Channeling Sholem Aleichem

by Ted Merwin

He was an international celebrity at a time long before writers were megastars, and his funeral was mobbed by 100,000 fans who lined the streets of New York to bid farewell. Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916), born Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich, was treasured through the Yiddish-speaking world because he captured with remarkable fidelity the kaleidoscopic, tumultuous world of the Eastern European shtetl on the verge of its dissolution.

Who better to channel Aleichem than the iconic Jewish performer Theodore Bikel, whose one-man show, “Sholom Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears,” directed by Derek Goldman, starts previews this week at the Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre. The show, which is performed in a mix of Yiddish and English, honors the 150th anniversary of Aleichem’s birth in the Ukraine.

“Sholem

Aleichem has been swirling around me for my entire life,” Bikel, 85, told The Jewish Week in a telephone interview. “My father would read to me one of his monologues, plays or articles over dinner on Tuesday nights.” He called Aleichem “the finest Yiddish folk writer,” who “keeps an entire world alive because of what he wrote.” Bikel wrote the new play himself, basing it on Aleichem’s 18 volumes of collected works, along with biographical and critical writings about the Yiddish writer.

In addition to “Fiddler on the Roof,” many works have been inspired by Aleichem’s stories, including Howard da Silva’s 1953 play, “An Evening with Sholom Aleichem,” Arnold Perl’s 1959 television movie, “The World of Sholom Aleichem” (starring Morris Carnovsky and Jack Gilford) and Saul Reichlin’s 2003 play,” Sholom Aleichem — Now You’re Talking!” Bikel has even done a previous show, “Greetings ... Sholom Aleichem Lives!” which ran in Miami in 1997.

In the new show, which has been performed in Fort Lauderdale, Toronto and Washington, Bikel plays 20 different characters, including Aleichem, Aleichem’s grandfather, a whip-wielding rabbi in cheder, a coach driver, a woman with an apple cart, and passengers on a train. Along with music from “Fiddler” — Bikel has performed the role of Tevye 2,000 times, more than any other actor — Bikel sings Yiddish folk tunes, especially the songs of Mark Warshawsky, whose work Aleichem championed. The backdrop uses projections of photographs, paintings and drawings of Eastern European Jewish life.

According to Bikel, when the Yiddish writer was once asked what made him so close to Tevye, his fictional alter ego, he said that Tevye used poverty as an art form. “You think that you can do a lot with money,” the character seemed to say. “Look what I can do with poverty.” Lodged in these exquisitely painful ironies, Bikel believes, is the enduring legacy of Sholem Aleichem. He finds all of Aleichem’s paradoxical wisdom summed up in his famous quip: “You have to survive, even if it kills you.”

“Sholom Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears” runs through Dec. 8 at the Folksbiene’s new home, the Baruch Performing Arts Center, 55 Lexington Avenue at 25th Street. For tickets, $45-$55, call the box office at (646) 312-5073.

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