Fiddler on the Roof

Judith Newmark - Post-Dispatch Theater Critic - 6/17/2003

As the star of the Muny's opening production, "Fiddler on the Roof," Bruce Adler doesn't simply play a part. It seems as though he's found his alter ego.

Strange as it sounds, the veteran musical-comedy performer has never before played Tevye, a Jewish dairyman in old Russia. Never mind; now, he's bound to. It feels ... well, in English, you'd say destined. But what it really is, is b'shert. Touching and thoughtful, Adler's performance passes a classic role to a new generation - and a new, definitive interpreter.

Tevye is a terrific character. He dominates the musical, loosely based on stories by Yiddish author Sholom Aleichem. Tevye has plenty of problems - he's poor, he has five unmarried daughters, and he's part of a group whose neighbors treat with routine scorn and occasional bursts of violence. But he faces his troubles with cheer, faith and, as the big opening number points out, a strong reliance on "Tradition," the linchpin of his whole community.

Many gifted performers have played Tevye, notably Zero Mostel, who created the role, and Theodore Bikel, who starred the last time the show played the Muny. They have, as a rule, tended toward a broad style, brimming with bonhomie; think Zorba the Jew.

That's not Adler's approach. In the first place, he portrays a considerably younger man. That makes sense; his children are still under 20. More important, he's a normal man, quietly chatting with God in the same offhand way he talks to his wife or the kosher butcher. When he sings and dances, he's modulated rather than extravagant, an approach that lets the tenderness of "Sunrise, Sunset" or the wry humor of "If I Were a Rich Man" shine through. It's no criticism of his many distinguished predecessors to observe that Adler's more natural style suits our times. Not only does he emphasize the artistry of the songs by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick - rather than the artist - but he makes it easier to relate to Tevye as a man and a father.

That's increasingly important today, as the world that "Fiddler" depicts, the world of the Eastern European Jewish village, recedes into history. Adler's performance makes us realize how much we still have in common with the Jews of little Anatevka - families struggling with questions of love and loyalty that have changed only in style, not substance.

Besides, "Fiddler" is far too good to write off as a quaint curio. At the Muny, Sammy Dallas Bayes has re-created Jerome Robbins' groundbreaking direction and choreography (Bayes danced in the Robbins' production). It remains a vivid style of storytelling, especially with a set, by Steve Gilliam, that pays homage to the paintings of Marc Chagall. These touchstone images - airborne shacks, one topped by a raggedy musician (Conner Gallagher) - simultaneously locate us in time and place, and dislocate us by suspending the rules of gravity. Like many Chagall paintings, "Fiddler" invites us into an illogical, emotion-soaked dream world where stability is an illusion.

The show's biggest number actually is a dream - well, a fake dream that Tevye cooks up to persuade his superstitious wife (Susan Cella) to let their oldest daughter marry the poor tailor she loves. In this lively sequence, the big ensemble lets loose, especially Michele Burdette-Elmore, Jesse Bernath and Jane Pisarkiewicz as comically nightmare creatures.

The nightmare spectacle has a poignant counterpoint, "Chavaleh," in which Tevye dreams of his eldest daughters (gracefully portrayed by Juliana Stefanov, Sara Schmidt and the sweet soprano Andrea Burns) as they move away from him into lives of their own. With the stage drenched in designer David Lander's deep rose light, Tevye curls up on his pushcart as the young women behind him form a line, then a circle - and then are gone. Though our reasons may be different, any parent can understand just how he feels.

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