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Show r r I0f flitter and glamour A Broadway grabs a fan ' 4 r j . -- 1 :---v-v vvAl ursday, October II, 1984 Page CI : ' J . ' '".V'hS r 1 rV .p fan I"""' i new Over the Cuckoo's Nest" I V, V W!mJ 1 ff doubt either show would ever be Au' jiL &Jffiij$?i. J considered a comedy. 4 yjty t Critics have said this is the show to " VyW E watch at next spring's Tony awards " ; STvyj'' ill S ceremony. If it is released for J' - AA'' jy j community theater productions, "it J "'C5. 1 '' will play," as they say, in Park City. ' 1 I Sv 1 j That night the show that has you 1 I " I guessing which pairs of great legs in V-- 1 I TN. I 4 high heels are attached to people I I I v I wearing jockstraps turned out to be I I V. I 6 all that had been promised. "La 1 1 iSl. - Cage aux Folles" is about a ; 1 f " homosexual couple and their night- I 1 I ) 1 ttW J . t club and the straight family 1 ff4 f lHf(py TV ;t ; members they have. But it also is 11 t&Mn & irS ' vrrLiaK-j3si about how thoughtless we can be 1-.. Ajf J Wf ' H ' love us, regardless of their sexua i f jLjykj ' Al ,jffT persuasion. ' - I iTf .v "fl VIJIX if That night someone must have wanted to show "I'm thinking of I you" in a big way. Merlin "FTD" Olsen, himself, watched the show Sy 1 with great amusement. g The costumes for "La Cage," the 1983 Tony award winner for bestH. music, the sets so far this was the musical, "Cats. most "Broadway" experience we'd D Bf e " -S-Eliot's Old Possum's "S. had yet - B of Practlcal tats (1939); the "w Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." I ' doubt either show would ever be considered a comedy. Critics have said this is the show to watch at next spring's Tony awards ceremony. If it is released for community theater productions, "it will play," as they say, in Park City. That night the show that has you guessing which pairs of great legs in high heels are attached to people wearing jockstraps turned out to be all that had been promised. "La Cage aux Folles" is about a homosexual couple and their nightclub night-club and the straight family members they have. But it also is about how thoughtless we can be about those who have loved us, do love us, regardless of their sexuaf persuasion. K?Z, Broadway. The Great White Way. A street. A place. And for more than a century, the undisputed home of the very best in American theater. Just the mention of the yrord Broadway evokes images of stars emergin from alley stage doors with flashbulbs popping and autograph seekers pushing. Broadway denotes glamour and glitter and excitement. For a first-time visitor to Broadway Broad-way today, the only thing readily visible is the excitement. Live sex shows compete for marquee space along the street with legitimate theaters, and hustlers and hookers compete with ticket scalpers for a piece of the action. Still, if only for a few hours, behind the theater doors you can be transported to another place and time and state of mind. You can be amused, threatened, enlightened, uplifted or depressed. Seldom will you be left indifferent. On a recent trip to Manhattan I was able to see of the finest theater offerings playing in New York, along with a handful of some of the glitterati that make up the New York theater world. To say it was an unforgettable experience would be trite. To borrow a phrase from a musical of several seasons past, "Applause," would sum it up better: "Welcome to the theater. You fool, you'll love it so." Our ifrst New York theater experience came, not on Broadway, but blocks and blocks away on 57th Street. On a whim, we decided to try to get into the Russian Tea Room for lunch. Famous for years in the movies as The Place where theater people make deals, it is, in fact, a mecca for producers, directors, writers and actors who want to see and be seen, - Founded in 1926 by members of the Imperial Russian Corps de Ballet following the onset of the Russian revolution, the Russian Tea Room, now, as in the past, serves Russian cuisine. Appetizers include five varieties of caviar, with the Beluga Maslossol going for $42 an ounce Choices of vodka number 20, including 100 proof Stolichnaya. Luncheon entrees range from Chicken Chick-en Kiev to Golubtze (stuffed cabbage). Because we had no reservations, we were seated only upon promising we would linger over lunch no longer than an hour. At 11 :30 a.m. with the room quiet, it seemed an easy promise to make. But by noon the Beautiful People started to arrive in shimmering pairs. While I was busy admiring a woman's ensemble, my husband quietly pointed out Jack Lemmon, who had just been seated at the table next to ours. (He was in town all week. We would later spot him again after the theater at Sardi's.) We met our bargain with the waiter and finished our meal by 12:30 p.m. But we devised a plan of our own. We would hang out at the bar and star-gaze for a while. The bartender proved to be a tremendous help here. Derry Murphy has been a bartender at the Russian Tea Room nine-and-a-half years. "It's a good job. I have a family to support and this does it." Murphy pointed out Faith Stewart, owner of the Tea Room, and her guest for the day, composer Marvin Hamlisch. Ken Harper, producer of "The Wiz," was there, along with commercial actor Don King. Robert Lancer, agent for Elizabeth Taylor and Racquel Welch, was mixing near Judy Gordon, producer of Steve Martin's "The Lonely Guy." After that entry my notes became blurred by a vodka spilled by the manuscript exchanging men on my left. We left the elegant red and gold decor of the Tea Room ready for our first theater