Tevye has a serious problem in convincing his wife that Lazar Wolf might not be the best husband for Tzeitel but the staging of his nightmare is brilliant in “The Dream”.  This ruse is to convince Golde that Tzeitel’s grandmother after whom she was named opposes the match, backed up by the manifestation of Lazar Wolf’s dead wife Fruma-Sarah, who warns of the dreadful consequences of the marriage to Lazar. 

The staging of the Dream sequence is very impressive with the whole cast in ghostly white night clothes seated around a long dining table with eerie music.  All of Tom Scutt’s costumes and hats look authentic for the era in subtle colours greys, browns, blues and will include black for the rabbi and conventional dress.  The violinist appears at critical intervals and, as night falls, is silhouetted against the rooftop.

Chava is almost attacked by a group of rowdy and menacing Russians, an opportunity for Kossack dancing, but is rescued by Fyedka (Gregor Milne) who is not Jewish.  The first act has a wonderful celebration of the wedding of Tzeitel and Motel with fabulous dance culminating in the men in traditional black robes dancing with bottles on their hats, sliding along the floor with perfectly co-ordinated steps and getting down to ground level and back up again.  The swirling and jumps in this dance sequence are wonderful and I haven’t enough words to describe the power of this scene.  Julia Cheng’s choreography will be spoken about for a very long time.