Review Roundup: What Did The Critics Think of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF?

Jordan Fein's new production of Fiddler on the Roof is now open at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre.

It’s 1905 in the tiny village of Anatevka where Tevye, a Jewish milkman, lives his life by their proud traditions. For his five daughters, that means a visit from the matchmaker… But as each daughter challenges his beliefs, against the backdrop of a changing world, can Tevye hold on to his roots, or must he bend to the will of his children and learn to embrace the unfamiliar?

Featuring glorious songs, IIf I Were A Rich Man", "Tradition", "Matchmaker" and "Sunrise, Sunset", this classic musical of joy, revolution and community is an exuberant celebration of love and life.

What did the critics think?

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

Photo Credit: Marc Brenner

Cindy Marcolina, BroadwayWorld.com: Adam Dannheisser forgoes the showmanship that’s usually associated with the benevolent patriarch for a line-up of dad jokes and winks thrown at the audience. He towers over everybody, acutely sardonic yet suitably sombre. Dannheisser introduces a devoted, profound man who loves his family and secretly always seeks his wife’s approval. It’s Lara Pulver’s rebuttals as Golde that make his outdated worldviews and backhanded misogyny sting a little less than they would otherwise. She is a force of nature, revealing a powerful voice and an arresting presence.

Sarah Crompton, WhatsOnStage: The quality of Jordan Fein’s wonderful, emotional production is that it perfectly holds the balance of Fiddler on the Roof, neither tilting towards saccharine nor bitterness, towards schmaltz or politics. It honours the care with which book writer Joseph Stein, lyricist Sheldon Harnick and composer Jerry Bock first created the show in 1964, under the passionate ferocity of their director Jerome Robbins.

David Benedict, The Stage: Fein’s winning approach is to strip away anything remotely sentimental in the storytelling, which can sometimes curdle into kitsch. Far from robbing the show of emotion, it allows audiences to feel the vivid sentiment coursing throughout Joseph Stein’s book and Bock and Harnick’s beloved score.

Time Out, TimeOut: Fein, who co-directed ‘sexy Oklahoma!’ when it came to London last year and helped strip it of any hokey old associations, eradicates the kitsch here, too. Yes it’s funny – Adam Dannheisser’s Tevye still cracks jokes and talks to the audience, though he’s more dad-funny than the kind of showman-comedian that Tevye often becomes – and yes it’s faithful, but this is a serious production.

Marianka Swain, The Telegraph: Choreographer Julia Cheng keeps the best of Jerome Robbins’s work (like the famous bottle dance) while adding grit: one drunken reveller does a split jump off a table while spitting vodka. Mark Aspinall’s superb orchestrations find new details in the kletzmer-esque score, while onstage violinist Raphael Papo and Bristow, who supplies plaintive clarinet-playing, add to the spine-tingling atmosphere.

Neil Fisher, The Times: The paterfamilias of this story can be stoic, wry, fierce, anguished, uproarious, pious. The appealing Adam Dannheisser goes for something between all these things — not entirely convincingly. His strongest suit is a sitcom frazzlement — this is Reb Tevye meets Ross Geller from Friends. Lara Pulver brings quiet dignity rather than shrewishness to Tevye’s wife, Golde, and Dan Wolff is a triumphantly nerdy Motel. The actresses playing Tevye’s three eldest daughters grow in stature as the night goes on, and Liv Andrusier’s Tzeitel gets to show her musical-theatre chops in a brilliantly grand guignol staging of Tevye’s Dream.

Average Rating: 93.3%

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