By starting Fiddler on the Roof at 7.45pm, Jordan Fein’s revival contrived that Sunrise, Sunset – the musical’s devastating lament for the speed of spent life – was sung as darkness fell on Regent’s Park on Tuesday. Only outdoor theatre could contrive such a sublime effect.
But there are other benefits. Trevor Nunn’s memorable 2018 version used the tight confines of the Menier Chocolate Factory to emphasise the cheek-by-jowl poverty and claustrophobia of the shtetl Anatevka in 1905, while Fein uses his venue to emphasise the community’s vulnerability – literally with no roof over their heads and surrounded by woods from which the Russian tsar’s pogrom police suddenly appear.