Less than a decade has passed since the last revival of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s “Fiddler on the Roof” had its sunrise, sunset on Broadway. And now Bartlett Sher, the director of sparkling Tony-winning revivals of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classics “South Pacific” and “The King and I” at Lincoln Center, has taken on this beloved chestnut in a moving but occasionally muddled new Broadway production.

As in his previous work, Sher begins by honoring the lustrous score, deploying a full 22-member orchestra to bring now-classic songs like “Tradition,” “To Life” and “Sunrise, Sunset” to rich melodic life. And he grounds the familiar story of an Orthodox Jewish milkman in unwelcoming czarist Russia with an admirable simplicity and a humanist approach to the characters.

Danny Burstein brings warmth and humor to Tevye, the milkman who addresses God as he confronts threats to his family and his community. Though he brings plenty of laughs, Burstein admirably avoids making Tevye into a mere shtick figure. Jessica Hecht, admittedly not the strongest singer, makes a similarly naturalistic impression as his shrewd, resourceful wife, Golde. Their approach adds an authentic poignancy to their second-act duet “Do You Love Me?”

 

Read the rest of my review at TheWrap.