Lincolnshire's 'Fiddler': A Must-See, With Quibbles

Now through April 25, 2010, at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, Illinois, is a "Fiddler On The Roof" for our time. It is true that we still have fresh memories of the not-quite ageless actor Topol as Tevye the dairyman, appearing in productions of this Bock-Harnick-Stein musical for almost 45 years (including last year in Chicago) but who is now 74 years old. As of late, actors, directors and designers are in the process of reimagining this jewel of the American musical theater (arguably the last masterpiece of the Golden Age) for 21st century audiences. With the combination of popular character star Ross Lehman as Tevye and David H. Bell as director and choreographer, the Marriott Theatre has mounted a moving and intimate new production of this staple of the repertory, and done so with a few newfound insights, a few lost old ones, but with a lot of the same universal human emotions that have made this show about Russian Jewish peasants a hundred years ago an international favorite for five decades. 

I should tell you right off that, where "Fiddler" is concerned, I am a traditionalist. In the mid-1980s I was involved, on and offstage, with three different productions, and darn good ones, if I say so myself. But I understand that the Marriott's in-the-round configuration requires a certain amount of rethinking of any show originally staged in a proscenium theater. And I liked what I initially saw Saturday night at Lincolnshire--a central flat playing space like a road, surrounded by short platforms for levels, one of which contained a clever, hidden well or stream of some kind (set design by Thomas M. Ryan). There were beams with hooks, and not a Marc Chagall swirl in sight. It was all suitably rustic, if not particularly Russian looking. (It might very well have been the set for "110 In The Shade" or "Oklahoma!," or a farm in Wisconsin.) 

But I was concerned during the show's legendary opening number, "Tradition," that all but the barest outline of Jerome Robbins' Tony-winning staging had been wiped away. I thought that productions are required to utilize his staging, and include a sentence in the program that reads "Original Choreography By Jerome Robbins Recreated By Ourchore E. Ographer," or some such. Apparently not, for Marriott did not and did not. 

Don't get me wrong. Everybody in "the Little Village of Anatevka" had their arms up in that familiar Mediterranean folk-dance pose (but with palms facing out, rather than in), and later on, Tevye and Lazar Wolf hooked arms to drink, some men touched heel to floor while balancing bottles on their hats, and the ghost of Fruma-Sarah (Heidi Kettenring, sounding fantastic) rose up on the hidden shoulders of two chorus boys (with the addition of a big piece of cloth used to much better effect than in that "Wicked" show you may have heard about). But if you are looking for a faithful recreation of Robbins' staging, even adapted for a round (or square, if you'd rather) stage, you will be disappointed. 

What will you find instead? A familiar feel, an authentic and vitally lived-in (if mostly overly-scrubbed) staging, wherein a hard-working middle-aged man in a culture vastly different from our own sees the courtship rituals he believes in and then his entire community wiped away, by forces he tries to understand and then ultimately cannot. He can't even bring his traditions with him to the new world at the end, as the metaphor of the Fiddler is used differently by director Bell here. Tevye must remember them from afar instead, and we don't know whether he is successful. It's an interesting take. 

Indeed, the first act of this production plays stronger than the second, which I'm not sure is how it usually goes. Once the Fiddler (the excellent Gregory Hirte, playing some of his own bits and pieces, I think) vanishes, the rest seems a little too inevitable. And the cutting of the "comic relief" number "The Rumor" (common for a while now) doesn't help, in that there is no reason to see that all this will end any way but the worst. The audience has no faith left, as we travel the show's lengthy descent into sadness. Cutting the ballet portion of "Chavaleh" doesn't help either--as it is the only moment of imaginative escape the writers gave the second act.