Fiddler on the Roof
Congress Theatre, Eastbourne
until Sat 8th November
Fiddler on the Roof
Congress Theatre, Eastbourne
Until Saturday 8th November
Fiddler on the Roof is ‘one of those musicals’ that people of a certain age are very familiar with. The 1971 movie starring Topol was a regular holiday feature on TV and together with films like The Sound of Music and Oklahoma, the darker side is somewhat whitewashed.
On stage the sinister hidden depths are more prevalent. It is the story of a Jewish community at the turn of the 20th Century living in Russia during the Pale of Settlement, a time when Jews were forbidden to maintain permanent residency anywhere and lived in fear of racial killings.
The story focuses around Tevye a struggling milkman and his family living in the small village of Anatevka. He laments how he was blessed with 5 daughters and no sons. He is desperate for them to marry well in the Jewish faith. His own life is steeped in tradition but when to tries to instil his values in his daughters he finds that they have other ideas.
Matthew Woodyatt embraces the role of Tevye. He conveys a wry wit as he offers his godly wisdom to the audience. Together with his long suffering wife Golde (Jodie Jacobs) they traverse parenthood in a changing world. As each of Tevye’s daughter’s Tzeital (Natasha Jules Barnard), Hodel (Ashleigh Schuman) and Chava (Hannah Bristow) each make their choices there is a shift in the political stability of their village and hard decisions need to be made.
A beautiful touch to this production was the use of the fiddler. In previous productions I have seen he is just a cameo but here Roman Lytwyniw has a constant presence in the show, shadowing Tevye’s emotions. Tom Scott’s staging beautifully represents Anatevka overshadowed by a wheat covered roof giving it a sense of oppression.
Director Jordan Fein’s production comes at a very poignant time. The themes resonate uncomfortably, in this time of worldwide political upheaval. I also loved the way the cast used their own accents in the production, instead of hearing Russian accents we heard a mix of Welsh, Scottish and London amongst others, reminding us how universal this story could be. As Tevye reminds us, lives can be as shaky as ‘a fiddler on the roof’. Sobering.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Reviewer: Sammi O’Neill
#gifted.
Cast
Matthew Woodyatt, Jodie Jacobs, Beverly Klein, Georgia Bruce, Roman Lytwyniw, Greg Bernstein, Michael S. Seigel, Natasha Jules Bernard, Gregor Milne, Hannah Bristow, Raphael Papo, Dan Wolff, Simon Anthony, Gareth Davies, Sion Lloyd, Sue Appleby Georgia Dixon, Carys McQueen, Mark Faith, Ed Bruggemeyer, Jack Osmond, Alex Pinder, Ashleigh Schuman, Susannah Van Den Berg, Toby Turpin, Maya Kristal Tenenbaum, Karl Wilson, Dylan Saffer, Chris Draper, Brady Issacs Pearce