goodspeed opera house fiddler on the roof

Andrew Mayer was a perfect horror of a lad as the undertaker’s assistant. Joy Hermalyn as Widow Corney made a perfect foil for the Beadle in the romance department. Andrus is an imposing figure and he plays Bill very well indeed.Īmong the many character actors in this musical, a few were absolutely superb. However, you should never be able to lose track of the Dodger and, in this production, he disappears all too easily.Īs the villainous Bill Sikes, Brandon Andrus does a nice job with his song “My Name,” a sinister tune and lyric celebrating the existence of a total blackguard who ultimately turns into a vicious murderer right before our eyes.

He also has little charisma onstage, which is a pity because he is doing a very good job of playing with others.

His counterpart, the Artful Dodger, is played by a very tall young boy, Gavin Swartz, whose high-pitched voice felt very wrong for this character. The boy playing Oliver Twist, Elijah Rayman, seems to be very sweet, but he doesn’t get much beyond that one asset across the footlights. That is something that this production doesn’t quite possess. The one thing the musical really needs is a title character actor who is adorable, charming, and a good singer with a smile that melts the meanest heart. Maybe it’s my British heritage, but it has a sense of autobiography for me. Elijah Rayman in the Goodspeed Musicals production of ‘Oliver!’ Photo: Diane SobolewskiĪll of that said, I do like this show I always have. It never mentions love in any respectable form and it expresses the singer’s willingness to take all abuse as long as the abuser needs her around to take it from him. He wrote many songs for Tommy Steele and the Top 10 song “Living Doll.” For this show, he offered “Food, Glorious Food,” “Consider Yourself,” “Where is Love,” “Who Will Buy,” “I’d Do Anything” and the biggest hit of his career: “As Long As He Needs Me.” That final song, a major ballad, is the single most celebratory endorsement of masochistic behavior ever to make the hit parade, especially as sung by its originator, Georgia Brown. “Oliver!” has some famous and popular songs, which is not surprising as Lionel Bart was a composer of popular songs before he wrote this stage show. I don’t think I was the only person offended-in fact, I know I wasn’t. Fagin, the man who harbors criminals, fosters prostitution and trains children to steal all for his own enrichment is a Jew, but, in this edition of the show, he is marked over and over by this specific visual that comes on top of the worst criminal in the show referring to Fagin as Fagin the Jew. It is, frankly, unnecessary and almost insulting. Just as Tevye, in that other show, is followed on his journey by a Jewish spirit, a man with a violin who plays the milkman off the stage, so Fagin the Jew is pursued by a fiddler onstage clearly identifying him in that racial, theatrical manner.

Racial stereotyping also plays a major role in this show, exacerbated in this production by a sly reference to the hero of another musical from this period, “Fiddler on the Roof.” However, if you look at it with one eye closed, you are left with a lot of social issues that are hard to enjoy: child abuse in its many variant forms, prostitution, thievery, abduction, spousal abuse, criminal behavior, and sadism and masochism, just to name a few. Musicals should be entertaining and there is a lot of good entertainment in this show. He was more interested in social reform than in social celebration, and the 1963 Lionel Bart musical, now playing at Goodspeed Musicals, certainly spends more time on the latter than on the former. “Oliver!” is based on Charles Dickens’ novel “Oliver Twist” and, without that certain twist, it falls short of the author’s intent. Bumble in the Goodspeed Musicals production of ‘Oliver!’. “Never before has a boy wanted ‘more.'” Richard R. Based on the novel “Oliver Twist” by Charles Dickens

Goodspeed opera house fiddler on the roof