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Bikel on the Roof After more than 1,600 performances, actor Theodore Bikel continues to milk ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ for all it’s worth. And he has a New Orleans choreographer to help him keep it fresh. By David Cuthbert Theodore Bikel doesn’t mind anyone knowing his age. “I’m 77,” said the “Fiddler on the Roof” star, “and I ignore it. “I’ve been acting since I was 19 years old. Being an actor is not just a job where you get up and go to work because you have to. You go to work because that’s your life. That’s what you do. “There are some people who have a slight sign of malaise and they take the day off. There’s one actor in our company of ‘Fiddler’ who’s older than I am -- David Masters. He’s 78½ and plays the rabbi. We’re on a 30-week tour this time out and David and I are the only two who have never missed a performance.” Bikel, an Oscar nominee for “The Defiant Ones” who made his movie debut in “The African Queen” and originated the role of Capt. Von Trapp on Broadway in “The Sound of Music,” is one of the major interpreters of the role of Tevye, the milkman in “Fiddler,” having played the part more than 1,600 times over the past three decades. He last visited New Orleans in the role six years ago. “Basically, I’m playing my own grandfather,” Bikel said. “He was a poor man who lived in the Ukraine. You don’t have to play a character close to yourself to be able to play it well, of course. In a career like mine, I’ve played everything, all kinds of roles, sometimes very far removed from my own experience -- spacemen, Southerners, aliens, kings, murderers. But it doesn’t hurt to have a role that you intrinsically know. “I’ll tell you something else -- the better the play, the easier it is to keep a role fresh. A flawed play is not a particularly easy thing to play every night. But ‘Fiddler’ is the most perfectly crafted piece of theater, everything in its proper place. It’s a total work of art, total in the sense that every part is integrated into a satisfying whole.” And helping to keep it that way is assistant director/choreographer Ken Daigle, who travels with the company as dance captain and swing (filling in for other performers as needed). “I’m there to maintain the show,” Daigle said, which means hewing as close as possible to the work of the show’s original director/choreographer, the legendary Jerome Robbins. “The choreography is very, very close to Robbins’ original,” Daigle said. “The staging needs changing because the concepts of the sets are different. “Sometimes there are clashes of territory, because Mr. Bikel knows this show very well, too. But basically, he’s very gracious and supportive. Not like Topol. I made my Broadway debut doing ‘Fiddler’ in the 1988 revival that starred Topol, who had done the movie. He was not the nicest person in the world. In fact, backstage, we changed the lyrics of ‘If I Were a Rich Man’ to ‘If You Were a Nice Man.’ Columnist Cindy Adams wrote in the paper that he wore a cologne called ‘One Man Show.’ “ Daigle is from New Orleans. “I grew up in the Irish Channel, then my family moved to Terrytown and I went to Brother Martin, when Dave Dessens and then Paul Rosefeldt taught drama there,” he said. “I used to have to take the ferry and two buses to get to school. My first brush with ‘Fiddler’ was at Tulane Summer Lyric Theatre, when Tony Bevinetto directed it. “I’ve still got lots of family there and the whole cast cannot wait to get to New Orleans. They are champing at the bit! We’re tired of playing places in the Midwest where they roll up the sidewalks at night.” Another member of the company with roots in New Orleans will not be playing the show here. Mim Babin, remembered for dozens of roles at Le Petit Theatre and the old Theater West, is the company’s Yente, the matchmaker, but took ill last week. “I first met Mim when she auditioned and it turned out we lived five blocks from each other in Terrytown, but had never met,” Daigle said. Daigle met Jerome Robbins when the Topol “Fiddler” was trying out in Philadelphia. “I had to go through four auditions to get into the show,” Daigle said. “And one night onstage in Philly, when I dropped to my knees in the ‘Bottle Dance,’ I caught a glimpse of a man in the third row with a white beard and thought, ‘Oh, God, he’s here!’ Because he had to give us permission to come into New York. “He came onstage the next day and said, ‘I saw your show last night. This story is about a little Russian village and the author could have told his story through any one of the characters in that village. But he chose to tell it through the most insignificant man imaginable, the milkman. I want you to remember that. Now, I have some notes for some of you and I would like to see Mr. Topol in his dressing room.’ Topol called in sick for the next two days and Robbins worked with us for two weeks. “He made us understand that this is an ‘everyman’ show. He could be very rough with actors; he tore one guy in the show to bits until he got what he wanted from him. The only thing he did with me is come up to me one day, take my face in his hands and said, ‘They can’t see this from the audience,’ meaning my skimpy beard. God, was I nervous! “I think the reason the show works for all audiences is because while it’s very specific, about this village in Russia, these Jewish people, this period, it’s also universal. Prejudice is universal. I played ‘Fiddler’ in Japan and they told us there, ‘This is a very Japanese story.’ “ Which brings us to a story Bikel tells in “Somewhere for Me,” Meryle Secrest’s new book about composer Richard Rodgers. When the show opened on Broadway, with Bikel playing Capt. Von Trapp opposite Mary Martin’s Maria, actress Zsa Zsa Gabor came backstage to see Bikel and she was weeping, moved by the end of the show as the Von Trapps escape the Nazis to the stirring strains of “Climb Every Mountain.” “This is my life!” she told Bikel. “Escaping over the mountains from Hungary -- Magda, Eva, Mama and me!” And Bikel said, “What are you talking about? You were 15 years old and some Turkish diplomat married you and took you out of Hungary on the Orient Express.” And Gabor replied, “It doesn’t matter. It’s my story. Over the mountains, over the mountains . . .” “Some stories are timeless and belong to everyone,” Bikel said. “Now, in these times, with all that’s going on in the world, ‘Fiddler’ has an added poignancy to those who want to see parallels. “It tells the story of anyone whose existence is so fragile that any moment they may have to deal with violence. “In ‘Fiddler,’ it’s on a much smaller scale. But these are people who live in constant fear of their lives and livelihood, yet somehow manage to find a way to live, to pray, to dance, to love. That’s what the play is all about. It’s a story that goes on happening today.” And how long will he go on telling that story? “I don’t know,” Bikel said. “Do you know that my very first role was in a straight play version of Sholom Alecheim’s ‘Tevya the Milkman’? I played the constable and had 29 lines. I counted them. “I put no time frame on how long I’ll stay with it. One of these day I’ll probably hang up my milk pail. But not just yet.” Theater writer David Cuthbert can be reached at dcuthbert@timespicayune.com or at (504) 826-3468. |