In most productions of "Fiddler on the Roof," Yente, the matchmaker in a tiny Jewish village in czarist Russia, stands out in the crowd because she's such a loudmouth. When, praising herself, she remarks that "Not every woman is a Yente," the line always gets a laugh.

But the modest production of "Fiddler" at Mustard Seed Theatre doesn't have much of a crowd to begin with. That gives Eleanor Mullin, who plays Yente, the chance to show us a woman with a little more dimension. Near the end of the play, when the Jews of Anatevka have been exiled, she goes up to a young woman she's known all her life and cups her face in her hand, as if to memorize it. They'll never meet again, and they both know it without saying a word.

That tender, piercing gesture, which captures the spirit of "Fiddler," may be something many actresses execute when they play Yente. But who's going to know? By scaling down "Fiddler" to 12 performers who work on next to no set, director Deanna Jent lets faces and gestures speak volumes. It's the best thing about the production.

But scaling down is also the worst thing about the production. "Fiddler" is an iconic musical, packed with beloved songs. But you'd hardly know that. Joe Dreyer, the pianist and music director, is a graceful artist, but he cannot begin to approximate the rich sound of an orchestra, even with the help of fiddler Laura Sexauer (who has her hands full. She also plays one of the daughters of our guide to Anatevka, the milkman Tevye. Her transitions involve a good deal of jumping from platform to stage and back.)

Besides, skimpy arrangements are the last thing you'd want for this cast, whose singing abilities range from the competent to the brave. Jerry Russo, as Tevye, delivers a hearty performance whether speaking or singing, and his rendition of "If I Were a Rich Man" is a delight. But for a show that moves on music, this kind of exception says way too much about the rule. The dances are similarly compromised, less performances than reminders of other performances we might have seen somewhere else.

The members of the ensemble reveal a constellation of warm characters and, under Jent's unhurried hand, show a nice feeling for the material. But it's the wrong material for Mustard Seed. Jent might have been better off with a play by Arnold Perl called "The World of Sholom Aleichem." It's drawn from the same source, stories by the great Yiddish author Sholom Aleichem — and it isn't a musical.