A show to make spirits soar in our summer of strife

Fiddler on the Roof
Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London, until September 21

There is a line in Jordan Fein’s spirited and assured production of Fiddler on the Roof where the world-weary Tevye – the part Topol made famous in the film – says that if everyone were to take literally the Old Testament command about “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” then we’d all be blind and toothless.

Theatre – even a classic feelgood musical such as this – can never be seen in isolation from what is happening in the world. Lines often take on a new significance or suddenly seem strangely prescient. The response from the first-night audience at Regent’s Park Theatre to this one struck me as telling: more of a long anguished collective sigh than the laugh it normally gets.

At its best theatre brings people together across cultures and divides and provides comfort and a sense of community and common humanity and I’d say this is theatre at its best. The show’s message – love conquers all – is ultimately made clear towards the end when Gregor Milne as Fyedka asks Tevye to agree to the unthinkable: his daughter Chava (Hannah Bristow) marrying outside the faith.

Adam Dannheisser is very good as Tevye, the poor Jewish milkman struggling to bring up his five daughters in imperialist Russia at the turn of the last century, but it is very much an ensemble production rather than a star vehicle for any one actor. The show’s big numbers – such as Sunrise, Sunset, Tradition and If I Were a Rich Man – are played out with gusto under the musical direction of Dan Turek and greatly aided by Julia Cheng’s wonderful choreography.

Happily, too, Tom Scutt’s vast set enables the Fiddler – Raphael Papo – to periodically perform from the roof.