Dog Day Obits

Actually, it's not the dog days at all, but rather the beginning of spring! To celebrate the annual season of renewal, let's talk about death. Specifically, two film directors of note:

Charles Jarrott

1927-2011

Jarrott spent the 50s and most of the 60s in his native Britain, creating an extensive resume of well-respected television programs. His output included TV adaptations of plays by Pinter, Fugard, and Hugh Leonard. He placed Jeremy Brett in The Picture of Dorian Gray and Jack Palance in Jekyll and Hyde. After these successes, he moved to Hollywood to make some money. His most prestigious films were back-to-back historical epics Anne of the Thousand Days and Mary, Queen of Scots, which garnered a total of 16 Oscar nominations between them, including acting nods for Richard Burton, Genevieve Bujold, Anthony Quale, and Vanessa Redgrave. Jarrott won the Golden Globe for directing Anne..., but received no other accolades for his work. In fact, critic Pauline Kael wrote that he was not a director, but just a "traffic manager." (When composer John Barry died recently, I wrote a bit about my attraction to the real Mary, Queen of Scots.) Jarrott's next film was the notorious flop musical Lost Horizon, which sank producer Ross Hunter's career and initiated the breakup of the songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

It had an all-star cast. Olivia Hussey, John Gielgud, Peter Finch, Michael York, Sally Kellerman, and Charles Boyer were all trapped in this endless, 150-minute trip to Shangri-La. It was this disastrous film which inspired Bette Midler's oft-quoted quip, "I never miss a Liv Ullman musical." Charles's remaining feature films include The Dove (Timothy Bottoms sailing around the world solo) and The Other Side of Midnight (3-hour melodrama based on a Sidney Sheldon potboiler), plus two films for Disney, The Last Flight of Noah's Ark and Condorman. Jarrott worked extensively in American television, delivering biopics about Eisenhower, heiress Barbara Hutton, Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, and Pope John XXIII. He died last month at the age of 83.

Sidney Lumet

1924-2011

It's odd to say that Hollywood lost one of its great directors, since Lumet never directed a film there. He always shot on location, and, over a career which spanned 50 years and over 50 features, New York was more often than not that location. Though born in Philly, he spent his formative years in New York, as the son of actors in the Yiddish theatre. He himself spent some time on the stage, making his Broadway debut at the age of 11. His stage acting career included Kurt Weill, and playing Jesus, twice. WWII interrupted his career, and when he returned to New York, he found himself at CBS, where he learned the craft of film directing by guiding the You Are There series, starring Walter Cronkite, and by helming over 200 live programs during TV's Golden Age. One of the success stories of that period of live programs, 12 Angry Men, provided Sidney with the opportunity to direct his first feature film.

The movie was a commercial and critical hit, and Lumet soon became known as a director who could bring a film in under budget and on time ( he moved so quickly that Paul Newman quipped he was the only man who would double park in front of a whorehouse). He also had the ability to inspire actors to deliver dynamic performances. He was, in fact, known as an actor's director, and 19 of the performances he directed on film earned Oscar nominations. He had a healthy respect for the stage, though his own live theatrical output was minimal. He directed Shaw and Camus, but had a huge flop with his first foray into musical theatre, 1962's Nowhere To Go But Up. Anybody who places Martin Balsam in a leading role in a musical needs to stick to the silver screen. The show lasted only 9 performances, and is remembered only as Dorothy Loudon's Broadway debut. Lumet's only other musical project was the disastrous film adaptation of The Wiz in 1978, in which the role of Dorothy was ludicrously aged to accommodate Diana Ross. The flick was a critical and financial bomb, but boasted some pretty creative uses of Sidney's favorite star, the City of New York. At least half of Lumet's movies were theatrical adaptations. He placed Jason Robards in O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh on live television, and later, directed O'Neill's masterpiece Long Day's Journey Into Night for the big screen (star Katherine Hepburn gave a pretty harrowing performance). He filmed Arthur Miller's View From the Bridge with Maureen Stapleton and Carol Lawrence, and Chekhov's The Seagull with James Mason and Vanessa Redgrave. He placed Marlon Brando and Anna Magnani in The Fugitive Kind, an adaptation of Tennessee Williams's Orpheus Descending. Later, he filmed the longest-running comic thriller in Broadway history, Deathtrap, with Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, and Dyan Cannon, and when he was tagged to direct the film version of Equus, he agreed that star Richard Burton should return to the stage and play the leading role for several months to prepare for the film. That attention to the actor's craft made Lumet very popular among film stars. He usually spent two or more weeks in rehearsal with his cast before he ever shot a frame of film, practically unheard of in Hollywood.

