Easter Thoughts

Well, it's the tail-end of Easter Sunday, and the final day of what they call Holy Week. This means more to me than you might think.


Twenty seven years ago, during Holy Week, my mother died. I've occasionally written about her in these pages, including a letter to her several years ago, and a few memories which popped up on the 25th anniversary of her death. On what would have been her 80th birthday, I wrote a bit about the music she loved, music which continues to inspire me. As you can tell, she remains a big part of my consciousness, even after all these years. The anniversary of her death was exactly a week ago (Palm Sunday), and coincided with the closing performance of my latest stage endeavor, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime. As always happens this time of year, my sub-conscious has recently taken over, and I've been dreaming of my mother more often than usual. There is nothing new in that, it happens every year, without any effort on my part.

Whenever that sad anniversary lands on a day where I have a performance, or a rehearsal, or both, I am grateful. I'm not sure my mother ever expected me to devote my life to the performing arts; she would have wished a more financially stable career. But every year at this time, I hope that, if she had lived, she would have witnessed what the theatre has done for my soul, and approved.

This week, I've had to face another truth regarding the loss of my mother. I have now lived more of my life without her than with her. I don't know who the hell put that concept into my head, but I am now stuck with it. It saddens me further.

But my sadness is tempered with the joy I had with the experience which ended on Palm Sunday. The Washington Stage Guild is just the kind of company my mother would wish me to keep: lively, sincere, and indefatigable. As I head into this next segment of my life, I keep memories of her close to me, and hope she might approve of my life's choices.

Theatre Droppings: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria

Is there anything more exciting than watching superb work happening onstage, live, in front of you? I don't think so. I attended two-thirds of Terrence McNally's Nights at the Opera festival at the Kennedy Center this week, and can't recall being so jazzed by so many great performances. There wasn't a stinker in the bunch.

McNally is having a great week here in DC, though a difficult one elsewhere (more on that in a mo'). I missed his newest work, Golden Age, which actually received some subdued reviews, but I did catch two other plays which validate him as one of our best contemporary dramatists. I was familiar with both plays, having seen previous high-profile productions, so these actors at KenCen had some impressin' to do.


The Lisbon Traviata may be my favorite McNally play, due in no small part to the first production I saw of it, in Los Angeles many years ago. Nathan Lane was recreating the role he created in New York, and it was a stellar performance (this was years before his Broadway Tonys and film appearances). I was so impressed with this guy, whom I had never seen nor heard of before, that I went back to see the show two more times, in the space of a month. In this production, he was playing opposite Richard Thomas (above), who was at the time determined to smash the image he had created as John-Boy Walton; the two of them together were very, very good. They were aided by Dan Butler, before he became a bit of a celebrity with his recurring role on Frasier (he played the vulgar skirt-chasing sports announcer); Dan played Thomas's lover in the piece.


In the Kennedy Center production, John Glover and Malcom Gets are playing the Lane and Thomas roles. I read somewhere that Glover was reluctant to attempt the role which had put Lane on the map so many years ago, and it's true that Nathan's performance would be hard to top. Glover makes the role his own, though, and I thoroughly bought into his interpretation of Mendy, the aging, needy opera queen. And speaking of needy, Gets came into his own in the second act, when we witness his long-term relationship disintegrate into violence. I have enjoyed the work of both Glover and Gets in previous endeavors, and hold them in high esteem for their ability to maintain full careers while declining to hide their own sexuality. The press usually describes them as "openly gay," which they are, but I consider that they are two members of what I call the "Quietly Out," a group of actors who just do their work, and don't bother too much with what the public may think of their private lives. (And because they don't care, the public doesn't either.)




But their work in The Lisbon Traviata is terrific, whether they are sleeping with men, women, or livestock. They are ably assisted by two actors of whom I have not heard, Chris Hartl (right) and Manu Narayan; the four of them comprise a very strong ensemble, and deliver a potent production.

I think I read that McNally was in rehearsal with this show, and did some adjusting to a script which, let's face it, is several decades old. I am sure he was tinkering with the final moment of the play, which is the only moment in the Los Angeles production I found difficult to swallow. Here, though, it's jolting and surprising and frighteningly real.


