If you’ve any doubt that Fiddler On The Roof is a true musical theater masterpiece, check out the dazzling National Tour now playing at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center For The Arts for proof positive that the Broadway classic is as great as it gets.

No sequins. No glitz. No feathers. No frills. Nothing but glorious songs and dances and a heartstrings-tugging story to transport you back in time and space to a Jewish shtetl in early 20th-century Tsarist Russia, this is Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, and Joseph Stein’s musical adaptation of Sholem Aleichem’s tales of a philosophical Jewish milkman named Tevye (Yehezkel Lazarov), his ever patient wife Golde (Maite Uzal), their five marriageable (or soon-to-be marriageable) daughters, and the village they call home, a story that resonates every bit as powerfully today as it did in the mid-‘60s, and a good deal more so in 2019 than it did when its fifth Broadway revival debuted four years ago in Obama-era America as a dark cloud of anti-Semitism hangs over its characters’ otherwise fairly upbeat lives.

Not that pogroms and purges are Tevye’s primary concerns.

First and foremost is finding husbands for his three oldest daughters, a task in which he would customarily be aided by matchmaker Yente (Carol Beaugard), but as Bob Dylan had put it only months before Fiddler’s September 1964 debut, “The Times They Are a-Changin’.”

Though Fiddler’s show-stopping show-opener proudly salutes “Tradition,” Tevye’s loyalty to the tried and true is tested when eldest daughter Tzeitel (Mel Weyn) loses her heart, not to grizzled but well-to-do butcher Lazar Wolf (Jonathan von Mering) but to lowly young tailor Motel (Jesse Weil), Hodel (Ruthy Froch) is smitten with modern-minded university student Perchik (Ryne Nardecchia), and Chava (Natalie Powers) dares to cross religious lines by falling for a handsome young Russian named Fyedka (Joshua Logan Alexander).

And things go from bad to worse after the local Constable (Jeff Brooks) warns Tevye of an upcoming “little unofficial demonstration” that could prove a harbinger of worse to come.

These heady themes are seamlessly woven into Stein’s charming, engaging book as are the Bock-&-Harnick classics “Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” “If I Were A Rich Man,” “To Life,” “Sunrise, Sunset,” and “Do You Love Me?” and dance sequences “inspired by the work of Jerome Robbins,” choreographed to Tony-nominated perfection by Hofesh Shechter and recreated on tour by Christopher Evans, most memorably the Robbins-based, how-do-they-keep-those-bottles-on-their-hats “Bottle Dance.”

As he did with last season’s The King And I, director Bartlett Sher makes it crystal clear why Fiddler On The Roof merits yet another revival, and though the South Pacific Best Revival Tony winner (whose inspired direction has been recreated on tour by Sari Ketter) knows better than to mess with a single word of Stein’s book, by framing the production with a contemporary Tevye revisiting a now deserted Anatevka, Sher gives Fiddler a devastating 21st-century relevance.

Despite an Israeli accent noticeably at odds with his castmates’ unaccented American English, Lazarov is nothing short of spectacular as Tevye, a decent man whose belief in Jewish traditions is put to the test not just by his daughters but by the changing world around him, while Uzal, her Spanish accent barely detectable, makes a delightfully acerbic Golde, her “Do You Love Me?” duet with Lazarov proving as heartwarmingly amusing as duets get.

Weyn, Froch, and Powers are all three terrific as Tevye’s eldest progeny, with vocal snaps to Froch’s haunting “Far From the Home I Love” and Powers’ graceful, heartbreaking dance backup to Lazarov’s “Chavaleh (Little Bird),” and since the equally terrific Weil, Nardecchia, and Alexander are the objects of their forbidden love, it’s easy to see why none of the three can resist their unorthodox beaux (especially when Weil and Nardecchia’s voices take flight).

Beaugard is a matchmaking hoot as Yente, Brooks is a non-singing standout as the conflicted Constable, and von Merling makes for such a believable Grumpy Old Butcher, it’s hard to believe that he (like most of his non-Equity castmates) is fresh out of college. (USC, Class of 2017!)

Completing the Broadway-competitive ensemble are Danielle Allen (Sphintze) and Emerson Glick (Bielke) along with villagers Danny Arnold (Mordcha), Eric Mitchell Berey (Yussel, Nachum), dance captain Eloise DeLuca, Derek Ege, Olivia Gjurich (Frumah-Sarah), Michael Hegarty (Rabbi), Carolyn Keller (Grandma Tzeitel, Schaindel), Paul Morland (The Fiddler), Kelly Gabrielle Murphy, Jacob Nahor, Jack O’Brien (Sasha), Honza Pelichovsky, Lynda Senisi, Nick Siccone (Mendel), Brian Silver (Avram), and Britte Steele, with swings Nicholas Berke, dance/fight captain David Ferguson, Allegra Herman, and Leah Platt poised to step in at a moment’s notice are

A somewhat starker-than-usual Broadway production design (Michael Yeargan’s set, Catherine Zuber’s costumes, Donald Holder’s lighting, and Tom Watson’s hair and wigs) give this Fiddler its distinctive look, and it sounds fabulous too thanks to musical director/conductor Michael Uselmann, sound designers Scott Leher and Alex Newmann, and new orchestrations by music supervisor Ted Sperling.

Shelby Stark is production stage manager. Christopher T.P. Holman is company manager.

Whether you’re a Fiddler On The Roof virgin or experiencing it for the umpteenth time, Bartlett Sher and Hofesh Schecter’s 21st-century interpretation of a 20th-century classic deserves to be seen, savored, and celebrated.

Segerstrom Center For The Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.
www.scfta.org

–Steven Stanley
May 7, 2019
Photos: Joan Marcus

Fiddler on the Roof

Tags: Jerry Bock, Joseph Stein, Orange County Theater Review, Segerstrom Center For The Arts, Sheldon Harnick