[For the remainder of the year, my San Jose and Peninsula theater reviews will be posted on Talkin’ Broadway with only introductions to those reviews on this site].

Please continue to for full https://talkinbroadway.com/page/regional/sanjose/sj263.html review.

Rarely has a musical garnered the success of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s Fiddler on the Roof, setting the mark for the most performances on Broadway, which it held for ten years.  Not to mention that it has been revived a gazillion times by theaters in every corner of the world.  Now, Palo Alto Players offers a heartwarming and well-mounted rendition – nicely performed, effectively staged, and with fine choreography and costumery.

What particularly surprises about its success is that the play deals with the customs and sad chronicle of Jews, a people who represent a very small minority in this country and who have been unfairly victimized by the dominant religion here and throughout the Christian realm.  Also, it takes place prior to World War I in what to many is an obscure region, Imperial Russia’s Pale of Settlement (largely present-day Ukraine), a poor area where all but a few select Jews were forced to live.

But what the musical has going for it is a luminous score with brilliant songs that in part traces the stages of love with great sensitivity; a central character that is one of the great charismatic figures in theater; and dramatic clashes of culture – gentle, traumatic, and existential.  This story of Tevya the milkman is written by Joseph Stein, based on the works of the great Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem. Though many particulars of the story may not be relatable, its universality draws from these powerful themes of tradition, love, family, and struggle.

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Fiddler on the Roof runs through November 24, 2024 at Lucie Stern Theater, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, CA.  For tickets and information, please visit https://paplayers.org/.