Jewelle Blackman (top) with Kate Henning (bottom centre) and company (photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)
Tradition Abounds!
This Fiddler may play it safe, but the effect is powerful
by Stuart Munro and Dave Ross
@StuartMunroTO
@dmjross
Stratford’s first musical offering of the season is Bock and Harnick’s perennial classic, Fiddler on the Roof. This long-time favourite has been praised for its ability to speak to peoples from all backgrounds and histories; its appeal is that one doesn’t have to be Jewish to understand the plight of Tevye and his family – through him, we all become Jewish for the night and learn what it feels like to be marginalized and persecuted for no reason.
Stuart Munro: I want to start this off by saying I love this show. Fiddler is easily in my top five, all-time favourite musicals. And things last night started off well enough. The Festival Theatre stage has been transformed into two distinct locales – the greys of Anatevka in the world below, and the bright colours of the Chagall-inspired Heaven above (the title of the musical comes from a Marc Chagall painting called “The Green Violinist”). The opening number, “Tradition,” was exciting and set the tone for what should’ve been an equally exciting show. But somewhere along the way, things started to fall a little flat. And though I expect people will disagree with me strongly on this, the weak link in this production is Scott Wentworth as Tevye. Too often he played the comedy of the text, not the drama (the script is funny already, it doesn’t need help!), and he seemed to be in a tremendous rush. I just wanted him to slow down and take his time with the words. A lot of what Wentworth does works very well, but his principle motivations seemed misguided.
