This week was not only filled with musicals, but it was filled with Jewish musicals! I think that was pretty funny timing especially with Passover just being a few days away. Maybe both the Ahmanson and the Pantages timed out their shows to be around the holiday, but I’ll never know for sure. It doesn’t really matter because whenever “Fiddler On The Roof” was in our season I would have been excited to see it.
I’ve seen the show a few times plus I’ve seen the movie. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen any version of it. But it’s one of the classic musicals that I’ve always loved and I was happy that I would get to see it again. Out of the 4 of us in the group, 2 of us had seen the show before and 2 had not. So it was a mix of those of us excited to see it again and those who were happy to see it for the first time.
My group had to change the dates of a few of our shows due to “Game Of Thrones”, so this was one of our shows that wasn’t on a Sunday in our regular seats. We were up again in the balcony, but we were very centered up there. I’m not sure if this show would have been better up close or not, but I loved the balcony seats that we had.
“Fiddler On The Roof” is not just a classic show in the sense that it was written a while ago, but it takes place a long time ago as well. Because of that, I wasn’t expecting a lot of changes compared to productions that I’ve seen in the past. They obviously won’t be wearing modern clothes while singing about how things have always been for men and women. But this show somehow added a lot of modern touches in it.
There was a moment at the beginning and end of the show that was added for this production that made it more modern, but I’m going to stay vague about it so it’s not spoiled for people who are going to be seeing the show. But I really liked those moments and how it connected the show to the present time. It made me feel like even though we were watching something that would have happened over 100 years ago, it is still relevant to today and we can learn lessons from what happened in the past.
They also added more modern dance moments. Dancing has always been a bit part of the show, but mixing classic and old-fashioned dances with a few more current dance moves was a really fun thing to watch. And the way that the sets were done also felt modern. They used doorways and limited set pieces in really interesting ways and I loved how they created the environment with both more elaborate and simple sets. It was like the mix of classic and modern; having a mix of elaborate and simple made things feel interesting and gave the show some variety and extra interest.
And with almost all shows that I see, the performances were awesome. I loved how each character added some personality into the script. There were some great comedic moments that weren’t expected and the intonation of some of the lines gave things a fresh take. This show has always had interesting asides, but I felt like I saw more of those this time than I remembered from before. Of course, I might be forgetting some of those from the past productions I’ve seen since it has been so long. But either way, it still felt like things had been updated without actually changing what they were saying or the storyline.
Overall, I really enjoyed the show and this production in particular. I think I am more attracted to shows that have large casts and big musical numbers since that is very different from what working in film and tv is like. I love seeing productions that are very different from what I experience with my career. And this show for sure had a big cast and big musical numbers with lots of awesome dancing! It’s exactly what I love to see and this show didn’t disappoint at all!
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