But his respect for the actor, and his ability to bring out truthful performances, meant that the biggest stars were eager to work with him. Henry Fonda, Lauren Becall, William Holden, Rod Steiger, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Walter Matthau, Nick Nolte, Sean Connery, George C. Scott, Timothy Hutton, Glenn Close, Dustin Hoffman, and many other heavyweights peppered his casts. Al Pacino played two of the greatest roles of his career in Lumet films (Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon), and many believe Paul Newman's finest performance was given in Sidney's The Verdict. Ingrid Bergman received a career-topping third Oscar in 1975 under his direction (Murder on the Orient Express), and Anne Bancroft gave one of her best performances in the barely-remembered comic gem (and one of my favorite divertissements) Garbo Talks. Lumet's interest in stories of moral complexity did not inhibit his attraction to dark comedy; Just Tell Me What You Want in 1980 was not a critical success, but is highlighted by an intense fight and chase sequence between stars Ali McGraw and Alan King, during which an entire New York department store is demolished. On the inside. Lumet's masterpiece is generally considered to be Network, his dark satire of the television news business. The film was nominated for 10 Oscars, winning four (three of them for actors Peter Finch, awarded posthumously, Faye Dunaway, and Beatrice Straight). Not only did the film create a national catchphrase ("I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore"), it provided what turned out to be a prescient view of television's future. Take a look at the movie today, and the rants of Howard Beale, and the turning of a news program into a vehicle ripe with personal commentary, so closely resemble the shows found on Fox News, that it's pretty eerie. (Really, is that Peter Finch in the above pic, or Glen Beck?) It's said that Sidney Lumet is the finest director never to win an Oscar, and though he was awarded an honorary trophy in 2005, he remained disturbed that he had never won in competition. He was nominated four times, for 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, and The Verdict. Lumet delivered his final film, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, in 2007. He died last week at the age of 86.

Friday Dance Party: Musical Medics

I've never seen Grey's Anatomy, but even those of us who are not fans couldn't miss all the hoopla regarding last week's episode, in which the cast of this weekly drama did some singing. After it aired, the web was full of critiques of the show, both pro and con, and the ratings went up 30% for that particular episode. Despite the presence in its cast of Sara Ramirez, who won a Tony for Spamalot a while back, and who has apparently sung on the program before, I can't imagine the thing was much good. It makes me uncomfortable when actors who cannot sing try to, mostly because they themselves look so uncomfortable. The idea of turning an episode of a dramatic series into a musical is not a new one, not by a longshot, even leaving Glee out of the discussion. Grey's 's creator Shonda Rhimes freely admitted that her inspiration came from the famous musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 2001. I was not a fan of that show, either, but there are many Buffy buffs who claim that episode was the best the show ever offered. I ran across that episode during a rerun cycle and watched it; just as I suspect would have happened had I caught last week's Grey's Anatomy, the episode of Buffy was uncomfortable for me to watch and, clearly, for the actors to perform.

I actually like the occasional musical sequence which rises organically from a TV show's plot. Writer/producer David Kelley does a pretty good job of integrating musical sequences into his shows, though to my knowledge, he has never devoted an entire episode of one of his programs to music. The long run of his Ally McBeal had heavy musical influences. Singer/songwriter Vonda Shepherd was a virtual unknown before Kelley hired her to anchor the scenes in the piano bar where the characters often ended their day. In fact, the majority of Alley McBeal episodes concluded with a musical sequence which reflected the mood, emotion, or theme of the preceding episode. Kelley was also responsible for revealing the surprising musical talents of Robert Downey, Jr., who was a recurring guest on the program in 2000, before another drug arrest forced the show to dump him. But during his 15 episode story arc, he performed several songs, in character, which were later preserved on CD.

While we're on this subject, David Kelley's current show, Harry's Law, featured a swell musical performance in this week's episode. With a sly wink to those of us his age, he constructed an episode around actor Paul McCrane, who has been playing one of the show's recurring characters. McCrane has been a reliable player on TV dramas for quite a while, having spent many years on ER:

But back in 1980, McCrane looked like this:

I wrote a bit about Paul when the remake of Fame hit the cineplex a couple of years ago. The original Fame made a big impression on student actors like myself, and one of McCrane's own compositions, "Is It Okay If I Call You Mine?", has become one of the more memorable songs from the film. In this week's Harry's Law, 31 years after introducing the song, Paul McCrane sang it again.

But as I said, I don't believe David Kelley has ever been foolish enough to turn a complete episode of one of his programs into a musical. He probably learned a lesson from one of his mentors, Steven Bochco, who was one of the most influential TV producers of the 80s and 90s. Building on the success of Hill Street Blues, LA Law, and Doogie Houser, in 1990, Bochco created Cop Rock, which attempted to mix realistic police drama with musical comedy.

