Theodore Bikel is an accomplished actor and singer.
But he's best known as a milkman.
Bikel's signature role is Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof." He steps into the role of the milkman and father of five daughters again next week when Broadway in Tucson brings the musical to the Tucson Music Hall.
Bikel has played Tevye nearly 2,100 times.
Not that he is counting - someone else told him the number, and he thought it sounded about right.
"That's over a period of 40 years," he said, sounding spry and much younger than his 85 years. ("I feel 60," he said.)
It had been about seven years since he had last done the role he is so identified with when he got the call to take over for Harvey Fierstein in selected venues including Tucson.
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"When I stepped onstage with 'Fiddler,' it was like an old friend that has never left my side," said Bikel, speaking from San Francisco, where he had just finished a run of his one-man play, "Sholom Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears."
Yes, but 40 years, more than 2,000 performances of the same play? How does he keep it fresh?
"I don't do it by gimmicks," said Bikel.
"I reach to the excellence of the character. In a way, I'm playing my own grandfather, harking back to how he was - from pious man to one who gave up on God, and then returned again. Tevye is so much like my grandfather. Not always do you have a chance to play something so close to your own roots."
Bikel doesn't do vocal warm-ups before a show or nap to store energy before going onstage. He isn't willing to act his age.
"People often comment not on the performance, but the stamina," he said. "I move, dance, sing, act. It's just a question of energy. The important thing is to feel what you are doing."
And Bikel feels what he is doing - the play, first staged in 1964 - has much to say to all of us, he said.
"Although it is painted on a fairly narrow ethnic canvas, it is very universal," he said.
"I have performed 'Fiddler' where half the audience were not only not Jewish, but weren't Caucasian, and they would be moved by the play, especially by the end. And I would ask what does this play mean to you, and they would say 'traditions, traditions. We know what it means to follow the traditions, and we know about persecution.'
"The play becomes universally acceptable."
If you go
"Fiddler on the Roof"
• Presented by: Broadway in Tucson.
• By: Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick and Joseph Stein.
• Director: Sammy Dallas Bayesy
• When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. next Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Feb. 27, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Feb. 28.
• Where: Tucson Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave.
• Tickets: $30-$75, with discounts available.
• Reservations: 1-800-745-3000.
• Running time: 2 hours 55 minutes, with one intermission.
• The story: "Fiddler on the Roof" is based on "Tevye and his Daughters" and other tales by Sholom Aleichem. It is set in 1905 Tsarist Russia. Tevye is the father of five daughters, and is struggling hard to hold on to the traditions of his religion and family in the face of rapidly changing times.
Contact reporter Kathleen Allen at kallen@azstarnet.com or 573-4128.
