'Fiddler on the Roof' review

Alex Owens of V form here reviews the recent College musical Fiddler on the Roof:

On the 17th November the SCC Drama Department presented their final performance of this year’s college musical: Fiddler on the Roof. After months of hard work, starting back at the end of June when final casting was drawn up, and scripts  given out for learning over the summer, the production was completed and  staged in the BSR over three nights. 

The play itself is based on a novel by Joseph Stein, set in a small village known as Anatevka in 1905 before the Russian Revolution.  The story revolves around the main character Tevye played by the very talented Zachary Stephenson. Tevye is a father of five daughters and the story shows his attempts to maintain Jewish religious traditions and support his family.
    
We see how Tevye copes with his three eldest daughters taking their own choice of husband, slipping further away from him and his faith. He also has to listen and take advice from his sharp-tongued wife Golde, played by the accomplished Siobhan Brady.  

The evening opened with the Fiddler’s signature song ‘Tradition’, which is the main idea which the story is centred around, sung by the entire cast. Also accompanying the cast was pianist Margaret O’Sullivan Farrell and violinist Mary Fitzgerald, brought in especially for the performances by musical director Geraldine Malone Brady. However much more was to come throughout the night with many more numbers such as ‘Matchmaker’ sung beautifully by the three eldest daughters Sally Beeby, Molly Buckingham and Pia Gromotka. Following that, we heard a fine performance of ‘If I were a Rich Man’, sung powerfully by none other than the star of the show, Zach Stephenson and other solo parts with excellent singing by Arthur Moffitt, Sinead Alari, Siobhan Brady, Mark Russell and Mark McAuley. For the musical finale we had the mournful patriotic number ‘Anatevka’ sung by the entire cast.  

The use of light to depict the mood proved to be very effective against the minimalistic background. But the costumes without a doubt took centre stage in being a key role and completing the look of the whole performance, all of which were hand-picked carefully and created by Costume Director Karen Hennessey. In terms of the acting quality of the play, none of this would have been possible without the direction and encouragement of the head of Drama Mr Swift, and special thanks must go to Mrs Malone Brady for her superb musical contribution and coaching of such a large cast.

Overall it is quite clear that this was another enormously successful production from the Drama Department, displaying top-quality performances containing pupils from different year groups throughout the school and they should be commended for their hard work and devotion to a magnificent end result.


Click here  for a photo slideshow of the production.