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Harvey Fierstein Replacing Topol in Fiddler Tour?

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#1

Harvey Fierstein Replacing Topol in Fiddler Tour?

Posted: 11/11/09 at 9:01am

Apparently word is (and this is NOT confirmed, it's just what I heard) that Topol is injured or too vocally tired to continue with the Fiddler tour, and that Harvey Fierstein is stepping in for the rest of it. Has anyone else heard this? If it's true, it would certainly be very interesting...
"Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos."-Stephen Sondheim
#2

re: Harvey Fierstein Replacing Topol in Fiddler Tour?

Posted: 11/11/09 at 9:04am

Ugh. Harvey was just plain AWFUL as Tevye.
"It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg." -- Thomas Jefferson
#5

re: Harvey Fierstein Replacing Topol in Fiddler Tour?

Posted: 11/11/09 at 9:57am

I thought that Harvey was just so-so when I saw him on Broadway. However, the people I was seeing it with felt that they got a more spiritual connection out of it by having a person who is Jewish play the role.
"If you try to shag my husband while I am still alive, I will shove the art of motorcycle maintenance up your rancid little Cu**. That's a good dear" Tom Stoppard's Rock N Roll
#6

re: Harvey Fierstein Replacing Topol in Fiddler Tour?

Posted: 11/11/09 at 9:59am

Add me to the chorus of people who loved Harvey. His "Little Bird" had me in tears.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#8

re: Harvey Fierstein Replacing Topol in Fiddler Tour?

Posted: 11/11/09 at 11:01am

Harvey turned that lifeless, WASP-y version of Fiddler into a beautiful evening. Add Andrea Martin to the list of those who helped make it much better too.

-There's the muddle in the middle. There's the puddle where the poodle did the piddle."
#14

re: Harvey Fierstein Replacing Topol in Fiddler Tour?

Posted: 11/11/09 at 12:38pm

I, for one, hope he gets to.

There was a plan in place for Fierstien to take his FIDDLER out on the road. He said in an interview during A CATERED AFFAIR he was asked to go out, but he wanted to do AFFAIR for a year and then go.

I loved him in the part, unexpectedly. Loved him.

A draw? Perhaps not in most markets.
#16

re: Harvey Fierstein Replacing Topol in Fiddler Tour?

Posted: 11/11/09 at 1:16pm

Harvey's Tevye was the most moving performance of the role I've ever seen, and I've seen it four times, including Harry Goz (with Bette Midler!), Paul Libson, Herschel Bernardi plus Topol (in the movie).

The anguish with which Harvey banished his own daughter was more palpable than with any of the others. Possibly because Harvey was remembering the sting of parents rejecting their children because they were gay.
#17

re: Harvey Fierstein Replacing Topol in Fiddler Tour?

Posted: 11/11/09 at 1:41pm

::Seeing the "MOVIE" Tevye live has obviously been a big part of the tour's success.::

I can't imagine that to be true at all. That movie is ancient history.
Twitter @NamoInExile Instagram none
#18

re: Harvey Fierstein Replacing Topol in Fiddler Tour?

Posted: 11/11/09 at 2:16pm

"Seeing the 'MOVIE' Tevye live has obviously been a big part of the tour's success."

Given the response the audience in Boston had to Topol, I'd say Michael Bennett is absolutely correct. Seeing the "movie" Tevye is definitely the draw.

But it wouldn't surprise me if they replaced him, at least for part of the tour. He seemed very tired.
BWW Review of Fiddler in Boston
#21

re: Harvey Fierstein Replacing Topol in Fiddler Tour?

Posted: 11/11/09 at 2:27pm

"I thought that Harvey was just so-so when I saw him on Broadway. However, the people I was seeing it with felt that they got a more spiritual connection out of it by having a person who is Jewish play the role."

. . . and isn't (Chaim) Topol Jewish? During the press for the theatrical release of the movie, Topol told of basing his characterization of Tevye on his grandfather (?) I believe who was a Russian Jew subjected to the Pogroms depicted in Fiddler.
#22

re: Harvey Fierstein Replacing Topol in Fiddler Tour?

Posted: 11/11/09 at 2:27pm

I know that's how they're doing it, but I just don't see it as being that much of a draw for much of an audience. Like maybe two full houses worth of people per tour stop.

They do the same thing with Ted Neely in Superstar, but that's a movie that's not exactly a part of the average person's vocabulary.

I would imagine Harvey would be as much of a draw as Topol for an overlapping yet mostly different set of theater-goers. He's somebody who has been on Broadway a LOT. Topol did the movie almost 40 years ago.
Twitter @NamoInExile Instagram none
#23

re: Harvey Fierstein Replacing Topol in Fiddler Tour?

Posted: 11/11/09 at 2:31pm

I've worked two long productions of Fiddle and I know by heart from start to finish.
Watching Harvey do it was like seeing it for the first time. He was that good.
I would be tempted to see the tour if he was in it. Topol? - NEVER.
#24

re: Harvey Fierstein Replacing Topol in Fiddler Tour?

Posted: 11/11/09 at 2:33pm

You would think that Namo, but I actually do think Topol is the principal draw - he definitely was in Los Angeles where the show did incredible box office. That movie is very beloved and for a lot of people Topol is to FIDDLER now what Channing was to DOLLY.

The average person in Ohio would have to really scrunch to come up with something they know Harvey Fierstein from...
#25

re: Harvey Fierstein Replacing Topol in Fiddler Tour?

Posted: 11/11/09 at 2:49pm

My Aunt was only interested in it because of Topol. I doubt she'll care much about Harvey. She very much represents the average tour audience member. I imagine he's the main appeal for many.

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