Fiddler Feb 18

Posted: 2/18/04 at 2:30pm

I took my wife and daughters to see Fiddler last night. Fiddler is perhaps my favorite musical. I've seen many of the revivals, and of course, the movie. I wanted to take the opportunity to comment on it.

On the whole, I was disappointed.

It's not clear to me why they cast Alfred Molina as Tevye. He is a Spanish/Italian man, who has no experience singing (that I could find). His voice lacks the power that Tevye needs. Rich Man probably suffered the most in that regard. To me, the part also requires a slight accent; Molina played the part without one.

There was a comment on this board last week that Barbara Barrie was not Jewish enough to play Yente. (She has been replaced; we saw Nancy Opel's first night.) For that comment not to have been extended to include Molina leads me to think that Barrie played the role in a nun's habit. Apart from his properly enunciating his ch's, as in Chava, there was nothing about his manner that made me think for a second that he was Jewish.

Nancy Opel was fine. She muffed one or two lines, but it was not a problem. And the cast seemed to embrace her.

During Anatevka, the two younger daughters were inappropriately playing and throwing leaves around, while the rest of the cast was bemoaning that they were being tossed out of their homes. Wildly inappropriate, and incredibly distracting from the action.

During Do You Love Me (one of my favorite songs), Molina stood next to the open well (a trap door), and I was honestly so distracted by the fear that he might fall into it that I did not enjoy the song. The closeness between Tevye and Golde that is so evident in other productions was, however, missing in this version. There was some playfulness, but the song was flat. When Golde says "I suppose I do," that's one of the most powerful lines in the show (to me), and it was just glossed over here.

I also thought that much of the dancing lacked the energy and enthusiasm that I felt it should have, although the Russian dancing was very good.

In Far From the Home I Love, there was no indication that they were waiting for a train. Chava just walked off stage at the end of the song. My daughters had no idea there was supposed to be a train involved. Why couldn't they use a train silhouette, or at least a train whistle sfx?

Many of the other voices were very good. Golde, Hodel, and Chava sang beautifully. I thought Tzeitel's voice was a little shrill, but it was fine.

The sets are lovely. The trees are a nice touch. The single set works, but there is one serious problem with them. They block the action that is going on against the back of the set. They use silhouettes a lot, and during the Sabbath Prayer behind a semi-transparent backdrop, you could see other families lighting their own Shabbat candles. However, from our seats in the balcony (2nd row center), many of the silhouettes and all of other families were largely obstructed.

I thought the actor who played Motel was delightful. His character was never very well fleshed out in other productions I've seen. Here, he was made more of a clown, and was allowed to be a bit of comic relief. For me, it worked. The actor is a marvelous physical clown.

The Dream staging was wonderful. An absolute delight, with many unexpected laughs.

As we left the theatre, I heard several people commenting that Molina is no Zero, and one man who said he wanted to cry at the sad parts, but didn't feel moved. I agree with both of those sentiments. (Molina is no Topol either, by the way.)

For a show that contains some of the best music ever on Broadway, I thought the production was very disappointing. I had such high hopes.

[Benzy92]

Posted: 2/18/04 at 5:27pm

Wonderfully written review, Im so upset this isnt getting very good word of mouth reviews.. I still am going to give it a chance and see it in March.

[etoile]

Posted: 2/18/04 at 5:44pm

On a side note, I believe Molina is a Scot. So easy to mixup all those Europeans.