Master Class is one of McNally's big hits, for which he won a Tony award in its original production. The show ran long enough for his leading lady, Zoe Caldwell (she won the Tony, too) to be replaced by Patty LuPone and, even later, by Dixie Carter. I saw LuPone in the role, and wrote about it here. This month at the Kennedy Center, Tyne Daly has taken the role, which is large enough to be described as a tour de force. She never leaves the stage, and every eye in the audience is on her every moment of the play. She's playing Maria Callas, giving a Master Class at Julliard. I loved LuPone in the role, and ditto Ms. Daly.

I'll admit when I heard Tyne was cast in the role, I was sceptical. I thought she was a bit too old, but I have been proven wrong. I've seen Daly onstage before, in one of her final performances in Gypsy on Broadway, a role which won her a Tony (she also has numerous Emmys for her television work). I enjoyed her Mama Rose, but I admire her Maria Callas even more. Truth be told, I have found her small screen work to be a little, well, calculated. Never bad, just...well...unspontaneous. She won four Emmys, back to back, for her work in Cagney and Lacey, and I always thought her costar Sharon Gless to be much more effortless in her choices. (Gless finally won for her work, too).

Anyway, whatever problems I have had with Daly's film work have not translated to her stage work, where her sparkling extravagance has always served the character.

I'm not sure why, but I was more invested in the students who appear onstage with Callas in this production of Master Class, as opposed to the original Broadway production, when I didn't give two hoots about them.

And I really enjoyed the fact that my buddy Clinton Brandhagen, who is playing the walk-on part of the stagehand, garnered so many laughs from his few moments on stage (his Shear Madness experience may be helping a bit there).


Playwright Terrence McNally is having a good week in DC, but in NY and in Texas, not so much. His 1991 play, Lips Together, Teeth Apart, was to have a major Broadway revival this month, courtesy of Roundabout Theatre. After two weeks of rehearsal, star Megan Mullally (above) quit the show, citing creative differences with the director, and the production collapsed. This must be very frustrating for McNally, as this would actually have been the show's Broadway debut; its original run was Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club.


It's doubtful McNally was going to garner much press for the classroom production of Corpus Christi which had been scheduled to be performed in Texas last week. That is, until now. This is McNally's most controversial play, a modern retelling of the gospel, with Jesus and his disciples portrayed as gay men, and it's ignited fundamentalist bigotry all over the planet in years past (I wrote a bit about this play on the 10th anniversary of Matthew Shepherd's death). In this instance, a young college student at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, TX, was using the play for a class directing project. There were no school funds used for the production, and the presentation was not open to the public (in fact, it was scheduled at 8 AM on a Saturday to avoid confrontation). A local radio host, who also happens to be the pastor of a local church so you know how interested he is in freedom of speech, took issue with the student's right to explore new ideas in the privacy of the classroom. Though this upstanding reverend never saw nor read Corpus Christi, he was sure it blasphemed his own personal beliefs, so he swung into action. Initially, the college's administration backed the student, declaring the presentation, quite rightly, "a class project not intended for the public anymore than a student’s math assignment.” The student in question identifies himself as a gay man who is also a Christian, and chose the piece "to bring people together," and to promote the acceptance of gay Christians. But this church leader, David Harris of the Hillcrest Church of Christ, was more interested in censorship than tolerance, and he whipped up a public frenzy which even included the state's lieutenant governor. The college capitulated, and the student's directing project was cancelled.
Got that? This mouthy Christian bigot personally disagreed with McNally's play, and caused a college (you know, a seat of higher learning, which teaches tolerance and freedom to explore new ideas) to disallow a student's homework.

Happy Easter, everybody! Jesus would be so proud.

Friday Dance Party: 53 years and 10 Minutes Ago

There are probably a couple of reasons I have never appeared in a musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein. The legendary team wrote quite a few musicals, but very few roles for a character actor like me. I would probably not turn down a role in one of their chestnuts, but it's unlikely I would ever fall in love with one. They are just too sugary sweet for my tastes.

