Anthony Warlow wows in this surprisingly relevant production of the Broadway classic.

Princess Theatre, Melbourne
January 5, 2016

Some 16,000km away on New York’s Broadway, a recent production of the much-loved musical theatre classic Fiddler on the Roof sought to breathe new life into what, on first glance, feels like a narrative with little to snare a contemporary audience’s interest. The somewhat controversial staging was framed as an anecdotal retelling, perhaps by a descendent of the people of Anatevka, expelled from Russia and scattered to the winds a century earlier. Contemporary choreography firebrand Hofesh Shechter was also recruited to add some present day swagger into this portrait of Jewish life in a rustic turn-of-the-century shtetl.

Meanwhile in Melbourne, venerated director Roger Hodgman’s new production sticks closer to the traditional incarnations of this show, but far from being old-hat this sharply focused and superbly cast account shines a surprisingly prescient light on the parallels this narrative shares with the present day. As Australia muddles its way through refugee crises, the enduring social issues surrounding indigenous Australians, and the battle for marriage equality, Fiddler on the Roof’s story of ethnic persecution, eroded...