performance, "Sunday-. in the Park with George." The first part of the Stephen Sondheim musical is based on painter George Seurat and how he might have come to create his famous work, "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." The second half of the show is set in modern times, 100 years later, as George's grandson goes through his own crisis as an artist. Bernadette Peters stars with lesser-known Robert Westenberg in the lead role. I say lesser know quite deliberately. deliber-ately. Mandy Patinkin, who recently left the show is well known for his roles in "Yentl," "Daniel" and "Ragtime." I also say lesser known based on an after-theatre experience. When the musical, which had surprising special effects, was over we wandered out into Shubert Alley and into the gift store there. When we came out, we noticed that the stage door to the theatre was just next door and that a crowd of people was waiting outside to catch a star. Actors who played minor characters charac-ters came out first, receiving little or no applause and few flashbulbs. Without stage make-up and period costumes, real life characters look much different. When the male lead did emerge he was wearing shorts, carrying a backpack and walked off in the opposite direction of the crowd, unnoticed, alone in the night. Miss Peters came out the door last and flashes popped and the autograph seekers crowded around. The petite star seemed to glow in the attention. Real Broadway, at last. We drifted off in search of a cab. The next day turned out to be a double bill. Around noon we went to Times Square, where half-price theater tickets are sold for that day's performance. Although we already had tickets for that night's performance of the Tony award winning best musical of '84, "La Cage aux Folles," we tried for tiekets.tq Mike Nichol's latest directorial success, "tlurlyBurly. " We got the tickets after a short people-watching wait in line. The theater was just a few blocks away, so we walked there and on the way noticed a little cafe inside the old Hotel Edison. We decided to grab a quick bite before the show. W e were seated at a tiny table by a waitress who, in excited broken English, said there was a big star sitting at the counter but she didn't know his name. We looked over and told her Tony Randall was indeed a big star. "HurlyBurly" is a very Park City kind of play. Although it is set in a rundown apartment in the Hollywood Holly-wood Hills, the plot is about life, death and the pursuit of cocaine. Or something close to that. The star-studded cast includes William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Jerry Stiller, Ron Silver and Judith Ivey. There is a great deal of humor to this show, not unlike that of "One That night someone must have wanted to show "I'm thinking of you" in a big way. Merlin "FTD" Olsen, himself, watched the show with great amusement. The costumes for "La Cage," the music, the sets so far this was the most "Broadway" experience we'd , had yet. After the show, instead of grabbing the first taxi, we opted for a buggy ride around Rockefeller Center. The driver complained of the cold, but bundles under a blanket, we didn't notice. The 1983 Tony award winner for best drama was our next performance: perfor-mance: "Torch Song Trilogy." Three plays set together show the progression of a gay couple over about a decade. I had read many reviews of the show and I was prepared to like it. But I wasn't prepared for the understudy to play the lead that night. For the first two acts I questioned whether or not the show "shoulda gone on." Uncomfortable in his role, the lead character spent a lot of time trying to "act the part." It was awkward, but by the third act he was believable and when the show ended I felt only somewhat cheated. As it turned out, we had saved the best for last. Our final show was the 1983 Tony award winner for best musical, "Cats." Based on T.S.Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939); the music is by Andrew IJoyd Webber of "Evita" and "Jesus Christ Superstar" Super-star" fame. The entire inside of the Winter Garden Theatre was the set for this show. In a scale three-and-a half times that of human size, there were the most fabulous junkyard items you'd ever hope to find. Discarded Christmas decorations, old shoes, cereal boxes, huge tires and the body of an old car. The set was designed to scale, as if the actors were the size of cats. One review I had read called it "Cats," "perhaps overdazzling." In part, that is true. Of the cats themselves, no two alike in the cast of 30. Fat cats, alley cats, Siamese cats, homebody cats all the kinds of cats you'd ever known or heard about were represented. There were amazingly cat-like choreography, startling special effects, ef-fects, and seemingly-genuine magic tricks. y. ., . Cats slid dow n the theater in boxes and crawled out into the audience. Cats flew through the air and landed on their bellies on stage. But the show's end I was exhausted, exhilarated and I'd most certainly felt I'd been entertained. Play-going in New York is something you clearly must plan ahead for. Had I not had a friend-who-had-a-friend kind of thing, we would not have gotten into many of the better shows. Nor are ticket prices to the general public for the faint-hearted. Tickets range from $10 for standing room only for "Cats" to $47.50 for orchestra seats for "la Cage." Scalpers, of course, get even more. Broadway. By week's end I had managed to squint beyond the porno movie houses and hustlers and see the glitter and glamour and the excitement. Now I can't wait to go back. 4 |