Harvey Fierstein reprises ‘Fiddler’ role at National Theatre

He brings a distinctive sensibility and understanding to the milkman living with his wife and five daughters in a Jewish shtetl, or ghetto, of czarist Russia during the first decade of the 20th century.

Fierstein’s inspiration harks back to his childhood introduction to the original Broadway production of 1964 starring Zero Mostel, one of his heroes. He cannot banish the memory of his astonishment upon seeing a whole stage of Jews.

“It changed my world,” he said, speaking from the tour stop in Fort Worth, Texas. “I remembered that feeling when I came out of the stage door after the 2004 Broadway revival and saw a Hasidic boy staring at me. As I approached, he asked, ‘Are you really a Jew?’ ”

Fierstein feels so close to the show’s creators that he dubs them “the three boys” and often runs his interpretive ideas past them. Jerry Bock composed the music, Sheldon Harnick wrote the lyrics and Joseph Stein conceived the plot based on tales by Sholom Aleichem. The original production captured nine of 10 Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book and inspired the popular 1971 film adaptation starring Topol as Tevye.

“There can’t be more different performances than Topol and mine,” Fierstein said. “He was not who I think Tevye is, yet that is the model most people know. Everyone knows all the songs, but you need to hear the story new again. Going back to the 1963 mind-set, we were less than 20 years from World War II. Driving down to Florida at that time, you could still see signs in public places warning, ‘No Jews.’

“I didn’t change any words, but I changed Tevye. He, to me, is not the same as the other men in his town. You can tell he is not their friend by the way they treat him like a stranger in the bar. I believe he is God’s chosen one to move from shtetl life to the modern age. Nobody else would have come upon a way to sidestep tradition and marry his daughter to the man she loved.

“Tevye has the gift of imagination and love that forces him to change and move out into the unknown. He is living a fundamental religious life, a living death controlled by others, when he pushes himself beyond the boundaries that limit him to become an American Jew.”

Fierstein’s Tevye undergoes the push and pull of his closed society and re-examines himself continually. Life is governed by work and prayer. Although his marriage is fine, it is not a modern concept. There is no time for the couple to talk about feelings. Accordingly, they never touch except during the wedding dance.

“They don’t sit together on the bench until the number ‘Do You Love Me’ is over,” he said. “At the very end of the play, as they are leaving for America, he turns and looks at her and says ‘Let’s go.’ That, to me, is when they become a modern couple.”

Fierstein made his acting debut in Andy Warhol’s play “Pork” and was only 30 when he earned his first Tony Awards in 1983 for Best Play and Best Actor in “Torch Song Trilogy,” as well as Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Actor in a Play. He won his next Tony and Drama Desk awards the following year for the Best Book of a Musical, “La Cage aux Folles,” which is about to open again on Broadway, and captured a fourth as Best Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Edna Turnblad in “Hairspray,” based on John Waters’ movie about radio and race in Baltimore during the ’60s. He credits these and his success as voice-over artist on “The Simpsons” and numerous film and TV roles to personal artistry.

“The beauty of theater is that it is a religious experience,” he said. “We artists do it for the audience, never knowing if we’ll change the life of one person out there.”