The show was one of the biggest flops of the decade, and TV Guide includes it as one of the top ten worst television programs in the history of TV. See what happens when you force dramatic actors to sing and dance?

This week's Dance Party does not come from any of the dramatical shows mentioned above. Instead, it comes from a sitcom, a genre much more amenable to a musical episode. Dating back to the invention of television, the sitcoms relied heavily on talent plucked from radio and the theatre, and those early programs always capitalized on their stars' musical abilities. Let's face it, Desi Arnaz was no actor, but I Love Lucy was frequently buoyed by his musical sequences. When Margaret Whiting died a while ago, I wrote about her sitcom, which always featured a musical number by its star. Rick Nelson's musical career was launched on his family's sitcom, as was David Cassidy's. When Carl Reiner plucked song-and-dance man Dick Van Dyke from Broadway and teamed him with dancer Mary Tyler Moore, he would have been foolish not to incorporate their musical talents into The Dick Van Dyke Show. That sitcom often featured their stars in musical sequences.

If we fast-forward several decades, we come across (FINALLY!) this week's Dance Party. It comes from the musical episode of Scrubs.

The show's creator, Bill Lawrence, always wanted to concoct a musical from his sitcom, and when the show was in danger of being canceled in season 6, he made his move. He hired the song-writing team of Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez, who won the Tony in 2004 for Avenue Q, and constructed an episode surrounding a patient with a brain aneurysm, which caused her to believe everyone around her was singing. (I understand that the musical episode of Grey's Anatomy which started this never-ending discussion also involved a head trauma patient). The Scrubs episode, titled "My Musical," is structured like a conventional musical comedy. It has a big opening number, which is highlighted below, a love song (between two men!), a patter song inspired by Gilbert and Sullivan, an Act One finale, even an eleven o'clock number (which, since the episode was only 22 minutes long, would make it the "8:19 number").

Which is a long-winded way to introduce this fun number from Scrubs. Our guest star is none other than Stephanie D'Abruzzo, who starred in Avenue Q on Broadway. The full episode is terrific, even as it includes actors who are not accustomed to singing and dancing. But somehow, on a sitcom, I forgive such things:

Friday Dance Party: It's Nobody's Business But The Turks'

This week's Dance Party has something for everyone: puppets, violins, a belly dancer, a dude in leather shorts, even a turban and a fez. Our star is not a singer nor songwriter nor somebody who recently died. The star of this week's Dance Party is a geographical location:

Everybody remembers the year 330, right? AD, of course. The Emperor Constantine, the first openly Christian emperor of the Roman Empire, recognized what centuries worth of his predecessors did not: that Rome was a lousy place to be the capital of the civilized world. It was just too far removed from the rich Eastern provinces. He turned his attentions to the city of Byzantium, which sat conveniently astride the land route from Europe to Asia, and was perched on the connecting waterway between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. It was the perfect location to access both East and West; the mighty river civilizations along both the Danube and the Euphrates were within reach from this spot. Our hero spent 6 years redesigning the place, and in 330, he consecrated the city and moved the Roman Empire's capital. Constantinople was born.

Though the center of the Christian (read: Catholic) world was eventually returned to Rome, Constantinople remained the wealthiest city in the world throughout the Middle Ages. It wasn't until 1453 that the Ottoman Islamic Turks captured the city, threw out the Christian infidels, and renamed the place Istanbul. But in the Western world, the city remained known as Constantinople, as a tribute to its Christian history. The city went by both names for centuries, until 81 years ago this week. On March 28, 1930, the Turkish government officially requested that the rest of the world knock it off. They insisted that everyone recognize their most famous city as Istanbul, not Constantinople.

Songwriters Jimmy Kennedy and Nat Simon smelled a hit. The first recording of this week's Dance Party was by The Four Lads, who were the 50s version of a boy band. In 1953, they hit #10 on the Billboard charts with "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)." Since then, this novelty tune has been sung by Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, and the Duke's Men Of Yale, an all-male acappella group on the Yale campus which has closed all of its concerts with a riotous rendition of the song, every year since 1953.

The song first came to my attention when Bette Midler included it in her live concert recording in 1977. The gang from Tiny Toons had some fun with it a long while back, but perhaps the most famous recording of the song arrived in 1990, when the alternative rock band They Might Be Giants covered the tune, adding a violin and accordion. It is this version which graces this week's Dance Party. You gotta love this song's swing rhythm, which is based on the Irving Berlin classic "Puttin' On The Ritz," and Craig Ferguson and his gang treat the number with the respect it deserves. Break out the baklava and enjoy:

Close Every Door (But Not On My Head)

We are heading into the final week of our production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; the past two weeks have been...um...unexpectedly spontaneous. A little while ago, I posted a note of admiration for our company of players, for having survived an intense 9-shows-in-5-days work week without injury or illness. No sooner had I posted that mash note than the wheels on the bus started to wobble.

