Posted: 11/21/15 at 3:32pm
I never attend first preview performances, as there is quite enough to do just to get a show this large up on its feet, but out-of-town guests were only here for the first night, so we bought tickets and went. I will admit I am not amongst those theatergoers who think that FIDDLER is one of the great musical of the last half of the 20th century. Yes, way better than most, but so much of its enduring appeal is based on the original productidon, featuring Zero Mostel and the amazing Jerome Robbins musical staging. This production has neither. Burstein is a good actor, but from this first shot, he needs to bring more life, more suffering, more humor to the part. Jessica Hecht just seems miscast, having little or none of the sharp humor the role demands. The rest of the cast was just adequate or less. Bart Sher's direction was pretty flaccid at this first performance, but will surely improve in the future. What really needs to improve are the sets. Anyone who saw Boris Aronson's original designs were witness to an expressionistic brilliance that cannot be improved upon. These sets are flimsy drops and pieces that look like the end of a long bus-and-truck tour. Boy, does this show cry out for a turntable. And perhaps there were actual visible stagehands for some reason that I can't imagine. And why was the Fiddler flown in at one point, a la Peter Pan, without his roof? And why did Burstein come out on stage at the outset and "change" into his Tevye outfit?
I know this will improve in weeks to come (a month of previews still to go), but why charge us the full freight for an unfinished, unrefined work? It's truly not that much different in tone from the original, just a whole lot duller.
