Fiddler on the Roof

Musical (1964)
Book by Joseph Stein
Music by Jerry Bock
Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick

With Jeremiah Kissel (Tevye), Amelia Broome (Golde), Abby Goldfarb (Tzeitel), Sara Oakes Muirhead (Hodel), Victoria Britt (Chava), Dashiell Evett (Fiddler), Ryan Mardesich (Perchik), Dan Prior (Fyedka), Eli Raskin (Constable), Bobbie Steinbach (Yente), Patrick Varner (Motel), David Wohl (Lazar Wolf)

This lovely, now classic, musical, first made famous on Broadway in 1964 with Zero Mostel as Tevye, has probably been performed in every high school in the United States since then. How difficult it is, then, to pull off a regional revival of a show that screams endless familiarity and potentially resultant boredom.

Here, amazingly, in this revival at the New Rep, this sweet chestnut takes on entirely new life. Its energy is distinctive; its production values are high. It’s a fabulous production.

The story of Tevye and his five daughters, three of whom go off to marry in progressively errant and challenging ways, captures, with its wittily conceived book, its memorable and sometimes clever lyrics, and its catchy combination of pure showbiz tunes and Eastern European musical tropes, something memorable and penetrating about Jewish life in Russia at the turn of the century. But after so much retreading of this show it is a trick to convey those characters and scenes in a way that feels new and interesting.

In this production, the staging and choreography are remarkably good; that provides the template for this energetic revival. Every moment seems to involve a clever set of movements each of which adds punctuation and intrigue to what might in less inventive hands seem routine and flat. Sometimes the dancing itself is complex, but overall the supplementary movements to the staging are relatively simple but very effective. They season the production throughout, making the actions of the cast shimmer.

Jeremiah Kissel is a wonderfully textured Tevye. As he warmed up through the evening, Kissel’s schtick got better and better. If I Were A Rich Man, Tevye’s early signature song, was a little too tame, but later songs were evocative and right on. Tevye’s ongoing conversations with the Almighty come off beautifully in Kissel’s hands; and he manages masterfully the major challenge of the role, to be at once judgmental and self-effacingly humorous.

Kissel is a versatile actor who has given many memorable performances in the Boston area over the years. Here he has a role in which he can really cut loose. When he does so, it really flies. He is primarily an actor, not a singer, but he manages musically very well here. His part in Do You Love Me? is full of uncertainty and quiet insistence; it’s hauntingly touching.

Actors in the other major roles pull them all off with real expertise. The quality of singing and acting throughout is strikingly good.

Each of the three daughters is distinctively persuasive both in drama and song. Abby Goldfarb as Tzeitel has a great sense of physical comedy. Sara Oakes Muirhead as Hodel and Victoria Britt as Chava have strong voices and vivid presences. Their trio in Matchmaker, Matchmaker is sung with strength and poise; the choreographed gags are particularly entertaining.

Patrick Varner as Motel provides a great comic presence, cowering before Tevye hilariously, then turning around and banging out Miracle of Miracles boldly and triumphantly.

Ryan Mardesich as Perchik provides great faux-intellectual Marxist patter trying to propose the idea of marriage to Hodel, then comes out with a beautifully snazzy rendition of the very Broadwayish Now I Have Everything.

Bobbie Steinbach, one of the gems of Boston’s stages, gives a hilarious account of Yente, delivering the familiar lines with such panache and ingenious intonation that it keeps the laughs coming even for the gags the audience knows well.

As Golde, Tevye’s better half, Amelia Broome provides the appropriate hard-edge, fitting slyly and competently into that somewhat difficult role.

Even the costumes in this show, by Kathleen Doyle, are strikingly good. The three marriagable daughters all wear inventively colorful arrays of peasant garb that are pretty stylish, making the neo-shtetl look very appealing.

The orchestra does a fine job, though, being small, its sound is quite distinctively more spare than what gets from the original recordings or at a Broadway revival. Fiddler is in revival on Broadway til the end of the year with a great Tevye (Danny Burstein) in the leading role; but this production at the New Rep, in terms of inventiveness of staging, choreography, and consistency of musical and dramatic performances, is, perhaps surprisingly, more distinctive.

– BADMan