Bye Bye Bernice

On the heels of the sad death of Merv Griffin and Charles Nelson Reilly, about which I have already written, comes more crummy news; we have lost another quirky character star, Alice Ghostly.










My first memory of Ghostly must have been her hilarious guest starring role on an episode of "Get Smart," in which she played Max's new neighbor ("Call me Naomi!") who constantly sparred with her lazy husband (a pre-"Happy Days" Tom Bosley) and was incidentally a Kaos agent. Her hysterical attempts to poison The Chief at 99's first dinner party were a scream. I later realized that she was in the midst of a long and varied career, including prestige films such as "The Graduate" and "To Kill a Mockingbird," in which she played Scout's snippy neighbor. She was an accomplished stage actress, gracing the Broadway boards many times. One such appearance, in one of the "New Faces" revues, paired her with another of my favorite comics from that period, a man to whom she was often compared, Paul Lynde. They both had a nasal speech quality and eccentric facial expressions, and were in fact sometimes thought to be brother and sister (they were not).








Ghostly's later stage appearances included replacing Dorothy Loudon as Miss Hannigan in the original "Annie," as well as several Tony nominations and one win, in 1965 for "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window." Still, she achieved her most lasting fame on television. Back when live TV was the norm, she appeared in the now iconic original production of "Cinderella," starring Julie Andrews. With Kaye Ballard at her side, she introduced the world to the Rogers and Hammerstein novelty song, "Stepsisters' Lament."







In the late 60s, she joined the long-running sitcom "Bewitched," and remained with the show during its waning years. A decade later, she delighted old fans and made new ones as half-baked Bernice Clifton (with an "arterial flow problem") on "Designing Women," for which she received an Emmy nomination.

I have a lot of respect for the actors who spend their careers "in support," as Ghostly did. I hope she had a happy life (her marriage to actor Felice Orlandi lasted 50 years) and enjoyed the fact that she gave the public so much pleasure.

Steinbeck Surrenders

...or at least, he ought to, considering the massacre I am making of his words.

Of Mice and Men, the classic American tale of horse shoe games and whorehouses, is written in a structure difficult for my modern mouth to wrap itself around.

(Yes, I know the masterpiece is about a bit more than horse shoe games and whorehouses, but these are the major components of my role in the play, so naturally, they remain very important to me.)

I am having no trouble whatsoever with the accent, related to an Oklahoma dialect with hard-hitting "r" sounds, and a tight-lipped delivery. I am, however, having trouble with the odd sentence structure Steinbeck uses. I freely confess that I am more comfortable in a tux, holding a martini glass, and tossing off bon mots.

But I shall soldier on. Lengthy tech this weekend (three days' worth) will be followed by a day off, then we open cold, and fairly unexpectedly, for a house of over 300 9th graders (how old are 9th graders these days anyway? 14 or so?) at the ungodly hour of 10:15 AM. Adding the time required to prep for the curtain, and the hour or so commute from my front door to Olney, and we are talking about a very early and very long day...

Wanna make an actor complain? Give him a job.

Of Mice and Music

The Opus remount is well underway, and I feel lucky to have been a part of it, if only for a short time. The Washington Stage Guild remained upbeat and positive regarding my "desertion" to the previous commitment at Olney Theatre. The show will continue for another several weeks with our esteemed director playing the role I so enjoyed. I look forward to returning to see how the Lazara Quartet changes with its newest member (at right).

I have to confess to a bit of an ego boost when this little item was circulated to the press, as if my leaving the show was really all that newsworthy.

I can't help feeling a depression about leaving a role I love before the show closes. Couldn't be helped, really, and I have high hopes that I will be returning to the esteemed Stage Guild soon and often.

For now, though, attention must be turned to "Of Mice and Men" at Olney. A full week of rehearsal has passed, and truth be told, I already feel quite behind. The other cast members have clearly been hard at work in their off hours, and I, to put it bluntly, have not. So, many scenes find actors coming off the page for large sections of the text, while my dialogue remains firmly in my handheld script. I don't have all that much dialogue to begin with, so the fact that I don't know a single word of it is a bit embarrassing.

Time to hit the books for real. Steinbeck, ready or not, here I come.

Local Droppings, Dog Days Edition

Before heading into the next period of employment, I took a few weekends to catch up on the local theatrical offerings. Slim pickings, volume wise, as August really does mean the Dog Days of summer. Most theatres in town are dark, or are in rehearsal for their big season opener.

First Up, I caught the first show of the new Theatre Alliance season. It was quick (about 70 minutes) and easy (less than 5 minutes from my house), so I had nothing to lose by popping in. Actually, TA puts out really interesting stuff, though I miss most of it. I appeared there 4 years ago or so, and had a very rewarding time.

Their current show, a world premiere, just did not sit right with me. It was one of those scripts redolent with characters who are quick with the quips, which gets old for me pretty quickly. As a result, I did not enjoy the production, nor the performances in it (I give the actors kudos for playing the script with gusto, I just didn't buy any of it). The show is getting mixed-to-good reviews, so apparently some people like it.

My second evening out was much more enjoyable. I shlepped out to Rep Stage to catch their season opener, A.R. Gurney's "Mrs. Farnsworth." My grad school buddy Steve Carpenter directed the piece environmentally. That is, because the play takes place in a classroom, Steve actually did the show in a classroom, a lecture hall at Howard Community College. I really enjoyed this bit of left-wing agitprop, which contained a couple of swell performances by Helen Hedman and Mitchell Hebert.

I was so glad I ventured out a third night, to catch the remount of "Pangs of the Messiah" at Theatre J. The show ran a month or so ago, and was such a success, it's back for an encore. I confess that I was prepared for a dry political diatribe, but instead, I was completely sucked into this very personal story of Jews being evacuated from the West Bank. The script was riveting from start to finish, and the performances, lead by Laura Giannarelli (seen here with Alexander Strain) and Michael Tolaydo, were among the best I've seen in a long while.

