The 1964 musicalFiddler on the Roofi s one of the most iconic musicals in the Broadway canon for a reason . Its songs are the rare welcome earworm ; its themes of how t o face intergenerational change are universal. Fiddlercatapulted its best -known lead acto r, Topol, into international stardom.
In its latest incarnation at the Toledo Repertoire T hea tre, Micah Risher brings a touch of Topol himself to the starring role of Tevye. He ex udes both g ravitas and humo r in his portrayal of the poor Jewish milkman making ends meet with his acerbic wife, Golde, for their five daughters.
As his girls grow to womanhood, they each challenge Tevye’s understanding of the Russian shtetl he grew up in new ways. The result is a powerful entry in Jewish American mythmaking about a vanished European past …