Theodore Bikel brings Sholom Aleichem to life

TORONTO — One of the Jewish community’s most beloved thespians, Theodore Bikel, is bringing his acclaimed one-man show to the Winter Garden Theatre next week.

Theodore Bikel as Sholom Aleichem

Written by Bikel, Sholom Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears, is a look at Aleichem’s life through music and stories. The show, presented by the Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company, is in Toronto Oct 13 to 18.

Russian-born Sholom Aleichem (1859-1916) was the popular Jewish humorist and author of Yiddish literature who introduced the world to Tevye the Milkman. The character inspired the landmark Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof, with Bikel as Tevye. The Viennese-born actor gloriously brought Tevye to life more than 2,000 times over 37 years.

“Sholom Aleichem has been part of my life ever since I was a small boy,” said Bikel, 85. He said Aleichem is the quintessential Yiddish writer who epitomizes everything about the Old World and the shtetl.

“For his time, he was an intensely modern man as well, who knew world literature. While he concentrated on the milieu of his people, he was well versed in everything else as well.”

Bikel said he is writing about two kinds of journeys. “One is my own journey as an artist and as a Jew, which then intersects with Sholom Aleichem’s journey, in which I am able to take pieces of his writing and bring them to life.” Bikel will be playing dozens of Aleichem’s characters, from young boys to old men and women.

“Let’s face it, something that is written on the page for the purposes of performance has to be lifted and made three dimensional.”

Bikel thinks that “laughter through the tears” is something that goes through Jewish life. “We always manage to find the laughter, even in the midst of sadness. We certainly know in the midst of laughing and humour, there is always that little tear. It is a Jewish trait that we do have. It is kind of unique. I don’t know it in any other people.”

Bikel wrote the play based on Aleichem’s writings, which he grew up with. “I have all his volumes on my shelves. After dinner, my father used to read to us a short story, a monologue or even a whole play in Yiddish, so that has accompanied me through all my life.”

Bikel has always championed the Yiddish language. “It has been threatened by extinction in some many ways – the Holocaust not only murdered six million people, but also a language along with it,” he said. “There were survivors, and the survivors carried the language with them. Today, Yiddish is threatened in other ways, by apathy, laziness and Jews, who tried to make an either/or proposition out of Hebrew versus Yiddish.”

Coincidently, this year is the 150th anniversary of Aleichem’s birth, and Bikel performed this show to rave reviews in Washington, D.C., and Florida, and will be taking it to New York after the Toronto run.

He said the show appeals to both Jews and non-Jews. “People have told me that they are taking away from this show a renewed appreciation of the lasting value of ‘folk writing.’ Sholom Aleichem wrote of a time and a place that can only live with us, if we manage to get the descriptions of the huts that they lived in, and of how exquisitely they treated their own poverty.”

Bikel, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, is a star of stage, film and television, an accomplished musician and renowned social activist.  The actor has appeared on stage with Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh and Peter Ustinov, and played Captain VonTrapp in the first production of The Sound of Music on Broadway.

Bikel’s film career began with the 1951 classic The African Queen, in which he played opposite Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. He received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of the southern sheriff in The Defiant Ones in 1958.

On the small screen, the Emmy Award-winning actor, appeared in numerous shows, including The Twilight Zone, Hawaii Five-O, All in the Family, Murder She Wrote, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Law and Order

The folk-singing troubadour, a longtime recording artist, co-founded the Newport Folk Festival.

For tickets to Sholom Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears, call the box office at 416-872-5555 or contact Ticketmaster at www.ticketmaster.ca.