|
|
 |
|
|
 |
Broadway's becoming
a haven for impressionists
By GERALD NACHMAN
of TheColumnists.com
Little did Hal Holbrook realize, when he first tottered out on stage in the 1960s as Mark Twain, what havoc he would wreak in the pop graveyard. Since then, the New York stage has been overrun with the likenesses of Truman Capote, Virginia Woolf, Will Rogers, Diana Vreeland, Harry Truman, and George M. Cohan; even dramas and comedies have brought back everyone from A.E. Housman, Albert Einstein, and Pablo Picasso to Warren G. Harding, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Meanwhile, television has dug up half of Forest Lawn cemetery in TV movies about Judy Garland, Jackie Gleason, Elvis Presley, James Dean. Marilyn Monroe, Martin & Lewis, and the Rat Pack
Producers, fearful of running
low on marketable pop figures, are now furiously thumbing old
Variety obituaries to find suitable celebrities to bring to life
on Broadway. Not yet formally announced for the spring season,
but with encouraging out-of-town critical reception, here are
just a few one-person shows likely to wend their way to Times
Square next season:
“SAY
GOODNIGHT, GEORGE”:
As tousle-haired TV commentator George Stephanopulous, Robert
Morse returns to Broadway in what some say is his best work since
“Tru.” Because of the 30-year age discrepancy, it takes
Morse seven hours to get into makeup to portray the boyish former
Clinton aide and host of ABC’s “This Week.”
"IMAGINARY FIENDS": In what critics are sure to call a major stretch, Nipsey Russell returns to the limelight in a one-man show about O.J. Simpson and his quest for the elusive killer of his wife Nicole Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, during which he debates his fate with the offstage voices of Johnnie Cochran and Mark Furhman.
"JOELY & COMPANY": Few might have imagined the ever-resourceful Ashleigh Banfield as Joely Fisher, but somehow she manages a tour de force in this casting coup that dramatizes the traumatic on again-off again career of Carrie Fisher’s half-sister.
"WEDNESDAYS
WITH MANDY": The
chameleon-like B.D. Wong masterfully inhabits the very skin and
soul of Mandy Patinkin in a one-man show that takes us behind
the scenes of a typical performance as we witness the high-strung
performer gearing up backstage for a midweek matinee, discussing
his lack of fear of dying onstage.
"FOUND
HIGHWAYS": Though
not generally considered a dramatic actor, John Madden, who lives
out of a trailer in his cross-country travels to NFL games, makes
his theatrical debut as Robert Moses in a one-man show, with
soft-shoe interludes, about the late powerbroker’s controversial
battles to create the New York turnpike system.
"MR. ROGERS FOLLIES": Harvey Fierstein brings to life the wit and wisdom--and little-known offstage high jinx--of Fred Rogers in this offbeat portrayal of the folksy children’s TV icon found residing in an all-new and surprisingly adult neighborhood.
"HAL HOLBROOK TONIGHT!": The actor who once incarnated Mark Twain has now himself become a one-man show in a production starring Nathan Lane as the crackly-voiced character actor, now the same age as Twain when he first portrayed him, in an evening full of the many amusing experiences in Holbrook’s long career as Mark Twain.
"ZUKOR": Anyone fascinated by the life of
Adolph Zukor will not want to miss this stunning recreation of
the late great movie mogul’s life, especially as played
by Anna Deveare Smith, who totally embodies Zukor in her three-hour
verbatim recitation of his 75-year career. You could almost swear
it is Adolph Zukor up there in the flesh.
©2003 by Gerald Nachman. The Nachman color caricature is
©2000 by Jim Hummel.
The cartoon illustration is from IMSI's Master Clip Collection,
1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
GERALD
NACHMAN is one of the four founding "fathers" of TheColumnists.com.
Based in San Francisco, he's an author whose latest book, "Seriously
Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s," will
be published in April by Pantheon.
You can
comment on this column online. Please address your message to
either "The Editors" or Gerald Nachman. To send an
email, click here: talkback@thecolumnists.com
| Home | About Us | Archives | Talkback | Shopping Mall |