When the ailing veteran performer Topol had to pull out of Fiddler on the Roof, the show’s producers turned to Tony Award-winning actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein to play the lead role of Tevye.

Harvey Fierstein as Tevye

The Brooklyn-born thespian is no stranger to the role. He played the iconic milkman in the musical’s Broadway revival in 2005.

Toronto audiences can catch this Jerome Robbins-inspired production, directed by Sammy Dallas Bayes – the choreographer of the Broadway revival – at the Canon Theatre in Toronto.

Fierstein admits joining this production at short notice has been a challenge. He’s a homebody and had to leave his dog, cats, friends and his newly built Connecticut home behind, but says if you want to have an exciting life and a great adventure, it’s all worth it in the end.

Fierstein speaks of Tevye as a man who has God as his best friend. “People certainly have intimate relationships with their faith, but he really and truly believes that he has conversations with God. He is a man who is very close to his creator. He would even say, ‘I have God in my back pocket.’ Of course, God would say he has him in his back pocket.

“It makes him kind of a dreamer, and as we see in the show, when things happen, he is willing to get creative. When Tevye’s daughter wanted to marry Motel the tailor, this guy comes up with this whole elaborate dream. That is not your everyday person. It is someone with great creativity and imagination, zeal for life and, frankly, great love for his daughter that he is willing to go that far.”

Fierstein says Fiddler would not mean so much to him had he not grown up Jewish. “My father died some 30 years ago, but I am playing him. I am playing the man whom I sat next to when I first saw the show when I was a child. I am playing all the men that I grew up with, all those friends of my father’s.

“There are line readings that I say are ‘Max Conan.’ He is a man that I grew up with – he had Nazi numbers tattooed on his arm. I grew up in this world, and I am able to bring it to life through these men who gave me life.”

Before Fierstein took on the role of Tevye, he watched the silent film Tevye and His Daughters and created a scene with one of the daughters – Havala – based on that film. He says that an artist uses all the inspirations that are available.

“I lived Jewish-centric, growing up in Brooklyn the way I did, with the yeshiva and the Jewish community house on the same block,” says Fierstein. “Most of my friends were Italian or Jewish. I happen to be an atheist, which has nothing to do with being Jewish. In a funny way, there is a great Jewish tradition of atheism.

“People think of Judaism as a religion, but we are not, we are a people. I always say, ‘If you think Jews are white, just ask a Ku Klux Klansman, and he will tell you, we ain’t white.’ I have no problem identifying with this, and it is amazing to play somebody who has such a deep belief that he’s being taken care of.”

The actor finds it fascinating that, as the play goes on, Tevye begins to question whether God is taking care of him. By the end of the first act, he’s standing centre stage, looking up and asking God, “Why?”

Fierstein says by that point faith is almost a luxury that Tevye doesn’t have time for. Fierstein says it is like Tevye saying to God, “God, it’s really nice to know you, but I’ve gotta pack and get my family safely out of here – that’s what I need to do.”

Fierstein has won Tony Awards for both writing and playing the lead role in his play Torch Song Trilogy, and he received a Tony in 2003 for best actor in a musical for the Broadway production of Hairspray.

Fierstein recreated his role in Torch Song Trilogy in the film adaptation. In addition, he was in the films Mrs. Doubtfire, Bullets Over Broadway and Independence Day.

Fierstein was exposed to theatre at a young age thanks to his mother, who took him to see everything from Yiddish Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company to the Bolshoi Ballet.

This is the actor’s first time gracing a Toronto stage, but he has spent time here in the past filming movies.

In April, he’ll be back on Broadway starring in La Cage.

When he’s not on stage, he likes to walk his dog, watch Oprah, go antiquing and junking, go to auctions, make quilts, paint, cook and visit friends.

Fiddler on the Roof runs at the Canon Theatre until Jan. 10. For tickets, call 416-872-1212.