Fiddler on the Roof at the Barbican Theatre – review

Ahead of a major tour, the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre’s multi-award-winning revival of Fiddler on the Roof moves indoors for a summer spell at the Barbican.

Its return makes complete sense – a critical and audience smash (becoming a record-breaking show during its blockbuster open-air season), Jordan Fein’s production is a sure bet for any producer: mixing well-known classic tunes with a tale that carries deep resonance.

Many of the leads are back following their considered and well-honed performances outdoors. Adam Dannheisser’s rich, oaky bass effortlessly conjures the beleaguered Jewish milkman Tevye, beset by woe as he attempts to either marry off, or stop the marriage of, his eldest daughters. Though presenting a Tevye a sharp tongued that knows exactly where to find the laughs, Dannheisser teases out a marinated melancholy absent from so many other, more whimsical, takes on the character.

Lara Pulver, providing stoic support as Golda, is his perfect foil – their duet on “Do You Love Me?” is tinged with a resigned empathy that provides a brief moment of personal connection amidst the whirlwind of communal chaos.

A new addition to the cast is Natasha Jules Bernard as eldest daughter Tzeitel (replacing Olivier nominee Liv Andrusier with aplomb) while the Fiddler, played once more by Raphael Papo, remains a benign spectral presence.

Fein’s direction and conceptual clarity are as tight as they were last year: the way Tevye’s community in Anatevka slowly slides from fizzing harmony into immobility as the night progresses, ending the show almost rooted to the spot as they are forced out of their homes.

In fact, the most considerable alteration is Tom Scutt’s set, reconfigured from its Open Air location as much out of necessity as anything else. Rather than the rural sprawl evoked last year, Scutt uses rows of chest-height crops to pen in the town, while a looming slab of granite is suspended above. It creates a sense of claustrophobia, a community simultaneously teetering on a cliff-edge and ready to fall into the abyss, while also living under a great weight positioned directly overhead. Given so much of the show concerns a village persecuted for their faith by the tsar’s antisemitic followers, the visual metaphors are inescapable.

Scutt’s slightly anachronistic design touches remain: this time including a clattering shutter off stage left, an exposed brick wall and dabs of contemporary costume choices. Once more, the past and present blend with disconcerting ease.

She may not have the magic of the outdoor sunsets to go with the show’s sunrises, but lighting designer Aideen Malone conjures up a superb, almost entropic world – an Anatevka gradually desaturating as the night turns cold. Julia Cheng’s choreography, just as electrifying as it was last year, is now given even more time in the spotlight, sitting centre-stage in a smaller space.

The pertinence of the story — about communities displaced, oppressed, and removed from their homes — is no less pronounced than it was almost a year ago. Fires still rage. Animosity and hatred endure. This production is a keen reminder of theatre’s power in providing not only a safe space for expression, but equally an uncompromising, inescapable mirror unflinchingly held up to the present day.