Tradition, and dealing with inevitable change. That's what Fiddler on the Roof is really about, says Roger Hodgman, the director of Melbourne's newly opened musical.
One of the world's most beloved productions, Fiddler on the Roof, starring Anthony Warlow, Sigrid Thornton, Lior and Mark Mitchell opened at the Princess Theatre on Tuesday night.
While the story written by Joseph Stein about a Russian milkman trying to coerce the oldest of his five daughters, Tzeitel, into an arranged marriage, is somewhat antiquated - it's set in a Jewish village in 1905 - the underlying themes of the tensions brought about by change and the fraught task of trying to hang onto old customs are perennial concerns. The musical's enduring appeal can be explained by the timelessness of the story, says Hodgman. 
"Often you find with musicals there's some great songs and great music and quite often the book, the libretto isn't quite so good, but this book is great, we've had quite a lot of fun doing it," he says.
"Although it's about Jewish families it's not just a Jewish story - otherwise it wouldn't be the most popular musical in Japan, for example."
But the Jewishness of the story and of the character Tevye weighed heavily on Warlow's mind when considering the offer of the lead role.
"It's not that I baulked at it but I said I needed to think about this, I didn't want it to be just an impersonation," he says.
The figure whose interpretation loomed largest was Chaim Topol, the Israeli actor known simply as Topol, who travelled around the world playing Tevye on stage and screen from 1967 to 2009, winning a Golden Globe and Tony and Oscar nominations for his performance.
Warlow decided to tap into his own experience to make his portrayal personal. "It's about fathers and daughters. I only have one daughter, but already in the scenes of the beautifully written book by Joseph Stein, it just resonated with me," he says.
The role is the first since Warlow's return to Australia after a long stint performing in musicals in the United States.
"I've been away for nearly three years, first with Annie [on Broadway] which was nearly 16 months, then I came back and did Man of La Mancha with the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington D.C., then I was literally back for 10 days and they asked if I'd take over for Kelsey Grammer in Finding Neverland [on Broadway]," he says.
"I was more than happy to come back to do this, one of the most wonderfully iconic musicals in the canon."
Fiddler on the Roof is one of many tried-and-tested musicals that will enjoy a renaissance in Melbourne in the coming year. Of all the current major musicals, only Georgy Girl is an original Australian production.
Mary Luckhurst, a professor of artistic research and creative practice at the VCA, says the dearth of home-grown musicals can be attributed to a lack of funding.
"Producers are looking for a hit, but they don't come out of nowhere, they've often been nurtured for five to 10 years," she says. "It's that nurturing process, no one seems to care about that in Australia, finding the emerging talents and finding ways of developing them."
The risk involved in staging an untested show would appear to be too great to Australian producers, Luckhurst says. "Why don't we have more Australian musicals? Because there's more certainty putting on a musical like Cats," she says.
According to the Live Performance Australia ticket review and survey, gross revenue in musical theatre rose by 65.6 per cent nationally from $193.39 million in 2013 to $320.34 million in 2014, while total attendance nationally increased by 52.6 per cent.
Musical Melbourne
NOW PLAYING
Cats
Regent Theatre
Until   January 24
Georgy Girl
Her Majesty's Theatre
until   March 6
Fiddler on
the Roof
Princess Theatre
from   January 5
COMING SOON
North by Northwest
(return season)
State Theatre
  January 29 to   February 10
Ghost: The Musical
Regent Theatre
from   February 6
Matilda
The Musical
Princess Theatre
from   March 13
The Sound of Music
Regent Theatre
from   May 13
FOR THE DIARY
Kinky Boots
Her Majesty's Theatre
  October 2016
The Book of Mormon
Princess Theatre
  January 2017