The show from which the clip below is lifted has been seen by more than any other R&H collaboration, for the simple reason that it was written for, and originally broadcast on, television. In TVs early decades, all the Broadway stage composers wrote for the medium. Cole Porter did it with Aladdin (in fact, it was his final work), and placed Sal Mineo in the lead (Sal, by the way, appeared in one of the creepiest Dance Parties I've offered, check it out). Bock & Harnick did it with Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost, Comden & Green did it with I'm Getting Married, and Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn did it more than once. Bacharach & David wrote On The Flip Side for pop star Ricky Nelson, and Barry Manilow turned his story song Copacabana into a vehicle for himself. Even Sondheim got into the act, with Evening Primrose, starring that musical theatre legend Anthony Perkins.

You've probably never run across most of those, but the show provided by Rodgers and Hammerstein is fully remembered, Cinderella.

After its initial broadcast, the team adapted the piece for the stage, where it is a perennial among high schools and amateur groups. It is the most saccharine of all their shows, and I find it hard to get through, but the original production, written for Julie Andrews and broadcast in 1957, is available on DVD and deserves a look (Andrews is a return visitor to the Friday Dance Party: here she is with Gene Kelly, and here with Mary Tyler Moore). The clip below features Andrews, natch, and her co-star Jon Cypher, who would go on to have a career as a character actor. You'll also glimpse Broadway stars Kaye Ballard and Alice Ghostly as the step-sisters, and the husband-and-wife team of Dorothy Stickney and Howard Lindsay as the royals (Edie Adams is not seen here, but appeared as the fairy godmother). The show has been remade a couple of times for television, notably with Leslie Ann Warren and Celeste Holm in the mid-60s.

I find the following clip interesting as it illustrates a pretty smart solution to a huge logistical problem director Ralph Nelson had. He had to squeeze 56 performers, 33 musicians, 80 crew members, 100 costumes, and four huge color TV cameras into a studio measuring 4200 square feet. His solution was to build high. Watch this clip with an eye to the stairs, as Nelson had his actors entering and exiting vertically, rather than horizontally. It gives the illusion of much more space than the production actually had.



Cinderella was broadcast live 53 years ago this week, on March 31, 1957, and though it was in color, the only print which survives is this black and white kinescope. It was estimated that 117 million people watched the show, making it, up to that time, the largest audience for any event of any kind in the history of the planet. Rodgers himself put it into perspective when he deduced that, had the show been presented onstage in a Broadway theatre, and filled 8 shows a week, it would take 140 years to match the original telecast's audience.

Musicals written for television have had a hard time in recent decades, with the exception of the High School Musical franchise Disney has created. Those shows have been adapted and are playing on stages all over the place. But I have doubts that those pieces will still be produced 53 years from now; Cinderella probably will be.

Theatre Droppings: From the Piazza to Skid Row

As usual, I am still reeling a bit from the closing of my recent show, but I bet I'll address that later. Here's one thing the demise of Lord Arthur Savile's Crime has done: though it's been months since I have had the time (or the inclination) to see what other theatres in town have been up to, I now have the time (and inclination) to do just that.

Arena Stage has been floating around town for the past several years while their home campus gets an Extreme Makeover. I caught their holiday offering of The Fantasticks at the Lincoln Theatre, and quite a while ago, I was mesmerized by Next to Normal, on its way to Broadway. That latter musical was staged in a converted movie house in Crystal City, which is where I saw Arena's current offering, The Light in the Piazza. This is surely a chamber musical staging (I have a feeling that the original production at Lincoln Center was bigger), and is compromised a bit by the flat, static set, consisting of a couple of archways, a stairway, some movable columns, and a Gothic set piece which is immovable and inhibiting. Thematically, the show depends on the dramatic beauty of Florence (and Rome, too), none of which we can visualize with the hulking backdrop Arena's designer has provided. The Crystal City space is not ideal for the show, but I think an open, airy stage and some visually interesting lighting effects would have been a better conduit for this very romantic story.

I was curious about The Light in the Piazza, as a New York friend saw the original production and proclaimed it "boring." Based on Arena's offering, I would disagree. The cast is very good, headed by a bunch of New York actors (no surprise there) who are all top-notch.

