THEATER REVIEWS / TWO ON ‘THE ROOF’ : Common Ground : Although the two plays may differ in scope, style and setting, their dramatic conflicts focus on the effects of changing times.

The coincidental opening of two plays in which “Roofs” figure prominently in their titles gives us justifiable cause for concern.

At a time when the stability of the roofs over all our heads is being called into question with each day’s headlines, the precarious shelter these particular roofs offer their occupants--a fiddler and a cat, respectively--hits us, as the saying goes, close to home.

With the productions of “Fiddler on the Roof” by the Santa Barbara Civic Light Opera and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” by PCPA Theaterfest, we seem to have stumbled on a site-derived genre that predated the popular “Kitchen Plays” of the late 1970s and early ‘80s.

Some will no doubt point to the vast differences in scope and style between a blockbuster 1964 Broadway musical about a village of impoverished Jews in turn-of-the-century czarist Russia and Tennessee Williams’ tragic portrait of a dysfunctional clan of land barons in the 1954 Mississippi Delta.

Such is the seductive distraction of incidental detail!

But quite to the contrary, when we peel back the shingles and take a closer look inside these “Roof” plays, we notice they have much in the way of common foundations.

In fact, both their foundations are crumbling, and for much the same reasons--the values and assumptions on which their stability is based are upended by changing times.

Consider Tevye (Peter Kevoian), the hard-working Papa in “Fiddler,” who announces in the superbly staged opening number that what holds his family and society together is “Tradition.”

Tevye’s world is a known quantity, where “Everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do.”

Yet Tevye’s traditional values are tested by his three daughters’ successively more radical choices of marriage partners.

Kevoian makes a suitably boisterous Tevye, though he’s somewhat prone to posturing.

His performance is overflowing with love of life and good-natured acceptance of people, and most importantly, he captures that open-mindedness in those recurring “On the other hand . . . “ debates with himself.

It is Tevye’s willingness to consider both sides of a question that allows him to adapt to these bewildering breaches of protocol, where daughters pick their own spouses.

Kevoian’s formally trained voice brings clarity and resonance to Tevye’s songs, but his articulation is so precise it conflicts with his speaking accent.

In “Cat,” PCPA’s Charlie Bachmann doesn’t have to contend with juggling song and dialogue, and he proves impressively effective as another patriarch facing the disintegration of his family.

While the plantation millionaire Big Daddy and Tevye are worlds apart in social status, they’re not so far apart in character.

Big Daddy is a self-made tycoon who worked his way from poverty as extreme as Tevye’s.

Both see themselves as kings of their castles, and part of the difficulty is in confronting challenges to the absolute authority they’ve come to take for granted.

This strong patriarchal order is in marked contrast to the feminine sphere explored in the “Kitchen plays” (of which Beth Henley’s “Crimes of the Heart” and John Ford Noonan’s “A Coupla White Chicks Sittin’ Around Talking” are examples staged on the Central Coast).

In the kitchen, feelings are explored and nurtured.

In the “Roof” plays, the emotional currents are illuminated only with great struggle by the characters.

In one of “Fiddler’s” most extraordinary songs, Tevye asks his wife Golde (Arti Martin-Chamberlin) “Do You Love Me?”

What’s remarkable is that in 25 years of marriage it’s the first time either one of them has ever asked it.

There’s a similar moment where Big Daddy is astounded to learn that his abused wife Big Mama (Gale Fury Childs) loves him: “Wouldn’t it be funny if that was true,” he mutters.

Big Daddy achieves stability not from traditional laws but from the iron-clad enforcement of his own will.

Bachmann’s Big Daddy excels at thundering intimidation, yet in the course of the play he finds himself mired in problems that can’t be bellowed out of existence.

His alcoholic son, Brick (Jack Greenman, in a powerful performance) is a former athlete who--like Tevye’s daughters--has pushed against the envelope of accepted behavior.

But Brick’s transgression is more of a shock to the system. He can’t admit to himself that the affection between him and his dead friend and teammate Skipper was more than platonic, even though his wife, Maggie (Karen Barbour), tries to help him face the truth.

And so, for that matter, does Big Daddy.

This monolith of willful stubbornness reveals unguessed tolerance for the son he truly cares about (just like Tevye).

In both plays, the established voices of order and tradition are inadequate for the new conditions in which the families find themselves.

The Rabbi (Albert J. Lipson) in “Fiddler” is a bumbling object of ridicule, while the fawning Preacher (John Littlefield) in “Cat” is “the living embodiment of a pious conventional lie.”

It remains up to the families themselves to find their own footing in a morally ambiguous universe.

The extent to which these families are detailed depends on the play’s emphasis.

The daughters in “Fiddler” (Kimberlee O’Neill, Tina LaCommare Rance, and Tracey Keatinge) are nicely performed, but they remain subservient plot devices. Other characters, like Yenta (Rose Anna B. Vitetta), double as comic relief and story pivots, but the focus throughout is on Tevye.

And of course on those memorable Jerry Bock-Sheldon Harnick songs, for which director Ted Sprague has taken the trouble to recreate the original Jerome Robbins choreography with commendable results.

In “Cat,” the family portrait is finely drawn, thanks to Tennessee Williams’ superior gifts as a playwright.

Setting out to capture what he called “the interplay of live human beings in the thundercloud of a common crisis,” Williams has created overlapping spheres of desire, fear and conflict that play with all the ambiguity of real life.

Under Paul Barnes’ direction, PCPA’s production offers high-caliber performances even in the supporting parts (most notable Lisa Paulsen as Brick’s scheming sister-in-law).

While the staging is solid in both cases, it is not without problems. Presenting “Cat” in theater in the round brings us in tight with the characters, but the piece wasn’t written for that configuration.

The blocking becomes awkward in a well-defined bedroom set (designed by Norm Spencer) with a confusing array of imaginary entrances at each corner.

“Fiddler” is saddled with low-rent painted backdrops revived from an early touring production that evoke the style of Marc Chagall on a bad day.

Still, audiences at either play are bound to leave deeply moved. Ultimately, both Tevye and Big Daddy are tragic figures: The blows life throws at them exceed their ability to accommodate.

Big Daddy faces his own mortality, the ultimate negation of the self-made man.

For Tevye, still reeling from his third daughter’s decision to marry outside the Jewish faith, the final blow is the expulsion of the Jews from their villages under the czar’s pogrom.

While “Fiddler” offers hope for survival and renewal, “Cat” anguishes in Williams’ poetic despair.

It shows there’s still room for diversity, even under one roof.

* WHERE AND WHEN

* “Fiddler on the Roof.” Performed through June 7 at the Lobero Theatre at 33 E. Canon Perdido St. in Santa Barbara, Wednesday through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sunday evenings at 7 p.m., and matinee performances on Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $24.50 to $26 (adults) and $9.75 (children). Call 963-0761 for reservations or further information.

* “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” Performed through May 17 at the Allan Hancock College Interim Theatre in Santa Maria. Evening performances ($13.50) are at 8 p.m. Friday through Sunday; matinees ($10.50) are at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are available through all TicketMaster outlets, or call (800) 221-9469 for reservations or further information.