The Lingo of the Letdown

Gotta hand it to tiny Bay Theatre Company. They are one of the very very few theaters who make the effort to notify actors that their auditions tanked.



Well, that's not really the way they put it, of course. And notification that you did not get the job is really appreciated by the actor. Most theaters (more than 90 %, I would estimate) don't bother with such courtesies, leaving the actor in a sort of limbo, wondering if a decision has been made, or if he is still in the running, or if the theater has dropped into the ocean, or what.



But tiny Bay Theatre is doing it right. Only a few days after my recent audition for them, I received a brief email thanking me for my efforts. I commend them for that nicety, but have to roll my eyes at the cliche which they, and all other theaters, use: "We are going in a different direction."

...um, which direction would that be? South?

Treading Water

Periods like this in my life always feel like treading water. One event, or series of events, has ended, and the next has yet to begin. So, I get the feeling of remaining stationary while life swirls around me.

"Bye Bye Birdie" ended as a success, and I was lucky enough to have my long-time soul-mate Judy with me to help with the Post Show Depression. She spent several days with me in DC, and I barely felt the usual let-down. We had a quiet and uneventful visit, with a movie ("Hairspray") and a stage show ("Democracy") sprinkled in. Mostly, we caught up on each other's lives, and spent a good deal of time enjoying my newest favorite TV series, "Slings and Arrows." Judy and I had a ball following this Canadian series which deals with the hilarious trials of running a major Shakespearean Theatre (read: Stratford in Ontario.)

Jude hopped the train to Newark, and a plane to Edinburgh, and I spent several days doing mundane things such as the dentist and the eye doc.

I helped celebrate the Very Low-Keyed 20th anniversary of "Shear Madness" at the Kennedy Center. An elaborate cake was commissioned to help commemorate this DC institution, currently the second longest running non-musical play in the history of American Theatre (the Boston production of "Shear Madness" is number one). But other than an informal gathering of the cast and KenCen crew, this auspicious birthday passed, well, inauspiciously. This was surely at the wishes of the creators, who consider the Kennedy Center production the Jewel in the Crown of the show.

And now, I have a few short weeks before theatrical activity begins again. Next week, I'll have two auditions (one show I really really want, and the other I'm non-committal) for productions in the spring. It would ease my mind a bit if one or both come through, as I have nothing on the books beyond October.

But, I'm not complaining. Not too much, anyway. In a few weeks, I'll be tossed back into the "Opus" remount, for only a week or so, during which I will also begin rehearsals for "Of Mice and Men." So, similar to last spring, I'll be pulling double duty, but with a twist. This time I will have to give up my role in "Opus" after we reopen, in order to concentrate on my horseshoe skills in "M&M".

Ah well, too much work. This is a GOOD problem to have...

A Bunch of Coconuts

I find myself strangely moved by the passing of TV icon Merv Griffin. He made buttloads of money inventing Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, but I remember him primarily for his talk show, which was in its heyday back when talk shows were just that. They were not promos for the guests' newest film, album, or TV series. Back when I was watching The Merv Griffin Show, talk shows were for talk.

It must have been in the late 60s that I watched Merv regularly. My family had a rule (with some flexibility, I must say) that dinner happened at the dinner table, and not in front of the television. This made watching Merv difficult, as his 90 minute syndicated show was broadcast during our dinner hour in Atlanta, where I grew up. Thankfully, my mother was more amenable to dining on a TV tray if Dad was held up at work, and since he almost always was held up at work (Thank you, Lockheed), I often dined while enjoying Merv and his guests.

And what an outlandish group they were. We had Merv's announcer, the incomparable Arthur Treacher, a hilariously pompous British character actor whose film career consisted of a series of butlers. I'm not sure he knew how funny he was, as he attempted to translate the Americanisms which were thrust at him, but he had a strong chemistry with Griffin.

Back then, Merv excelled at presenting the Entertaining Guest. These were not people booked to hock the latest project, these were people who could actually speak extemporaneously and entertainingly. Merv loved eccentrics, so we were introduced to Monty Rock III, Stanley Myron Handelman, Prof. Irwin Corey and, a particular favorite, Hermione Gingold.

Aging TV writer and wit Jack Douglas was a frequent guest with his much younger Japanese wife, Reiko. I didn't know at the time that Reiko was a skilled comedienne, all I knew was that the duo was a scream. Their routine usually included humor aimed at Reiko's ignorance of the English language (a put-on, I'm sure, but who cares? It was funny).

A typical encounter:

Merv: "So Reiko, what have you been doing here in the States for fun?"

Reiko (recited as if she had learned the answer phonetically): "Photo-graphing Mi-li-tary In-stall-ations..."

Charo was another frequent guest who capitalized on her lack of knowledge of English. Married to elderly bandleader Xavier Cugat, she looked for "sook sex" in America.

I still remember the comics Merv showcased back then. Ruth Buzzi was a frequent guest, as was Joanne Worley, with her trademark feathered boa. This was several years before they gained fame in "Laugh-In."

Moms Mabley was a frequent guest, getting huge laughs for politically incorrect, semi-racist humor. And I have a strong memory of wacky Dody Goodman, years before gaining a bit of fame on "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," singing a hilarious old tune called "Lydia the Tattooed Lady." (That number still sits on my list of possible audition songs.

It's true that Merv lavished a lot of screen time on his favorites, which included the Gabor sisters and the Reagans. But he should be applauded for booking interesting people who could fill 90 minutes with witty repartee, with nary a project to promote.

Thanks, Merv, for all those evenings in front of the TV.