A train pulls into a station, and a young man wearing a red hooded sweatshirt and carrying a book steps off and gazes around. That’s not the usual start of “Fiddler on the Roof,” but it’s how director Bartlett Sher begins his revival of this musical.
That man could be the great-great-grandson of Tevye, the Jewish father of five daughters who is at the center of this musical. The man pulls off the hoodie, dons a cap and reveals the knotted fringes of a prayer shawl. And now he’s the Tevye we know, the beleaguered milkman living in the village of Anatevka in pre-revolutionary Russia.
This touring version (now at Hollywood’s Pantages Theatre through May 5, then at the Segerstrom in Costa Mesa, May 7-16) largely resembles the 1964 musical’s many, many traditional versions. After all, tradition is near to Tevye’s heart. Will its other alterations enhance or ruin the production for this musical’s aficionados?
Its story is relatively well-known (book by Joseph Stein), its songs (music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick) are iconic. To introduce us to the villagers, the ensemble sings “Tradition,” in which fathers, mothers, sons and daughters explain their places in the hierarchy of Eastern European Judaism.
Tevye (Yehezkel Lazarov), who has been hewing relentlessly to this way of life, insists the father is the absolute ruler of the family. His wife, Golde (Maite Uzal), shrugs, figuring she who runs the kitchen rules the roost.
Tevye and Golde are willing to give their daughters’ fates up to the village matchmaker, Yente (Carol Beaugard). But their daughters are beginning to peel away from these traditions.
Eldest daughter Tzeitel (Mel Weyn) is in love with her childhood best friend, Motel (Jesse Weil), and pleads heartbreakingly with her father not to force her into an arranged marriage with the richer, older, previously married Lazar Wolf (Jonathan Von Mering). Tradition? Tevye relents.
An itinerant scholar and political activist, Perchick (Ryne Nardecchia) comes through town. The hospitable Tevye invites him in. Second daughter Hodel (Ruthy Froch), irrepressibly intelligent, sparks with him, and they, too, agree on marriage before seeking Tevye’s permission. Tradition? Tevye relents.
Third daughter, the shy little Chava (Natalie Powers), catches the eye of a Russian gentile, the liberal-minded Fyedka (Joshua Logan Alexander), who wins her literate heart. Tradition? This one Tevye cannot break.
Performances are solid, though a few are ridiculously laden with shtick. Weil is required to play Motel as a querulous, milquetoast mess. Surely anyone who has had to ask a father for permission to marry his child can appreciate Motel’s utter anxiety without watching his humiliated dive under Tevye’s milk cart.
What village would keep relying on a rabbi (Michael Hegarty) who seems senile? Why does Yenta have a New York accent? And the acknowledgement of the orchestra by a character or two takes us out of life in Anatevka.
The memorable songs sound rich in Ted Sperling’s new orchestrations and under Michael Uselmann’s music direction. Some songs seem slower than as usually performed, but this gives the audience time to absorb the lyrics and subtext, and it in no way alters the crisp pacing of the show.
Speaking of traditions and modernizations, Hofesh Shechter choreographs. Although the choreography remains based on the original, by Jerome Robbins (re-created here by Christopher Evans), Shechter brings in a hip-hop feel, danced fully and thrillingly by the ensemble.
Scenic design, by Michael Yeargan, sets the action against a stories-tall brick wall. Houses in the background hang in midair, rootless and unsettled. Tevye’s barn, where the Jewish families learn they’re being expelled, seems to foreshadow various possible fates.
At the show’s end, the brick wall lifts, and infinite opportunities are available — but not to the Jews. They trudge in a circle, endlessly. That’s the fate of the Jewish people, apparently condemned to perpetual insecurity, fearing that any homeland will be chiseled away, wondering if their next national leader will welcome an open resurgence of anti-Semitism.
Tevye seems sure the God he constantly implores, chides, shakes his fist at, has ignored him. But Tevye and his family are among the lucky ones: alive, able to move, able to find a new land and, judging by Tevye’s great-great-grandson, able to survive while cherishing tradition.
Dany Margolies is a Los Angeles-based writer.
‘Fiddler on the Roof’
Rating: ****
Where: Hollywood Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood
When: Through May 5: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays
Tickets: $49–$311
Length: 2 hours and 50 minutes, including intermission
Suitability: Ages 8 and up; children under 5 will not be admitted to the theater
Information: 800-982-2787, hollywoodpantages.com
Where: Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa
When: May 7-May 19: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays
Tickets: $29-$119
Information: 714-556-2787, www.SCFTA.org