The local talent which comprised the ensemble was not used to their best ability, in my humble opinion, but of course, I am prejudiced toward local talent. In particular, Tom Simpson (with whom I worked in Man of La Mancha at Wayside last year) and Michael Sazonov (whom I admired greatly in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at Round House last season, and whose name, sadly, is misspelled in the cast list) were greatly underused.

And I freely admit to being an uneducated listener when it comes to music. The score by Adam Guettel, Richard Rodgers's grandson, has some pretty lush moments, and the small orchestra (perched atop the battlement walls, or so it seems), provides great accompaniment. I am not a fan of recitative, which occasionally rears its operatic head in the show, but the stand-alone ballads are gorgeous, delivered by great voices. The eleven o'clock number, "Love to Me," sung by Nicholas Rodriguez's young Italian, is a showstopper.

I also popped out to Ford's Theatre to see their current show, Little Shop of Horrors. I have a hunch this particular title was chosen more for its commercial value than for its position as an American classic. But the show is always fun, and this production showcases some terrific local talent, including my grad school buddy Elliot Dash. He voices the plant, Audrey Two, but in a very nice staging twist, he is placed above the stage, where he sits in a spooky green light. The show, in cast you forgot, concerns an invasion from outer space, so why not assume that the blood sucking plant at the center of the action is the leader of the aliens?

I saw a noon matinee of this show, which is a tricky time for singers who are required to belt scores such as that of Little Shop. The trio of ladies who provide backup and critique throughout the show are all rooftop raisers, I'm sure I've seen all three individually take the ceiling off various theatres.

The gal playing the leading role, Jenna Coker-Jones, is a dynamo. She is entrusted with the only two ballads in the piece, and she delivers them with such style that they are the musical highlights. (And the guy sitting in my chair, ie: me, NEVER thinks ballads are the highlights of musical productions.)

This is a swell production of Little Shop of Horrors; I hope it makes buttloads of money for Ford's.

"Smile, Baby"

She was on the vaudeville stage by the age of two, and appeared in several silent film shorts before she could talk; if she was required to cry on camera, it's reported that her mother told her the dog had died. Though she created a solid acting career on stage and film during her adult years, a fictionalized account of her childhood overshadowed her actual accomplishments.

June Havoc

1912 (or 1913)-2010

She never really knew how old she was, as her mother carried five different birth certificates with five different birth dates, in order to satisfy child labor laws. During her early life in vaudeville, she was bringing in a whopping $1500 a week, a fact overlooked in her sister's memoir which became the basis for the musical which is most closely linked to her public identity. If you are a musical theatre fan, these facts are starting to sound familiar. She first hit the stage as Baby June, graduated to Dainty June, then, at the age of 13 or so, abandoned her domineering mother and a sister she later called "beautiful and clever...and ruthless," eloping with chorus boy Bobby Reed.

This is the plot of the first act of Gypsy, and it haunted Havoc throughout her career. She remained bitter that the musical based on the memoir of her sister, burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee, left the impression that sister June sank into obscurity after taking off with that dancing boy ("Tulsa" in the musical). In fact, though her teen years were spent in poverty (she and her young husband entered dance marathons in order to share in the free meals afforded the contestants), she eventually carved out a stage career which included the original production of Pal Joey, and a film career which included costarring with Gregory Peck in Gentlemen's Agreement. She was a playwright and director as well as an actress, winning a Tony nomination for directing Julie Harris in her own play Marathon '33, at a time (1963) when female stage directors were few and far between.

Major Broadway appearances included her portrayal of Miss Hannigan late in the run of the original Annie, and an acclaimed performance in the 1975 sex farce Habeas Corpus (I actually saw that production, and wrote about it here). She replaced Ethel Merman in the original production of Panama Hattie, and decades later, headlined the second national tour of Sweeney Todd.



Here's a quickie clip of Havoc's work on an original musical called Happy Birthday Aunt Sarah, which ran on the Omnibus series during the early days of television. I remember seeing her sister Gypsy Rose Lee (at right) on various talk and game shows during my childhood; there is an undeniable family resemblance. This clip confirms that Gypsy's Baby June grew into a performer of charm and comic talent:


In 2003, a small Off-Off-Broadway space was christened the June Havoc Theatre; her final performances were in 1990 on the daytime soap General Hospital. She died a few days ago, at the approximate age of 97.

