Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in London has become a home for staggering visuals and reimaginings of classic musicals. The most recent touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar arrived with rave reviews and award-winning performances from its electrifying revival of the rock musical. Now, Fiddler on the Roof gets its turn for a facelift at Theatre Royal Sydney, with a backing from a stellar team whose work covers Olivier and Tony Award-winning productions.
What is the premise of Fiddler on the Roof?
It’s 1905 in the fictional shtetl of Anatevka set in Tsarist Russia, twelve years before the Russian Revolution of 1917. A ghostly rise of the curtain sees Ben Adler’s Fiddler on a flat-roofed stage, the name of the village faces backwards towards the band sitting behind a high row of wheat fields.
Tevye, a Jewish milkman, leads his family by their proud traditions. This means a loyal wife, visits to the matchmaker, five obedient daughters, and daily conversations with God. But this is a time of change, his daughters wish to break away from the closed community’s traditions amidst the backdrop of a changing world.
Throughout, we see more than just Tevye’s family dynamics needing to grapple with forces far greater than Anatevka can withstand.
Who are the cast and crew of Fiddler on the Roof?
Jordan Fein’s direction gives ample scope for spectacle, particularly when Julian Cheng’s choreography is placed front and centre – the high-energy traditional dances are the show’s triumphant star. Tom Scott’s earthy design gives Fiddler on the Roof an intimate aesthetic, as though we’re peeking back through the past.
The production itself makes you yearn to have an outdoor performance space like Regents Park right here in Sydney. Everything in the show’s design from the choreography to lighting and sound is built to reach the furthest audience member. Within the theatre, it feels compact, tight, and pushes the confines of the space.
Troy Sussman as Tevye holds the show together admirably, never quite reaching the breadth and scope of Tevye’s journey but creating a unique and intimate quality with every member of Anatevka’s community. Opposite, Alexis Fishman’s Golde is reduced to the nagging, shrill matriarch of the family with Fishman injecting as much depth into Golde where she can – her biting comic timing in response to Tevye’s boastful role of fatherly leadership elicits full body laughs, as does the tearful cracks in her stoic visage in the piece’s finale.
Star of screen and stage, Sigrid Thornton pops in and out as the shrewd matchmaker of the village, while Freya Boltman is a force to be reckoned with as the eldest daughter Tzeitel. She’s armed with a powerhouse belt, and elastic transformation in the show’s more quirky numbers.
The other main supporting cast of Caity Plummer, Ellen Ebbs, Maxwell Simon, and Felix Star each inject their own verve and energy into the piece throughout. The most genius addition from Fein is allowing Adler’s Fiddler to play in, on, above, and around the space – like a ghostly apparition of the town’s traditional values.
What is Fiddler on the Roof trying to say to audiences?
The Broadway original debuted in 1964, telling a story set in 1905, and has now been reimagined for 2026. Far be it for me to dictate to you the larger world narratives that revolve around these three time periods – there’s a heft of material in Fiddler on the Roof for each and every audience member.
Fein’s direction does its best to shake off the cobwebs of the original, and largely succeeds in the redesign and metaphorical imagery injected. But it’s the lapses in between the highs where the lows still linger. The women in Fiddler on the Roof suffer immensely from the story’s roots. Those who seek to break the mould of tradition are exiled from their community or run away in the hope of achieving a greater revolution.
The swiftly moving 45-minute second act breaks down the traditions of the close-knit Jewish community, leaving a vast presence of change over the hovering set. The displacement of an oppressed people is filled with resignation, and in 2026 the allegory of this dispossession and colonisation by an imposing autocratic force lifts off the stage – the plight of humanity under the cruelty of genocide remains the production’s final image.
Who will like Fiddler on the Roof?
When Fiddler on the Roof reaches its peaks, it soars. This is a production with a clear, unwavering vision, the level of which is what Australian productions yearn to be making amidst a largely safe, and underfunded sector.
For audiences wanting to explore one of the most beloved texts of the musical theatre canon, this is a fresh and invigorating take on a classic. Where it has its pitfalls, it makes up for them with a superb ensemble and earth-shattering score.
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