to leave their wretched but beloved ancestral home.
This is the first set piece of many coming hard on the heels of each other in a dazzling first act which proves hard to follow. Tevye’s dream is spectacularly brought to life with a plethora of white sheeting – crocheted, of course, like bubble’s tablecloths – by the entire 30-strong company, who within minutes manage to re-emerge in their Sunday best for Tzeitel’s wedding. Here the star turn is the famous bottle dance reimagined by choreographer Julia Cheng in tribute to Jerome Robbins’ unforgettable original. In fact the dancing of five or six incredibly talented young male hoofers is more thrilling than any of the acting performances.
But the best of those are special – American Adam Dannheisser makes a fine Tevye, while Lara Pulver is luminous as a Golde displaying a rarely-seen fragililty as well as the hard-as-nails resilience required of shtetl mothers wont to lose their children to childhood illness or conscription even before the challenges of 20th century times. The original disruptor is pro-Communist Perchik, the travelling teacher – a standout performance here by Daniel Krikler, who dances even better than he acts. Would that the same could be said of Gregor Milne, who despite a fine voice and fleet footing gives an underpowered performance as Fyedka, the sympathetic Russian gentile destined to break Tevye and Golde’s hearts.
Lara Pulver as Golde and Adam Dannheiser as Tevye. Photo: Marc Brenner
The chief disruptor, of course, is Fyedka’s bride, the defiant daughter Chava, and her abrupt break with tradition is symbolised by the clarinet she unexpectedly fields to play out her emotions – a nod to the coming jazz age as well as a challenge to the fiddler. He is forced to leave Anatevka with the other Jews he has forever haunted with his presence at life events in constant, mocking warning that even their most joyous moments carry risk. It’s a message that resonates more than ever a century later in a post-October 7 world rife with antisemitic incidents.
Hannah Bristow’s Chava shines, and could have been better showcased at the Barbican, where her pivotal scenes are rushed along with all the other action in the second half – perhaps an intentional nod to the speed of change for Jews in an era of pogroms, revolution and mass emigration. But this London revival is not so much about pace or performances – it will be remembered more for the Fiddler, promoted to a major character for whose portrayal Papo was rightly nominated for an Olivier, and his ever-shifting roof.
Fiddler On the Roof runs at the Barbican until July 19
