Peter Filichia's Diary at TheaterMania.com

E-mails, E-mails, I Do Love E-mails

2008-10-10T08:52:00Z

The best part of writing a column three times a week is hearing from the people who read and then write in. Lately, there have been more than a few pungent observations.

Douglas Braverman responded to my line, “I won’t say that this is an incontrovertible fact, but as someone who’s seen most of the Broadway musicals since 1961, I do believe that the first show to have actors double in roles that would, only a few years earlier, have been played by other actors, was Annie.” Wrote Braverman, "I began to search my trivia-clogged mind and came up with the following pre-Annie examples: 1) The Rocky Horror Show in 1975 offered a then-unknown Meat Loaf first as Dr. Scott, then as Eddie. Significantly, in the film, Meat Loaf recreated Eddie, but Dr. Scott was played by a more age-appropriate elderly actor. 2) Before that, in 1970, Keene Curtis portrayed four different historical characters in The Rothschilds (and won a Tony for doing them). 3) Before that, in 1961, in How to Succeed in Business, Sammy Smith appeared in Act One as Mr. Twimble and in Act Two, he donned a moustache and became corporate head, Wally Womper. 4) And before that, in the original cast of Peter Pan, Norman Shelley doubled as both Nana and the Crocodile, which was easy doubling since you never got to see his face. But more importantly, Cyril Ritchard first appeared as the children's father, Mr. Darling, and then returned later as the nefarious Captain Hook." (Well, Doug, I'd called the Peter Pan and How to Succeed examples each as a tour de force, but you have a good point with Rocky Horror and The Rothschilds.)

Kevin Daly did Encores! a favor by casting Darling of the Day for them. Now all that Encores! has to do is do the show. Daly wisely chose David Hyde Pierce as Priam Farll, Victoria Clark as Alice Challice, Judy Kaye as Lady Vale, and Gavin Lee as Alfie. I’m interested; aren’t you? Hope the powers-that-be at City Center are listening.

Skip Koenig wrote to say he wished I'd do a column on what unexpected things happen at closings. Only problem is, I couldn't do better than he did: "1) Dec. 27, 1970; After Ethel Merman's curtain call for Hello, Dolly!: “I don’t know about you, but I’m going out for some Neapolitan ice cream!” 2) Jan. 4, 1975, Over Here: The Andrews Sisters end their era as Patti remarks, 'Maxie and I had just about the best year of our lives.' 3) July 1, 1978: Liza closes in The Act, but after leaving the stage, the audience insists that she come out again. She does, half-dressed, looks at herself, says, 'Halston, Forgive me!’ and does 'City Lights' one mo' time. 4) June 30, 1985, The King and I: The audience simultaneously waves 'Good-bye, Yul.' 5) Feb. 19, 1989, Legs Diamond: Peter Allen says, 'We might as well thank these people now. I mean, we ain’t gonna see ya at the Tonys.' (And the Hellinger becomes a Church at that moment.) 6) Aug. 19, 2007, Deuce: Angela Lansbury ends the era of the original greats, exiting the stage door, signing every autograph COMPLETELY and THANKING each person who asked for one.”

After I did a column on playbill bios, one of the subjects I cited -- Nick Wyman, currently John Barsad in A Tale of Two Cities -- wrote in to say, "My favorite bio was one which never saw the light of Playbill: the original one I wrote for Phantom of the Opera. I talked about my training as a serious actor and my initial dramatic efforts and how I had slowly succumbed to the siren lure and the addictive pleasures of musical comedy, that I had kicked the habit and had spent a year in regional theater and was all set to come back to play the title character in an off-Broadway production of Ethan Frome when high-end musical-comedy-dealer Hal Prince offered me the chance to replace Kevin Kline in On the Twentieth Century -- and I was hooked again. It had taken me years thereafter to get clean, but Doubles and The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940 had given me hope that I could at last go 'straight' when who should show up with an offer for the musical smash of the century but Mr. Prince. I thought the bio was very clever and lots of fun in a tongue-in-cheek way, but the publicist for Phantom was absolutely aghast and insisted that I re-write it. And that, my dears, is how I saved Harold Prince and The Phantom of the Opera from certain disaster."

Jefferson Turner responded to the Broadway Olympics column that Laura Frankos and daughter Rebecca Turtledove provided. After they stated winners in 16 categories (Cyrano de Bergerac won the gold in fencing, while Percival Blakeney took the silver and Pierre Birabeau the bronze), Turner was quasi-outraged. “I was shocked,” he wrote, “that Erronius from Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum didn't get a mention. True, he only made it three times around the hills of Rome instead of the full seven, but doesn't that count for something in the long distance walking category?”

