A new production of Fiddler on the Roof has opened at Sydney's Theatre Royal, featuring a superlative cast in a fresh staging of the 60-year-old musical about displacement, tradition, and the struggle to preserve community in the face of forced change. The show, originally created for London's Regent's Park Open Air Theatre by director Jordan Fein and designed by Tom Scutt, has moved from outdoor performances to London's Barbican before arriving in Australia.
Troy Sussman plays Tevye, the dairyman living in Anatevka, a fictional village in tsarist Russia's Pale of Settlement, now Ukraine. He's joined by Alexis Fishman as his wife Golde and their five daughters, with Sigrid Thornton as the local matchmaker. The musical, based on stories by Sholem Aleichem and written by Joseph Stein, Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock, was the first to play Broadway for more than 3,000 performances. It remains popular more than six decades after its debut.
A Community Under Pressure
Tevye's eldest daughter Tzeitel, played by Freya Boltman, is matched with a husband by the matchmaker, but she loves someone else. His other daughters Hodel, played by Ellen Ebbs, and Chava, played by Caity Plummer, make increasingly modern and autonomous choices about who they love and how they want to live. Tevye must weigh his love for them against his devotion to tradition.
News of pogroms in neighbouring villages turns the threat of displacement from an abstract fear into a concrete reality. Change is inevitable and frightening, but love for faith, for each other and for the possibility of creating change together emerges as the strongest thread with which to weave a future. Tevye is funny and thoughtful, breaking through the barriers of the narrative to talk to God and to the audience about his life, dreams and family.
Ben Adler plays the Fiddler, who is close to Tevye in these moments, with sonorous notes that challenge, empathise and ruminate with him. In the second act, when Tevye's thoughts complicate and darken, so too does this musical conscience. Sussman, a musicals veteran who has understudied leads in a number of major productions, is having a much-deserved moment in the spotlight, with an easy physicality and warmth that will likely grow richer and more complex as the run continues.
Fresh Performances, Rich Characters
The cast is welcoming, inviting the audience to lean forward and cheer during the famous bottle dance. Fein and Gary Abrahams, the resident director, have built close character work into the production. Every member of the ensemble is giving a detailed and dialled-in performance that paints a picture of a vibrant and close-knit community, with Thornton and John Waters singled out as community rascals. Musical director Dominic Woodhead leads a loud and nimble band, and additional orchestrations by Mark Aspinall add a layer of poignancy.
There's a welcome freshness to the production, especially in the women. Boltman, Ebbs and Plummer are fearless and joyfully unique as Tevye's oldest daughters. Boltman and Sussman share a gorgeous parallel in physicality. Ebbs foregrounds Hodel's strength of character even as she falls in love with activist Perchik, played by Maxwell Simon, and there's no question she'll be an active participant in the fight for change when she leaves her family for his side. Plummer's Chava keeps a spine of steel behind her famed sweetness. Golde, the most resistant to change in the family, is beautifully realised by Fishman with a rich and forthright performance.
On stage, a wheat field stands tall and stretches into the sky, with crimson poppies tucked among the stalks. The setting evokes the Pale of Settlement in what is now Ukraine.
Displacement Remains Relevant
The story's melancholic ending, in which a community is forcibly removed from its home and loved ones are separated by unimaginable distance and uncertainty, remains upsettingly relevant. In a time of rising antisemitism and constant news of displacement, violence and loss, where wheat fields are littered with bombs and burnt stalks and holy lands are besieged by war, it could hardly be otherwise.
The production is on at Theatre Royal Sydney until 3 October. It tours to QPAC in Brisbane on 9-25 October, Her Majesty's Theatre in Melbourne on 31 October to 27 December, and His Majesty's Theatre in Perth from 7-31 January 2027.
Why This Matters:
Fiddler on the Roof endures because it speaks to the permanent tension between tradition and change, between rootedness and displacement. The story of a community forced from its home by state violence resonates in an era when migration flows are reshaping European societies and when questions of integration, cultural preservation, and national identity dominate political debate. The musical's portrayal of a tight-knit community resisting external pressure to abandon its way of life offers a lens through which to view contemporary struggles over sovereignty, borders, and the preservation of distinct national cultures. That the story is set in what is now Ukraine, a nation fighting for its survival, adds another layer of contemporary relevance. The production's focus on strong female characters making autonomous choices also reflects shifting social norms, even as the broader community grapples with the costs of rapid change.