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music and lyrics by Jerry Bock & Sheldon Harnick, book by Joseph Stein, translated by Shraga Friedman, directed by Joel Grey

National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, Elgin Theatre, 189 Yonge Street, Toronto

May 28–June 7, 2026

Motl: “Times are changing, Reb Tevye”

Since its Broadway premiere in 1964, Fiddler on the Roof has been a musical about worlds in collision: Tsarist Russia and Jewish shtetl life; ritual and change; a village sustained by community and threatened by violence. Now playing at the Elgin Theatre, Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish (פֿידלער אויפֿן דאַך אין ייִדיש) directed by Joel Grey brings bright and vigorous energy to the classic, with a strong ensemble that restores the rhythms and collective spirit of a vanished world.

Set in Anatevka, a fictional village in the old Russian Empire, the musical centres on Tevye, a poor milkman and father to five headstrong daughters. With humour and heartbreak, he tries to make sense of a world changing faster than he can bear — daughters choose their own husbands, men and women dance together and Tsarist oppression closes in.

In Grey’s production language is one of the keys to the show’s time capsule. Shraga Friedman’s Yiddish translation moves Fiddler closer to Sholem Aleichem (1859–1916), whose Tevye stories, originally written in Yiddish, inspired the musical. But it also places that world within a broader tradition of Jewish sacred scripture. Beowulf Boritt’s scenic design gives that idea visual form, framing the stage with parchment-like wings and backdrop, with the word תורה (Torah) prominently displayed centre stage throughout the show. It is a striking image, but also a distancing one. Anatevka becomes less a lived-in village than a memory preserved on a page.

Grey first directed the show in New York in 2018 at the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. Now, for its Toronto run, Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company presents his staging with Steven Skybell reprising his acclaimed 2018 Tevye, joined by an all-Canadian supporting cast.

Skybell is, without doubt, one of the production’s strongest assets. His Tevye is warm and protective with a rich vibrato that intensifies his conflicted tenderness. His jokes land sharply, and his sarcasm pulls us close even before his face betrays the struggle beneath.

The ensemble delivers a polished, credible performance, at its strongest in the dance numbers and choral passages. In “Der Kholem” (“The Dream”), the entire cast conjures the dreamlike world inside Tevye’s mind. The scene is sharp and dynamic, with vivid tableaux and commedia dell’arte-style masks that push the moment into delicious surreality. Gabi Epstein turns Frume-Sore’s brief appearance into a vivid comic-gothic flash, armed with an exaggerated expression and a spooky vocal trill.

The beautifully energetic ensemble work makes the production’s clunky transitions all the more noticeable. Under dim blue light, cast members carry on tables and chairs — a few simple objects rearranged to suggest new locations — but the effect feels more like stage management than stagecraft. The production’s demands also expose some unevenness across the cast. Not everyone carries the acting, singing and Yiddish text with equal ease. English surtitles above the stage provide the musical’s original English libretto.

Among the more vivid supporting turns, George Masswohl plays Leyzer-Volf as a sweet, slightly bewildered lonely man, making it easy to see why Tevye mistakes his “good heart” for husband material. The milkman’s elder daughter Tsaytl, played by Isidora Kecman, however, has other ideas. She has fallen for Motl, the village tailor, whom Joshua Kilimnik plays with a disarming blend of awkwardness and sweetness.

Male authority in this Anatevka often feels ceremonial, softened by tenderness, insecurity and care. The women, by contrast, seem to have the real say in the running of domestic and communal life. As Golde, Tracy Michailidis brings bracing comic authority to Tevye’s wife. She is stubborn, practical, and clearly used to having the final word at home. Theresa Tova’s witty, gossip-loving Yente, meanwhile, gives the village its restless social pulse.

That comic texture matters because Grey’s production is at its strongest when Anatevka feels like a living community animated by distinct temperaments and identities. One of the production’s sharpest images of that fragile communal life comes in “Lekhayim” (“To Life”). A celebration of a soon-to-be-broken marriage agreement becomes a vivid portrait of two peoples sharing the same land while moving to different rhythms. Russian and Jewish dances unfold side by side in a thrilling exchange of force and form. On unstable ground, and with visible effort, they try to keep that balance — like the fiddler on the roof.

Alessandro Stracuzzi

Photos: Steven Skybell as Tevye; Tracy Michailidis as Golde and Steven Skybell as Tevye; the Bottle Dance with male ensemble. © 2026 Dahlia Katz.

For tickets visit: hgjewishtheatre.com.