AURORA | It feels like “Fiddler on the Roof” is as old as the Torah itself.
Maybe it’s because the 1964 musical by Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick and Joseph Fine enjoyed such unparalleled success on stage and screen. The winner of nine Tony Awards, the original production held the record for the longest-running Broadway musical for a decade; the 1972 film adaptation picked up three Academy Awards. In the nearly 50 years since its stage debut, the show has become a staple for community theaters, Broadway revivals and high school drama classes across the world.
But in the end, the show’s timelessness is about a lot more than commercial success. As the current production of “Fiddler” by the Phamaly theater troupe so impressively illustrates, the musical strikes a chord that’s both profound and ancient.
The Aurora-based theater company gets to the essence of what made this show such a historic success. It’s about themes of love, parenthood, community, family and, yes, tradition. It’s about a magnetic protagonist whose struggles, wisdom and insight is universal in a way that’s bigger than one race, religion or place in history. Of course, the show is also very much about the unique culture and struggles of the Jewish people, but it also tracks the bigger travails of a community apart, a people vilified and targeted for their very identities.
The Phamaly production directed by company artistic director Steve Wilson pays proper respect to each of these elements, and the effect is stirring. With Aurora native Mark Dissette expertly cast as the lead character Tevye, the show pops with the due amount of energy and heart. The rest of the cast is also cast with a careful eye to detail, and the music direction by Donna Debreceni captures the beauty and grace of Bock and Harnick’s score. What’s more, the addition of a second fiddler (Leslie Wilburn and California import Sophia Hummell both do fine jobs with their bows) supports the show’s larger themes about exile. Thanks to a spare set design by M. Curtis Grittner and creative choreography by Debbie Stark, the show largely pulls off the mood and feel of a small Russian village in 1905.
But the troupe’s accomplishments go beyond staying true to the story of Tevye, his family and his tight-knit community. As always, the company invests the action with a deeper message, one that comes in part from the very mission of Phamaly. In this show, the Jews who are threatened, beaten and chased out of their homes are also members of the disabled community. They’re in wheelchairs, they’re blind, they’ve got cerebral palsy and Parkinson’s disease.
The struggles of the Jewish community in pre-Revolutionary Russia suddenly morph into the challenges faced by any community perceived as different or inferior. Amid all of the songs about tradition, all of the references to the Sabbath dinner and the wisdom of the community rabbi, there’s a deep universality. That’s part of what the show has always been about, but the access feels all the more poignant with this spirited cast and this refined direction by Wilson.
Still, a big part of the pathos comes in the sheer presence of Dissette as Tevye. He’s the focal point of the story – the action all stems from this poor dairyman with a demanding wife and five daughters. He’s faithful to the traditions practiced by his people for centuries (spiritual observances lovingly praised in “Tradition” and “If I Were a Rich Man”). At the same time, he’s forced to face the strong currents of change. Three of his five daughters defy the traditions he clings to so faithfully.
Tzeitel (played with affecting earnestness by Rachel Van Scoy) defies the edicts of Yente the matchmaker (bombastically portrayed by Ashley Kelashian) and agrees to marry a poor tailor (Trenton Schindele). Hodel (Aurora Fox vet Kenzie Kilroy) accepts a marriage proposal by the revolutionary-minded young student Perchik (Jeremy Palmer). Chava (Lyndsay Giraldi-Palmer) offers the biggest disappointment, secretly wedding a non-Jewish Russian soldier named Fyedka (Daniel Traylor).
All of this familial drama takes place as the Russian pogroms intensify, and the entire Jewish community in the small village of Anatevka face banishment.
Change threatens to forever alter the traditions so beloved by Tevye, and Dissette handles that conflict with depth. His performance is complex and compelling as Tevye juggles sympathy, loyalty, spirituality and the heart-rending demands of being a father. His struggles feel timeless by the end of the show, and that’s what any good production of “Fiddler” should do.
Reach reporter Adam Goldstein at 720-449-9707 or agoldstein@aurorasentinel.com
“Fiddler on the Roof”
Runs until Aug. 11 at the Space Theatre in the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, 1101 13th St., Denver.
Tickets start at $35.
Information: 303-575-0005 or phamaly.org.
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