Bob & Fess & Mack the Knife

I'm sensing a Soviet plot. I hope those Men From U.N.C.L.E., Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, are keeping a lookout for dangerous situations, since our TV spies are dropping like flies. On the heels of the death of Peter Graves, whose best known role was in the espionage thriller Mission: Impossible, comes word of the death of another television spy:

Robert Culp

1930-2010

He had headlined an earlier TV series in the 50s called Trackdown, but his co-starring role in the mid-60s show I Spy made him a household name. The series was unusual for several reasons, as it mixed a sly wit with the action common in the espionage genre of the period. More importantly, the show introduced one of television's first dramatic lead characters of color, played by Bill Cosby. The chemistry between the two stars was palpable, and though it was Cosby who won Emmys every year of the series, the duo stood side-by-side in the Civil Rights movement of the period.

Culp also broke new ground in Paul Mazursky's first film, Bob & Ted & Carol & Alice, a spoof of the sexual revolution of the late 60s (it's about wife-swapping; that's Elliot Gould, Natalie Wood, and Dyan Cannon sharing the bedtime).

Culp returned to his "spy" roots in the 80s, when he costarred as an FBI agent in the light-hearted fantasy series The Greatest American Hero.

He was apparently a recurring regular on Everybody Loves Raymond, but as I didn't (love Raymond), I never saw his sitcom work. He died the other day as a result of a fall at the age of 79.


Another television star of the mid-60s recently died:

Fess Parker

1924-2010

Parker's appearance as two iconic American heroes overshadowed anything else he attempted in his acting career. In the mid-50s, Fess was a contract player for Warner Brothers, and appeared in a single scene of the horror flick Them!. Walt Disney viewed the film with an eye to cast star James Arness in the role of Davy Crockett for a three-episode television event. Instead, he chose the little-known Parker to play the frontiersman, congressman, and Alamo martyr. No one knew it at the time, but with Davy Crockett, Disney had invented the mini-series; he was more excited about the explosive interest in coonskin caps, lunchpails, and moccasins which the show ignited. (It's said the price of raccoon fur shot up from 25 cents a pound to over 8 dollars thanks to the Davy Crockett Craze.)


Uncle Walt placed Fess under contract, and gave him one of his most memorable film roles in Old Yeller, among other features. In the mid-60s, Disney created a television series around the legends of Daniel Boone, with Parker in the title role. The show lasted six years; Parker later retired from acting (after turning down the role of McCloud). He spent his subsequent years running a wine resort.

Here's a guy I never heard of until his death, but his contribution to the theatre should not be overlooked.

Carmen Capalbo

1925-2010

In 1952, he was a brash young man in his 20s when he attended a concert presentation, directed by Leonard Bernstein, of the Kurt Weill classic The Threepenny Opera. The show had already had an English language production in the early 30s, but with a new adaptation by Marc Blitzstein, Capalbo was determined to reintroduce it to New York. He persuaded Kurt Weill's widow, Lotte Lenya, to reprise the role of Jenny, which she originated in the 1928 Berlin premiere, and opened a new production at the Theatre de Lys (now the Lucille Lortell) in Greenwich Village in 1954. The show was a smash, but was forced to close to make room for an incoming production.


A campaign to reopen the show resulted in Threepenny Opera returning to Off-Broadway in September, 1956, where it set the record as the longest running musical in New York (it kept that record until The Fantasticks surpassed it in 1966). The Tony Award committee broke with its own rules when, in 1956, it awarded the Tony for best supporting actress in a musical to Lenya's Off-Broadway performance; a special Tony went to the production itself.

This Off-Broadway revival remains the pivotal English language production of the show, and included in its opening night cast Bea Arthur (barely recognizable at right), John Astin, and Charlotte Rae, as well as the legendary Lenya. Capalbo directed several pieces uptown on Broadway, including the original production of Moon for the Misbegotten, but he will best be remembered as the man who put Off-Broadway on the map, while bringing a musical theatre classic to the attention of the western world.