REVIEW : As Openings Go, Theater Tops ‘Fiddler’ : “Fiddler on the Roof”: Covina Valley Playhouse, 104 N. Citrus Ave., Covina, Friday-Saturday, 8 p.m., Sunday matinees, 2 p.m. Ends July 10. $10-$12. (818) 339-5135. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.

The marquee once trumpeted Hollywood movies. Now it blazes the words “Covina Valley Playhouse” into the night air.

What had turned into a crumbling cinema in the heart of downtown Covina now turns away people on waiting lists to see live theater.

The launching of the San Gabriel Valley’s newest playhouse has been a triumph of pluck, luck, crucial support from municipal and private agencies and a cadre of volunteers equipped with paint brushes, hammers and brooms.

In fact, the very opening, complete with enthusiastic, sold-out houses in the renovated 184-seat venue, is a much bigger topic than the inaugural production itself, that folk tale about our favorite dairyman, Tevye, of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

For those seeing the show for the first time, “Fiddler” is such a charming, turn-of-the-century Russian tale with such hummable tunes (lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and score by Jerry Bock) that it’s a show with built-in, audience-pleasing guarantees.

But the musical, which premiered 29 years ago, is done so often (just within the last two years “Fiddler” was staged at community theaters in Fullerton, La Mirada and La Habra) that it seems an awfully safe and unimaginative selection with which to kick off a new theater, even one committed to revivals, as the Covina Valley Playhouse seems to be. (Next up: “Noises Off”).

And for reasons both artistic and physical, the production, directed by veteran Nick Charles of the now defunct Monrovia Center Theatre, also turns out to be a pretty tepid version of a beloved show.

Joseph Stein’s book was inspired by Sholom Aleichem’s stories about the Jewish peasant enclave of Anatevka in Russia in 1905.

The sense of Revolution hovers on the outskirts of the village, personified by the song “The Rumor” and boot-stomping, intimidating thugs who finally force the villagers to grab their rags and trundle off to a new paradise in America.

At the heart of the show, however, is its warmth and whimsy, with Tevye (Howard Peterson) talking directly to God as if He were his business partner, and the dairyman experiencing mixed success with his five daughters. The papa’s lament keys into the show’s best-remembered song, the sardonic “If I Were a Rich Man.”

As Tevye, Peterson, with droll, sharp timing, favors a gentle, bemused interpretation, not the roaring lion practiced by other Tevyes. But Peterson is believable. So, too, are Tony Quinn as the radical student, Tim Miller as the nebbish tailor and Patrick O’Brien as the jilted butcher, who vocally projects stronger than anyone in the cast.

Among the 30-member company, Holly Shirley and Jill Gerber are spirited as Tevye’s two eldest daughters.

Other highlights include Wendy Smith’s choreography (indebted to Jerome Robbins of the 1964 Broadway show), Holly Shirley’s lived-in period costumes and director Charles’ lighting.

The nightmare scene with Tevye and wife Golde (Karen Baird) is vividly staged in the show’s biggest visual surprise and the Jewish wedding of daughter Tzeitel is richly ethnic.

Another effective image is the symbolic “fiddler on the roof,” strumming a lament on behalf of the whole village, and perfectly cast with the scruffy Julio Villegas).

On the downside, the production is too often hard to hear, with too many actors failing to project. The show needs to be equipped with mikes and amplified for other reasons: An unseen swamp cooler keeps the house comfortably cool, but the machine’s subtle hum interferes with the acoustics, which aren’t that good, anyway.

Design-wise, the set is much too pale and bland to suggest a Russian village. A towering white background scrim (the theater’s old movie screen perhaps?) denotes absolutely nothing. It is flanked, oddly, by huge vertical planks of boards that also signify nothing. All this dome-like emptiness overwhelms the gritty facade of Tevye’s little house.

Budget restrictions aside, the show’s lack of scenic imagination undermines the production’s other elements, even seemingly cloaking the taped musical score under the direction of Perry Moore.

Finally, on stage before the curtain rises, a theater official recounts all the hard work and energy that went into the place. Then patrons are exhorted to consider continued support while envelopes for donations are passed down each row--a real tacky gesture. Passing the hat to captive audiences in theaters makes you feel it’s amateur time.

In any event, the Covina Valley Playhouse had been known as the West Covina Playhouse before a developer kicked the company out of its old quarters on the edge of a shopping mall last year. But now it is off and running at a location that holds lots of promise--once those donations start rolling in.