My March Broadway whirlwind continued with a snowy Friday night excursion to see "It's Only a Play." This is a show that is loaded with stars and different actors have been shuttled in and out like a revolving door at Sardi's. The latest edition features Martin Short and that was my primary reason to see it. I'd watch him recite the lunch menu at the Carnegie Deli.
For the performance I attended, I was notified at the purchase of said tickets that co-star Matthew Broderick would be on vacation this night. Okay, no worries. I have heard the buzz that Bueller is the weakest thing in the play. But, as I open my Playbill, another dreaded slip of paper falls out. The guy playing the role of Frank Finger is being understudied as well. Supposedly, the departing actor had left the show the night before to go film a television pilot. No loss. I didn't know who he was anyway.
So, the comedy by Terrence McNally is suitably witty and bitchy and very inside-Broadway. It plays out like an extended episode of "Will and Grace." It's all about a bunch of show business types holed up in the swanky bedroom of a Broadway producer who just opened her new play. The after-premiere party is going on downstairs. Our cast of characters is waiting for the New York Times review upstairs. Everybody spins like a whirling dervish around each other.
The dialogue has a feel that it's updated every day. The jokes are that topical. I am pleased because Marty is doing a little ad libbing of his usual shtick. He makes a joke about "The Goodbye Girl," which he starred in a long while ago on Broadway. He works in a spot-on impersonation of Harvey Fierstein. He even invokes the name of Nathan Lane, whose role in this play he assumed.
All good.
The rest of the cast has wonderful moments. Stockard Channing as a drug-addled actress who's also wearing a court-ordered tracking device around her ankle. Katie Finneran, who I adored in "Promises, Promises" and "Company," is suitably ditzy as the producer. F. Murray Abraham is the toupee-coiffed theater critic who must take off his rug when a plate of lasagna lands on it. And Micah Stock, in his Broadway debut, steals scenes left and right as the party's coat-check boy. His delivery is akin to a super-low-IQ version of Sheldon Cooper on "The Big Bang Theory."
The first act, while very funny, seems to drag on a little bit too long. Nevertheless, who can argue with laughter in the theater? I note the two understudies on stage. But wonder to myself how the original actors would be in the roles.
Okay, my friend and I got two sippy cups of Diet Coke at intermission. I head to the bathroom and come back to find my theater compatriot in conversation with the guy seated next to her. No surprise here. She's prone to striking up a dialogue with an empty chair. Nevertheless, I am introduced.
As it happens, the young lady with the man is the fiancee of the understudy playing British director Frank Finger. He's only gone on once before. Because he is subbing for a whole week, her dad next to her rode down on the train from Rochester, NY to see the show.
Suddenly, I'm actively engaged in this real life story. This was a first time for both of them. And obviously a big deal in the life of the actor on stage. I pepper with some questions. Does he really have a British accent? No, he's from Texas. Are you going backstage after the show? Yes. Can two other people wander behind you?
The show took on a whole new light with me. During the second act, I not only paid attention to the action on the stage, but I also tried to watch the reactions of those patrons in Seats 5 and 7. It was a hoot to watch their excitement. And I myself focused my attention on the actor whose name fell out of my Playbill on a slip of paper.
Indeed, with my senses heightened and perhaps a crisper pace, the second act worked magically for me. At the conclusion, we wished our new friends all the best and told them to convey it to the actor as well. There was no offer to drag us along for the rest of the evening, but that was fine. I had made a human connection to this play and it made me realize that theater is presented by real people doing real jobs and trying to succeed in very real ways. Those are honest-to-goodness living and breathing folks up there.
And that's why I love going to live theater. It's real. It's organic. And, more times than not, very, very good.
I go home and naturally become a private detective. I Google the actor. He's done some work in his young career, but a Linked In entry lists him as an
actor and real estate agent." I guess you have to pay the bills before you can really pay the bills. I see he's got a Facebook page and I tap in. The heading is the Dallas Cowboys logo.
I do a bizarre thing and drop him a Facebook message. I explain that we were seated next to his girlfriend and her dad at this performance. I thanked him for his performance and also the impromptu opportunity to share in their excitement. Maybe he'll see. Maybe he won't. Nevertheless, it was something I needed to do. He reminded me one more time that live theater is just that...live. And crafted by some very gifted individuals.
Thank you, Ben Hollandsworth. For letting me know one more time that it's more than just a play.
Dinner last night: Long travel day for me, but I brought on the plane a proscuitto and provolone wedge with sweet peppers from Angelo's Deli in Yonkers.
No comments:
Post a Comment