Fiddler on the Roof Previews — Page 7

SNAFU said: "SPOILER!

The Dream: the ancestors are Marc Chagall paintings."

Is this for real?

Dang, is Whizzer the theater God or something? Is he Gandalf? nah but really, is Whizzer seeing the show tonight?

:)

Act One just ended.

Won't write any details yet, but I'm feeling very positive despite the length and some thoughts on the physical production. But people were disappointed with The King and I's austerity at first, too.

Okay, I will get specific enough to say the Bread and Puppet fever dream of a nightmare sequence is a delight, with fun spectacle and mask work. Great work on whatever you did, Snafu

My favorite part of it

Should't everyone's curiosity be piqued instead of peaked? Mine isn't, particularly, although I'll eventually catch up with this revival. But my amusement at this thread has certainly peaked, and I don't think I'll be revisiting.

Any new reviews anyone?

Musical Master said: "WOW! That sounds theatrical and frightening! Good job SNAFU, can't wait to see the show soon.

"

I am so glad to hear such enthusiasm for this revival, but "can't wait to see the show soon" at the end of every single one of your posts is not necessary.

Musical Master said: "Sorry about that, I'm really am excited for this one! "

Enthusiasm will NOT be tolerated!

This is not going to be, I think, the practically perfect revival that The King and I and South Pacific were. But then, I frankly am not sure if Fiddler is as strong of a show all the way through. It's still definitely another success for Bartlett Sher, and I look forward to catching it again after it tightens up.

Danny Burstein seemed oddly subdued at the top, especially compared to Tevyes past, but ended up finding the laughs from a very character-based place. He was quite moving. I thought the small contemporary framing device, a surprise coming from Sher, was one of the production's best ideas. The cast was generally very good; invested and real. The show runs quite long at the moment, but I prefer seeing these actors take the moments they need over the fast-forward barely-scenes in many recent musicals.

I actually think the last revival might have been more aesthetically interesting and cohesive, but I was a kid at the time. The sets here seem like a war between several concepts, all of them pretty austere. The flat houses are probably meant to evoke some specific folk art or painter, but they just look like cartoons. They're practically Dr. Seuss, in contrast to the very geometric practical set pieces. Then there are the painted flats in visible frames, which more than anything felt like part of an old Hollywood movie-in-a-movie studio scene, like Singin' in the Rain. Some of the sparest sets, particularly the train station and the rolling trees, worked very well. Visually, the nightmare is the highlight of the evening. An upstage pit/staircase was also used to great effect--particularly in the opening. The stage goes past the proscenium a bit here, and I think the whole thing would have benefited from being staged in the Beaumont's thrust space.

The real star here, as with South Pacific and The King and I, is the music. It's just so incredible to hear an actual orchestra, one that isn't six members or piped in from some other room, sounding like a click track. It's worth seeing the production just for this.

Updated On: 11/22/15 at 12:06 AM

Thanks for your review!

Also, as far as I understand, a click track is literally a track of clicks used to keep musicians in perfect sync like a metronome often used when the music needs to be in precise sync with an action on stage. It's not a pre-recorded orchestral track like many seem to believe. When a show uses click tracks, and the term is being properly applied, that's all it is. It's a digital metronome.

But that doesn't seem to have been Scarywarhol's intended use of the phrase.