Review: Fiddler on the Roof at AD Players

When radical student Perchik (Patrick Fretwell) enters in the third scene of fiddler on the roof (1964), the Tony Award-winning musical about Jewish life in the Russian Settlement Zone, starring Jerry Bock (music), Sheldon Harnick (lyrics), Joseph Stein (book), and Jerome Robbins (director/choreographer), deftly declares onstage via AD Players that he has just arrived in Anatevka from kyiv. The word slaps us in the face. You can hear the audience’s astonishment. That simple word makes this classic musical resonate with relevance.

All Jews were forced to live in the settlement zone, which today corresponded to Ukraine, Poland and Crimea. In small, poor villages, the infamous shtetls, Jews were discriminated against, brutalized and humiliated. Their precarious lives were limited; communities were forced into menial work that mired them in poverty; their daily existence was threatened by the Tsar’s racist pogroms.

But the Jews had one thing—a faint hope—that sustained them in the darkness: their Tradition. It is the musical’s throughline and a constant source of conflict for Tevye the Milkman (Adam B. Shapiro), as modern life continually challenges his authority. The Papa, as the bracing opening number tells us, “Who must toil day and night to earn his living, to feed his wife and children, to say his daily prayers? And who has the right, as master of the house, to have the final say in the house?”

His rights are taken away by his feisty daughters, his overbearing wife Golde (Aviva Pressman) and new and electrifying ideas from the outside world. Tradition solidifies the past. Change is the future, and Tevye’s cherished tradition is quickly fading. Whether he is ready for it or not, the future will be imposed on him.

Under the sure hand of director Aaron Brown, the fiery feet of choreographer Courtney D. Jones, the klezmer-inspired baton of maestro Jonathan Craft as he leads an 11-piece orchestra, the ensemble cast full of ‘s spirited sets, Torsten Louis’s sets sliding from the wings or down from the hangers, David Gipson’s bejeweled lighting and Leah Smith’s patched woolens and babushkas, this beloved musical shines with freshness and radiant spirituality that we don’t often see on today’s scene.

It wasn’t seen on stage in the 1960s either, which goes a long way to explaining why this most original musical was an immediate success and became the most performed play in Broadway history. until this time. It’s easy to understand why. It’s about family and community as family. The show is full of characters that we respond to. In Stein’s masterful book, they come to life. In Harnick and Bock’s songs, with their chromatic swirls of liturgical chant and equal doses of Broadway dynamism, the show coalesces into a cohesive whole. Fiddler depicts a small, forgotten world that has now become universal.

Shapiro exudes an easy charm, a bit softer than we’ve seen in other performances, but his comedic timing is rich, and Tevye is full of Borscht Belt stuff when he “negotiates” with God or argues with Golde and her older daughters, Tzeitel (Elliett Reinecke), Hodel (Paige Klase) and Chava (Cara DeGaish), who are eager to marry the ones they love, not the ones their daddy arranged with the prickly village matchmaker Yente (Shondra Marie). Tzeitel loves Motel the tailor (Jared Guidry), Hodel falls in love with the fiery Perchik, and the literary Chava sets her sights on the Russian Christian Fyredka (Gabriel Mullen). They all have magnificent voices.

The original show featured Robbins’ signature dances—the “Bottle Dance” sequence at Tzeitel and Motel’s wedding is one example, and you can’t stage a real Fiddler without it. Jones creates a beautiful facsimile for the four dancers, who crouch, kick, and dive with wine bottles on their brimmed straw hats. The routine stops the show, as it should.

My favorite scene has always been “Tevye’s Dream,” where he convinces Golde that Motel is the ideal suitor, not the butcher Lazar Wolf (Michael C. Morrison). He summons the cuddly Grandma Tzeitel (Megan Haines) and Lazar’s vengeful ex-wife Fruma-Sarah (Mara Jill Herman) from behind and between their bed to predict fate if Tzeitel marries the butcher. “How can you let your daughter take my place/House, keys, clothes, pearls?” It’s comically creepy, as Herman’s soprano voice soars as the whole ensemble sways under Gipson’s eerie green lighting. It’s extremely effective and so much fun.

The violinist relevance is more pronounced than ever. Its message of family tradition and a community that suffers but perseveres speaks to all. The fiddler on the roof (Carolina Ornelas) is both a symbol of their precarious existence and their indomitable faith. At the end, as the villagers disperse after the tsar’s edict, the mysterious fiddler follows Tevye and his family on their journey to America. (The reason he leaves his fiddle on the pile of discarded objects seems like the wrong message for the show’s somewhat hopeful conclusion. His music—the bond of Anatevka—must follow Tevye. He’s going to need it.)

Fiddler is one of the great musical masterpieces. No question. Take your children. They will be raised. And they will thank you.

Fiddler on the Roof continues through August 4 at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, and 2:30 p.m. Sundays at the AD Players at the George Theater, 5420 Westheimer. For more information, call 713-526-2721 or visit adplayers.org. $25-75.