Fiddler on the Roof/Open Air Theatre (Regent’s Park)
Fiddler on the Roof is a wonderful musical of catchy songs, humour and two engaging themes of displacement and tradition confronting change.
This performance does it justice. American actor Adam Dannheiszer is well cast as the philosophical Tevye the milkman clinging to his traditional stetl life, though I am old enough to remember Topol.
Lara Polver also does well as wife Golda. Beverley Klein is entertaining as the matchmaker, The performance I most enjoyed was Raphael Popo as the fiddler In the original production the fiddler stayed on the roof but in this one was more peripatetic and this worked well
Apart from dragging his milk cart personally as his horse is lame, Tevye’s principal concern is the stubborn resistance of his five daughters to conform especially over their marital choices.
This is still a live issue in the Jewish community as recently when Edwina Currie’s decision to marry ‘out’ resulted in her father not speaking to her for the rest of her successful life
Underlying this is another concern, namely that because of a Tsarist pogrom the villagers of Anatevksawil have to leave.
The final plaintive note from the Fiddler augurs that a worse fate awaits most of them.
The audience was mainly Jewish but my companion came from Caribbean Granada. I did not have the chance to compare notes in displacement between our two communities.
Jewish people will argue that, because of their traditions, their culture is more transferable. 125 years on, after being displaced – and the Holocaust – Jewish people can claim they have done well but there is truth in Tevye’s conversation with the Almighty:
“Why did you not choose someone else?“
The Open Aur Theatre is a magnificent sylvaner setting and we were blessed with a warm evening though it did get cold in the second act.
A word of warning though: the performance lasts 2 hours 40 minutes and ended at 22-40pm, when we found ourselves in a dark park and still a long walk from Baker Street station.
