Jordan Fein’s Olivier Award-winning revival brings renewed urgency to a story of tradition, religious identity and forced displacement, with contemporary events giving the musical an unsettling relevance in 2026.
Fiddler On The Roof has always been a story about what happens when the world changes faster than a community can adapt. In 2026, Jordan Fein’s acclaimed revival carries a weight that extends well beyond its 1905 setting, as its themes of antisemitism, cultural division, religious identity and the loss of home find uncomfortable echoes in today’s headlines.
The production, which began at London’s Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in 2024 and won the 2025 Olivier Award for Best Revival of a Musical, has travelled to Australia following its success in Britain. After seasons in Sydney and Brisbane, it is now playing Melbourne before moving to Perth.
What makes this revival particularly affecting is the distance between the world depicted on stage and the world outside the theatre. The fictional village of Anatevka, in the territory of present-day Ukraine, is a place where an established way of life is under pressure from political upheaval, religious prejudice and forces beyond the control of its inhabitants.
The musical is set in 1905, but its central anxieties are far from historical curiosities. The continuing war in Ukraine, escalating tensions involving Israel and Iran, and the December 2025 antisemitic terrorist attack at a Hanukkah gathering on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which killed 15 people, have given the story’s examination of persecution and displacement a particularly confronting contemporary resonance.
These events are not interchangeable, nor does Fiddler On The Roof offer a direct commentary on today’s conflicts. Its power comes from something more fundamental: the recognition that communities can still find themselves threatened because of who they are, what they believe and where they belong.
That is the territory Jordan Fein explores with considerable sensitivity.
Fein resists the temptation to turn the musical into a modern political statement. Instead, the production trusts the material. The story of Tevye, a Jewish milkman trying to preserve his family’s traditions while his daughters embrace a changing world, is allowed to unfold with its original humanity intact.
Tom Scutt’s design is deceptively simple. Rows of wheat and a broad roof that rises and falls create an open playing space, retaining something of the expansiveness of the original outdoor production. Ben Adler’s Fiddler occupies this landscape as a recurring presence, while Aideen Malone’s lighting gives the disruption of the wedding celebration a striking visual impact, transforming the stage into an image of burning fields.
The restraint of the staging is one of its strengths. Rather than constructing an elaborate village, the production creates an environment in which the people and their relationships carry the drama. When the community begins to fracture, there is nowhere for the emotional consequences to hide.
Troy Sussman returns to Her Majesty’s Theatre decades after earlier appearances, taking on Tevye with a performance that develops in emotional depth as the story progresses. His early exchanges with God have an easy humour, establishing a man who uses philosophy and wit to make sense of an unpredictable life. As his daughters challenge the traditions that have governed his family, that humour gives way to frustration, disappointment and eventually profound grief.
His response to Chava’s decision to marry outside the Jewish faith is particularly affecting. It is a moment in which the conflict between parental love and deeply held religious conviction becomes painfully personal. Sussman makes the audience understand the emotional cost without asking it to endorse Tevye’s decision.
Alexis Fishman gives Golde a quiet strength, with the relationship between the couple finding one of its most tender moments in “Do You Love Me?” Her contribution to the closing “Anatevka” also helps give the village’s departure an emotional dimension beyond the mechanics of the plot.
Sigrid Thornton brings a mischievous familiarity to Yente, the matchmaker, while John Waters balances the humour and wounded dignity of Lazar Wolf.
Among the daughters, Freya Boltman, Ellen Ebbs and Caity Plummer give Tzeitel, Hodel and Chava distinct personalities and motivations. Their choices are not simply acts of rebellion. Each represents a different response to a society changing around them, and each carries a different emotional price. Felix Star as Motel and Maxwell Simon as Perchik complete a convincing younger generation.
Ben Adler’s violin playing is central to the production’s identity. The Fiddler is not merely an atmospheric figure accompanying the action. He represents the musical and cultural continuity of a community whose future is becoming increasingly uncertain.
Julia Cheng’s choreography brings considerable energy to “To Life” and “Tevye’s Dream”, while the Bottle Dance remains a highlight of the wedding sequence. Its exuberance becomes more meaningful as the celebration gives way to violence and the destruction of the community’s sense of security.
Mark Aspinall’s additional orchestrations, supported by Dominic Woodhead’s onstage band, give the production a warm klezmer character. The music is allowed to breathe, with the vocal ensemble particularly effective in balancing the show’s familiar musical numbers with its more reflective passages.
The original 1964 Broadway production, with a book by Joseph Stein, music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, became one of the defining musicals of its era. Its success was built around songs that have long since entered the wider cultural consciousness, including “Tradition”, “If I Were A Rich Man”, “Sunrise, Sunset” and “Matchmaker, Matchmaker”.
Fein’s revival demonstrates why the work has endured. It does not need to rewrite the story or relocate its characters to make it relevant. The decision to allow natural speech rather than impose artificial accents also helps remove the distance between the audience and the characters. These are people dealing with recognisable family pressures, even as the world around them becomes increasingly hostile.
There is an additional poignancy in watching a story about a community forced from its home while the region in which Anatevka is imagined continues to experience the consequences of war. The production also invites reflection on the persistence of antisemitism and the vulnerability of cultural and religious minorities. Its relevance is not confined to one faith, one country or one political dispute.
Fiddler On The Roof ultimately asks how much a community can change before it loses the traditions that define it, and what happens when the outside world removes the choice altogether.
In 2026, that question carries an uncomfortable immediacy.
Jordan Fein’s production succeeds because it allows the audience to laugh, celebrate and enjoy the extraordinary music before confronting the emotional reality of what is being lost. The final departure from Anatevka is not simply the ending of a musical. It is the dismantling of a home, a culture and a way of life.
That is what gives this revival its fresh force. More than 60 years after the musical first reached Broadway, its story remains painfully recognisable.
Fiddler On The Roof is playing at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne, until 27 December 2026, followed by a Perth season in January 2027.
Dates
Until 27 December 2026, Melbourne, Her Majesty’s Theatre
7 – 31 January 2027, Perth, His Majesty’s Theatre
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