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Fiddler On The Roof

Playhouse, Edinburgh
4 stars
There’s a strangely subdued air prior to this touring revival of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s 1964 musical set among the Jewish community in early twentieth century Russia. It’s as if the lights have been lowered in mourning for the death of the serious musical. Because, in this yarn about milkman Tevye and his five daughters, Joseph Stein’s book is integral to action inspired by Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem in a way which makers of cheaply strung-together modern shows would be agape at. With this in mind, beyond If I Were A Rich Man, it’s unlikely that such a solemn affair would be a hit now without dollops of flash, bang, wallop injected into it.

Director Julian Woolford keeps his nerve, however, in an elegant rendering set against golden biblical skies on which choreographed silhouettes play out the spirit of shattered community. And it can surely be no coincidence that the towers that line either side of the stage resemble the equally stark Holocaust Museum in Berlin.

Beyond such reference points, Joe McGann leads things as an understated and avuncular Tevye in a show which at times is an extended set of family rituals set to music. As the everyday comedy of the life he’s built gradually unravels, both Tevye and his family are forced to come to terms with change at every level. While admirably restrained, here McGann could nevertheless do with more pathos than the stoicism he deals with things with. Bock’s score, scaled-up here with sensitive arrangements, more than compensates in a rare show that’s thought-provoking history lesson as much as it is a slow-burning entertainment to savour.

The Herald, April 16th 2008

ends

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