We knew in advance that the gal playing Mrs Potiphar, the lovely and talented Heather Beck, would have to miss one of our performances due to a prior commitment. This kind of thing is very likely to happen if a show extends beyond its original date of closure, as ours has. Heather was replaced in that particular performance by the lovely and talented MaryLee Adams, who in addition to subbing for Heather, accomplished all her other duties in the show, including her scene-stealing moment as a camel.

It was the unexpected happenings which added some spice the past week or so. On different occasions, Car Trouble caused not one, but two of our actors to arrive so late to the theatre that we did the show without them. In both instances, we expected the actors to arrive in time to slip into the show in progress, but that was not to be. I was particularly impressed, then, that one of our non-Equity ensemble members, the lovely and talented Vinnie Kempski, was alerted (in the middle of the show!) that he would be performing one of his understudy assignments, singing the role of the Baker. I slipped into the vom under the audience to watch (I have about 15 minutes offstage, alone, during the show, so I often slip out to watch, the cast never suspects), and I can verify that he played the role with smooth aplomb.

But it was last Thursday's school matinee that caused the most consternation. We started the show missing two ladies, one of whom had a previous commitment, and the other had (you guessed it) Car Trouble. A momentous crash was heard backstage, during Joseph's "Close Every Door" scene in the jail cell. One of our actors, the lovely and talented Ben Lurye, had been clobbered backstage by a falling door. You may well wonder how a door can fall over onto somebody. Only in the Theater, folks. There were these huge metal doors, you see, which I guess had been impeding the backstage traffic during performances, so they had been removed from their hinges and propped up against a wall. Gravity being a cruel bitch, one of the doors fell over, conking our Ben on the head while he changed his clothes. His skull was cracked open, or it seemed so, as blood gushed all over the place. I was backstage at the time, and overheard Ben keeping a level, if bloody, head. His first thought was the show, and he whispered urgently, "Tell Parker he has to go on as the Butler." Yes, while his head was bleeding profusely, this actor was anxious that his understudy be alerted that he would have to perform his number in about 2 minutes. Now that's commitment. The noise backstage, and all that blood, caused stage management to halt the show, which was ultimately canceled outright. We were about half-way through, but it was thought unwise to attempt to continue with 3 actors absent. The matinee was rescheduled for the following week, causing a whole lot of dashing about by company management in order to get the necessary riders signed (riders are addenda to our original contracts). This added school matinee also necessitated yet another rehearsal for yet another Mrs. Potiphar, as both the lovely and talented Heather, who usually plays the part, and the lovely and talented MaryLee, who is her understudy, were unable to make the additional early morning show. So, between our performances on Saturday, we spent an hour or more rehearsing the lovely and talented Briana Marcantoni in the role.

All this dashing about proved moot, as the production office curtly alerted the cast and crew on Sunday that the extra matinee had been cancelled.

This kind of confusion isn't all that unusual, as I said, when a show extends its run. On the same day that one of our actors had car trouble and missed the show completely, another of our guys had an important rehearsal elsewhere, and was forced to leave the performance before it was over. In a cast of 21, you may not even notice such a thing. All of the men in the show play my 12 sons, and there are many mentions of Joseph and his 11 brothers. That one day, he had only 9; for a while, our family was looking a little dissipated.

Many theatres try to minimize the effect of missing actors by employing swings. These are performers who learn the music and choreography of the show, with the expectation that, should an actor go out (that is, miss a show), and the actor's understudy bumps up from the chorus to play his role, the swing would step in to fill in any gaps in the ensemble. We had swings for all our shows at The Shakespeare Theatre Company when I interned there, due to the extensive fight choreography, and most musical houses employ them as well. I imagine it was a financial decision to forgo hiring swings for Joseph, even as there are surely musical theatre students over at Catholic University who would eagerly sign on for such a gig, for 200 bucks a week or less. The lack of swings for Joseph has probably caused some frustration for stage management, and has certainly caused the show to look a little under-populated when things such as Car Trouble and Falling Doors sideline our actors. Who knows what our final week of performances will bring? We already know Joseph will have only 10 brothers Saturday night, we'll see about the remaining shows. I have no doubt this cast can put out any fires that spring up unexpectedly; Ben, the aforementioned injured actor, returned to the show that very night, earning respect for his professionalism and a new nickname to boot. We've been calling him "Staples," since that's what he now has in his head. The adrenalin has been flowing out at Olney Theatre, that's for sure. I'll be sorry to see it all end Sunday afternoon.