David Carlyon had something to add about the Olympics themselves. “The circus could have taken the name ‘Olympics’ long before the modern Olympics started. For the first few decades of the 18th century when we had modern circus (horse tricks, acrobatics, and clowning), the word ‘circus’ meant only the circular arena in which these ‘equestrian exhibitions’ took place — akin to London's Picadilly Circus. These exhibitions were soon presented in buildings called Olympics and amphitheatres as well. All three words — circus, olympics, and amphitheatre — were allusions to ancient Greek or Roman civilizations, to seem classier. It wasn't until 1824 that a pioneer in ‘the show business,’ one James Bancker, used the prestige of a building's name to label his troupe the ‘New York Circus,’ in the same way an entrepreneur today might call a traveling show ‘The Madison Square Garden Dancers’ or ‘The Apollo Comics.’ But considering the uneven history of these early labels, it's possible that what we now know as ‘circus’ might easily have become ‘olympics.’ If that had happened, the modern Olympic movement that began in the late 19th century would have had to come up with a different name.”

John Leistler read my interview with Tovah Feldshuh, currently in Irena’s Vow, which I’ve since seen, and can say that this story about a Christian who successfully hid many Jews from the Gestapo is absolutely riveting theater. Leistler wrote, “In 1997, when I was teaching in Tarrytown, I got a fax about a woman visiting in the area who wanted to visit schools to tell her story — one that seemed too hokey for words. But then someone gave a follow-up call, and that got me to have her speak to my history class. She was Irene Gut Opdyke, the subject of this play, and she was magical. For an old woman to mesmerize a group of well-to-do, almost-jaded-already, New York-y kids was pretty amazing. But it wasn’t just her story that captivated my students, but also her whole persona, for she spoke in a manner that was neither condescending nor too adult. The most wonderful part was her telling the students why she goes around to talk to schools and groups: To let people know that if we all tried to do good, love someone, or help someone else, our lives would be far more meaningful. It was like a decade of Oprah shows in one class, and the kids got it. She made it clear that she was not some noble hero, but she basked in the glow of how those decisions nearly 70 years ago compelled her to simply try to be a decent human being, and to find love in this world. In a clear-eyed way, she told them that we cannot end sorrow and misery in life, but we can choose to love dearly. As the class ended, the kids needed to hug her--and she loved it, but not in some faded glory or self-serving way. This woman just was real and interesting, and I should have sat her down then and said that I needed to dramatize her story! I searched your column to see if she was still alive, because I would love to thank her yet again for reminding us about that choice in life to love dearly, and to cherish people.”

Alas, John, I’m sorry to say that Irene Gut Opdyke died in 2003. But at least her story and inspiration live on through Dan Gordon’s Irena’s Vow. Hope you get to see it.

You may e-mail Peter at pfilichia@aol.com

Lousy Logos

2008-10-08T00:01:00Z

There I was, walking down Broadway when I saw it. I was immediately disheartened. It’s above the marquee of the Broadway theater for all to see and stare.

I’m talking about the utterly unimpressive logo to Shrek.

It’s really nothing more than a field of nondescript green, with a white letter S cutout, and, also in white, Shrek lumbering along with Donkey.

Yes, I know — Shrek deals with ugliness, but that doesn’t mean that the logo need be ugly. Considering that the musical is one of the most anticipated shows of the season, we may have to look at this logo for a good long time— and that’s going to make for a bad long time.

Oh, well. Maybe the producers will change it. After all, Damn Yankees, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Pacific Overtures, Titanic, and many others abandoned their logos in favor of new ones.

But the thing is, this is Shrek’s second lousy logo. The first one — a great big green “S,” complete with horns, making for the “S” in the word musical — was actually better. It wasn’t good, mind you, but it was better.

Is Shrek’s logo among the worst of all time? Let’s see what the show’s competition would be for that dubious honor. Here are the first 25 that came to my mind. I’ve limited the list to original productions, not revivals (which is how H2$ didn’t get listed). I’ve also placed them in alphabetical order, rather than in order of atrociousness; that way, no logo artist need be utterly humiliated with a first-place “win.”

1. The Act — As my friend Philip Tomarchio observed, “Why does Liza Minnelli look like a hermaphroditic lobster?”

2. Ankles Aweigh — No question that drawing of the lass in a sailor uniform dress does offer lovely ankles. But she looks so bored and unimpressed. Maybe she caught a rehearsal of this woebegone show.

3. Brooklyn — True, the tattered heart on a chain-link fence did suggest a show where garbage bags would be an important component. But that doesn’t necessarily excuse its ugliness. Given that the title in the logo was abbreviated to BKLYN, one couldn’t say for sure what the name of the show was.

