Refreshed Fiddler feels ripped from the headlines

Dancers in Fiddler on the Roof, at Calgary's Jubilee Auditorium Jan. 10, 2022 (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Funny how a musical set in 1905 in rural Russia that opened on Broadway in 1964 can feel like it’s telling a story ripped from today's headlines.

And yet, that’s exactly how it felt watching the opening night of Fiddler on the Roof, Broadway Across Canada’s moving production about Tevye (a wonderful Jonathan Hashmonay) a traditional Jewish dairy farmer in an early 20th century Russian village trying to cope with three willful daughters coming of age under the shadow of an oppressive, anti-Semitic Russian aristocracy.

If you’ve ever followed musicals, Fiddler is forever known as the story of Tevye, who’s poor, married for 25 years, beloved in his small-town, good-humoured and generous - and pretty much incapable of getting anyone in his family to do what he wants them to do, despite the fact that "poppa" is supposed to have the final word on things like marriage proposals.

Jonathan Hashmonay as Tevye in Broadway Across Canada production of Fiddler on the Roof (Photo courtesy Joan Marcus)

It’s the turn of the 20th century and daughters are supposed to get dad’s approval and blessing for their intended partners, but Tevye’s three girls -  willful Tzeitl (Randa Meierhenry), idealistic Hodel (Grace Ann Kontak) and hopelessly romantic Chava (Yarden Barr) - have a better sense than their parents that the times are changing, like they do at the turn of every century.

That means marrying for love, even if your soul mate is a penniless tailor named Motel (Daniel Kushner, excellent), a penniless Ukrainian radical from Kyiv named Perchik (Austin J. Gresham, charismatically impoverished) who wants to save humanity from Russian tyranny, or - worst of all - a Russian guy who’s not even Jewish named Fyedka (a sympathetic Caron Robinette)!

One by one, they test Tevye’s patience, where he reveals a deep well of it, along with paternal love for his children, humour and compassion - mostly. Although by the time he gets to the Russian guy, he pretty much loses his cool, but hey - marrying a Russian guy?

Over Tevye's dead body.

ICONIC SOUNDTRACK

Fiddler’s first act is filled with some of the most iconic Broadway songs ever composed - Matchmaker, If I Were a Rich Man, and later, Sunrise/Sunset, all of them arranged and performed beautifully by the company and accompanying orchestra, which sounded gorgeous Tuesday night.

And it all might be set in the Russian steppes in 1905, but this Fiddler’s design team (with costumes by Catherine Zuber) has a few shoutouts to shows like Cabaret, with a bunch of spiffy Russian dancers wearing long black overcoats, high-riding jackboots and floppy hats that are nothing short of glorious.

When the Russians show up at the local tavern the same day that Tevye and the local butcher Lazar Wolf (gruff and admirable Andrew Hendrick) share a bottle to celebrate an apparent love match - the well-heeled, property-owning butcher wants to marry Tevye’s oldest daughter and Tevye wants her to marry him, too - there’s no violence. Instead, there’s a dynamite dance scene (originally choreographed by Hofesh Shecter) that feels ripped from the 21st century.

The second act of Fiddler turns dark as the family dramedy of Tevye and his difficult daughters is forced to share stage time with the encroaching Russians, who are clearing villages of Jews all across the country, setting in motion a great exodus of Jewish people,  to America and Europe, South Africa and elsewhere that set in motion other dark moments of the 20th century.

Randa Meierhenry as Zeitel and Daniel Kushner as Motel in Fiddler on the Roof (Photo: Courtesy Joan Marcus)

The daughters leave the village to chase love in all the unlikeliest places, like Siberia.

The bubble of village life, where the Jewish community and the Russian constabulary exist mainly in a kind of uneasy harmony, gets shattered by orders from afar to clear out the Jews.

At the curtain call, Hashmonay, who was excellent as Tevye, announced that the entire run of the show was dedicated to Ukraine and the Ukrainians resisting the Russian invasion of their country. Then the cast launched into a final, joyful dance in tribute to the present-day resistance fighters of Kyiv, bringing a stage classic to a very contemporary closing moment on a memorable, moving opening night.

Mazel Tov!

Fiddler on the Roof is at the Jubilee through Jan. 15.