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Put down the paper, pack your Kleenex, and make your reservations now: Because based on word of mouth from opening night alone, the Halle Theatre's exceptionally fine production of "Fiddler on the Roof" is likely to sell out fast. And you won't want to miss the most satisfying rendering of this classic musical you're ever likely to encounter.
What makes this "Fiddler" so special? It's not just the excellent principals, although they're all good -- beginning with Marty Ross's warm, potent Tevye, Jeanne Task's sharp, sympathetic Golde, and their bevy of beautiful daughters and winsome suitors. It's not only that designer Tony E. Kovacic's turntable sets and Ed Eckert's costumes are a constant treat for the eyes. It's not even the superb score, featuring voices so clear and choreography so infectious you'll want to get up and deedle-daidle with them.
No, you can lay the evening's ultimate success at the feet of director/choreographer Fred Sternfeld, for his masterful understanding of "Fiddler"'s heart. What you get in this Jewish Community Center production is something no film or video can ever provide: the genuine creation of a community. At the Halle, the village life of Anatevka is achingly real. The stage teems with dozens of excellent character actors who'll make you believe they've been having the same arguments for 25 years. Everyone has a history: milkman, butcher, innkeeper, rabbi, constable -- they're individuals, not types. Anatevka's traditions and sentiment crowd into the wings and spill into the aisles, surrounding you in a riot of colors and sounds. By the end of the play, when it is split asunder, and its villagers scattered to the four winds, you can feel the changes -- and the loss -- down to your bones.
Within an evening that's a feast, there are particularly delectable moments, many of them production numbers. "The Dream", where Tevye invents a wild nightmare to convince his wife to let daughter Tzeitel (Sheri Levy) out of her engagement with butcher Lazar Wolf (Mitchell Fields), is a surreal comic jewel, with Levy as a 12-foot apparition in wedding dress and giant pearls. In "To Life", the men's dancing practically explodes out of the tavern -- and brings into sharp focus the uneasy coexistence between Anatevka's Jews and gentiles. The Wedding Bottle Dance rightfully brought down the house, and you'd have to have a heart of stone for the candle lighting in "A Sabbath Prayer" and the plaintive "Chava Sequence" (beautifully danced by Kathryn Garson and Nick Koesters) not to bring out your hankies.
Each of the three young couples has fresh faces and strong voices. Keith Gerchak is an especially charming Motel the tailor in "Miracle of Miracles". R. Scott Posey's Perchik has a clarion tenor, and Erica Miller Cowan makes "Far From the Home I Love" soar. As Tevye, Marty Ross begins with a rich, hearty baritone and a playful edge, then gets deeper and more affecting as the play unfolds. By the time he pushes his cart into an unknown future, he and his Fiddler (Steve Greenman), with his heart-piercing solo Klezmer music, will have you in the palms of their generous hands.
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