4. Cyrano — If any musical cried out for the “shmeer” that Maggie Flynn’s excellent logo had, this is the one. But if you’re simply going to go with a drawing of Cyrano, why put him in such a do-nothing, just-standing-there, blank-faced pose? Let’s see him grinning while he’s sword-fighting those 100 men at once.

5. Dance of the Vampires — Fangs holding a rose between its teeth isn’t such a bad image for a serious vampire musical. But this 2002 misfire was really a spoof of vampire movies. The artwork should have shown that, so that people entering the theater would have known that they were about to see a musical comedy.

6. The Education of Hyman Kaplan — A little blackboard with the show’s title on it? Please! Well, maybe the artist felt he had to deal with “education.” One wonders what an artist would have come up with had the authors dropped the unmusical word from the title.

7. Flower Drum Song — Here’s one where the large part of the logo should have been small, and what was small should have been large. For what dominated the action was a big orange pagoda, in front of which, at the bottom, in a MUCH smaller size, were people partying on Grant Avenue, San Francisco, California, USA. The artist should have stressed the party and not the pagoda, for there’s not much pagoda imagery in the show.

8. Footloose — That scribbly “F” could have been a way that this show was saying, “F, you theatergoers.” I may not like Shrek, but at least its green isn’t as sickly as the chartreuse used here.

9. Gigi — Parisian high life never looked as generic and dull.

10. The Grass Harp — Don’t keep eBaying for a window card on this one. It was never made. Maybe it’s all for the best. A bottle with some drops bursting form it was much too modest to make much of an impression.

11. Henry, Sweet Henry — The first logo involved two girls hanging onto a man’s coattails — an apt image for the show about two benign teenage stalkers — but it made for a less than riveting image. The second simply involved some colorful circles that were indeed attractive, but told you nothing about the show.

12. High Fidelity — It was supposed to be a semi-torn label on a trunk, though theatergoers could be pardoned if they’d missed that. And the colors: Yellow and black may look good on a yellow-bellied sapsucker, but for marketing purposes, these colors are truly for the birds. Interesting that the letter “D” in the title was highlighted, given that “D” is the best grade that this logo could ever hope to get.

13. High Society — Who thought that the logical logo for a musical version of The Philadelphia Story would be three cats? Did the producers approve this in hopes that people would mistake this show for Cats?

14. Hot Spot — Judy Holliday in front of some day-glo orange concentric circles isn’t such a bad idea. But the picture of her is one from her previous Broadway musical, Bells Are Ringing, in which she’s singing on of Broadway’s best eleven o’clockers, “I’m Goin’ Back.” Holliday must have wished she could have gone back to Bells once she saw the logo, if not the script and the score.

15. In My Life — I know, I know, hasn’t this poor show suffered enough? But the picture of two lovers hugging, oblivious to the fact that they’re in the midst of the Attack of the Killer Lemons demands that we mention yet another aspect of the show that failed.

16. Little Women — That four women could be pictured by seven fanciful lines is indeed impressive. But this was a retro musical, and it may have not attracted those who wanted to indeed see an old-fashioned musical of Little Women -- which is indeed what a Little Women musical should be.

17. Milk and Honey — Just the name of the show in a big quarter note. No wonder that some years later, RCA Victor changed its original cast album packaging to simply show some dancers from the show.

18. Oh, Captain! — This is a tale of two cities, too — about a sea captain who has a wife in each port. So why just one bleak drawing of a scantily clad babe?

19. Promises, Promises — The original, which showed of number of sexy women sitting on an oversized key, was tacky. But the second, which featured the upended bottom of one confused looking woman, was even worse.

20. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — Yes, that means the White House, but just showing a drawing of the manse from the outside seems painfully obvious. Another Maggie Flynn-like shmeer of all the presidents would have been better.

21. Thoroughly Modern Millie — Back in the ‘50s and ‘60s, when Broadway musicals were firmly entrenched in the nation’s consciousness, one would walk into a supermarket and see non-original cast albums of current hits sung by no-names, available for 79, 89, or 99 cents. The covers were always made of the cheapest cardboard, and the art work was always a very pale imitation of the show’s classy logo. The Broadway logo of Thoroughly Modern Millie looked like it came from one of these albums.

22. Timbuktu — Another scrawly mess from the guy who did The Act. I have a feeling that as a kid, he just loved to finger paint, but his neatnik parents wouldn’t let him.

23. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn — A drawing of a woman in a dress. From the wince she has on her face, she looks as if she’s embarrassed to wear it.

24. The Yearling — Just a deer. Oh, deer, what a lack of imagination.

25. Zorba — A guy doing a handstand. No, Zorba isn’t a clown, but a serious and smart man who has a deep philosophy of life. That’s what should have been represented.

Agree? Disagree? Have you others you’d like to see included? You know where to find me: at pfilichia@aol.com