Theodore Bikel never will forget the moment in 1979 when he realized that the plane he was on was being hijacked.
Without missing a beat, he reached for his guitar and began serenading the nervous passengers.
”Don`t think I wasn`t as panicky as everyone else on the plane,” says Bikel, who will perform Tuesday through Sunday at George`s, 230 W. Kinzie St.
”I just began singing as a way to calm my own nerves, as well as everyone else`s. I remember thinking: `If this is the end, it`s an absolutely stupid way to die, but at least I`ll go out the same way I lived-singing.` ” Ultimately, everyone in the plane was spared when the FBI overcame the hijacker after a 10-hour siege, but the turn of events proved once again that Bikel is-and always has been-a singing artist by every impulse within him.
Whether he`s beseeching the heavens as Tevye in ”Fiddler on the Roof”
(”I`ve done it 972 times,” he boasts), or crooning cabaret tunes at clubs such as George`s (”I keep a repertoire of tunes in 21 languages,” he says), he remains passionately committed to the art of the song.
Unlike most singers, however, Bikel feels as comfortable with a pop tune of the `80s as a chestnut from the `20s. He makes little distinction, for instance, between gems by Kurt Weill and Sting.
”That`s the whole problem-too many people specialize,” Bikel says. ”We have doctors for the right ear lobe and the left nostril, but no general practitioners.
”Well that`s what I am-a general practitioner of the song.
”Listen closely to songs by Sting (formerly of the rock band Police), and you will hear the most intelligent, erudite metaphors.
”I`m deeply touched by his work, because, like all the best songs, the words and the music are of a piece-absolutely inseperable.”
Bikel should know, for in his many decades on the stage he has brought forth an irrepressible diversity of repertoire. The Bikel songbook encompasses the plaintive Jacques Brel, the sharp-edged Weill and the sweetly sentimental Richard Rodgers.
Perhaps closest to Bikel`s heart, however, are the Yiddish folk songs he heard growing up in Vienna before the German invasion in 1938, and later in Palestine, where his family fled.
”That`s probably why I relished playing Tevye in `Fiddler on the Roof,`
” says Bikel, who founded the Israel Chamber Theater in 1944, two years before he went to London to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
”You see, Tevye is really my own grandfather-I have him in my blood, in my genes. He is what I am.
”Yet, somehow, for all the times I played that role, I never really tired of it.
”Perhaps that is the craft of the performer. There are amateurs who are quite good, you know, but to be able to create a touching performance on a night when the inspiration isn`t there-that`s being a pro.”
Bikel has been one for most of his 64 years. Indeed, he simply cannot remember when he crossed the line from ”a young boy who sang for himself, his family and his friends” to a professional who sang for paying audiences.
He vividly remembers, however, the moment that launched his career. Sir Michael Redgrave saw him playing a bit part in a London stage production in the late `40s, then mentioned the newcomer to Sir Laurence Olivier the next day.
”That`s when I received the summons to see Olivier, who asked me to read for his new production of Tennessee Williams` `Streetcar Named Desire,`
” recalls Bikel, who was immediately hired as an understudy and eventually found himself playing Stanley opposite Vivien Leigh`s Blanche.
”It was a hair-raising experience. She was a hard task mistress, there was no doubt that she was in charge-she was the star.
”But I learned the most from Olivier. He was so brilliant, you dreaded him showing you how to do a scene, because you knew you never could do it as well.”
Though Bikel`s acting career brought him fame on stage (as Georg von Trapp in ”The Sound of Music” on Broadway in 1959) and screen (in Stanley Kramer`s ”The Defiant Ones” in 1958) he never ceased performing his cabaret songs.
The heyday probably was in the `60s, when a new generation-intent on changing the world-rediscovered the folk song.
”It was a heady time,” Bikel says. ”You genuinely could make contact with young people through music.”
Though times and tastes have changed, Bikel never has given up the road and his deeply literate form of entertainment.
”I never really thought of this as work,” Bikel says. ”I`m aware that the folk-music fans think I`m too showbiz, and the show people think I`m too ethnic.
”But it doesn`t matter. I`m a showman.”
