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From Feb. 7, 2000 |
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Broadway Bio-Stars! |
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will make her Off Broadway debut as Betsy Ross in "HEAVENS FOR BETSY" |
But would you believe
Joel Grey as Walter Cronkite?
By GERALD NACHMAN
of TheColumnists.com
Hard on the heels of Christopher Plummer's triumph as John Barrymore in "Barrymore" -- not to mention "Full Gallop," based on the life of Diana Vreeland; "Master Class," a portryal of Maria Callas; "Stanley," a drama about English painter Stanley Spencer; "Bunny Bunny," a valentine to Gilda Radner; and "A Huey P. Newton Story" -- next fall promises more such biographical treats, some still on their pre-Broadway tours.
A few reviews from the road:
"Her-r-r-re's Ed!"
Mandy Patinkin virtually
rebuilds announcer Ed McMahon from the floor up in this revelatory
one-man exercise in theatrical biography that depicts the former
"Tonight Show" announcer on a typical apres-show bender.
McMahon, heretofore considered little more than a chuckly red-nosed
stooge for Johnny Carson, is shown here to have been the inspiration
for Carson's most inspired bits. Masterfully deconstructing the
show as he goes, Patinkin affects not merely the outer guise
of the garrulous Irishman but, dressed as "Aunt Blabby,"
makes us realize in a searing finale that, were it not for McMahon,
there could have been no Carson -- or for that matter, Doc Severinsen.
"Prexy"
Gerald Ford emerges
from Jerry Orbach's incisive depiction of the 38th president
as a complex man, with depths of personality that the public
never suspected during Ford's forgotten years in office. Rakish,
witty, a gracious host and raconteur -- Orbach's Gerry Ford is
all of this and more. The one-man show shifts from Ford's final
press conference in Act 1 to the 12th hole at Rancho Mirage in
Act 2 where Ford discusses his foreign policy with a make-believe
foursome. Amusing anecdotes about lunch with Anwar Sadat and
Benazir Bhutto are seamlessly interwoven into droll stories about
Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Ford's troubled home life with
onetime boozing wife Betty. The show closes with a moving farewell
meeting with an invisible Richard Nixon in the White House bowling
alley only hours before Nixon resigned. Orbach's Ford is not
the bumbling Chevy Chase figure we've giggled over in the past
-- "prexy by proxy," as Mrs. Ford herself sneers --
but a more thoughtful and layered statesman, husband, father
and putter.
"Bull
Run: 1864"
In her brilliant one-woman,
six-hour version of the Civil War, Anna Devere Smith enacts 738
soldiers, politicians, generals, wives, children, horses and,
in one astonishing instance (through overdubbing) depicts Abraham
Lincoln debating Stephen Douglas, where Smith perfectly captures
Douglas's stammer and Lincoln's annoying sniffle.
"Anchor
Away!"
It's a major stretch,
but diminutive Joel Grey manages to crawl inside the portly skin
of venerated former CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite in Grey's
one-man show. Not unlike Robert Morse's Truman Capote, or to
a lesser extent James Whitmore's Harry Truman, Grey erases the
traditional lines between actor and character, giving us the
inner Cronkite. Grey portrays the avuncular newscasting monarch
in a jaunty yachting cap (hence the wry title) from behind the
"CBS Evening News" desk. Beneath the mustache and shaggy
eyebrows, though, we catch glimpses of Grey, especially in an
infectious number when he leaps from behind the anchor desk to
sing and tap dance his exuberant report on the 1969 moon landing.
"Heavens
to Betsy"
Katie Couric takes enormous
chances in her off-Broadway debut, a one-woman piece based on
a day in the life of Betsy Ross, a multifaceted woman whom we
learn was more than a nimble seamstress and celebrated flagmaker.
Ross was also an inventive cook (she developed the first working
recipe for shirred eggs), world-class needlepointer (Ross first
stitched the words "Don't Tread on Me" on a pillow
for Nathan Hale) and amateur singer. Couric croons obscure early
folksongs while feverishly hemming up Old Glory, delivering it
minutes before deadline to Gen. Washington (Bill Moyers provides
Washington's offstage voice). Couric, by turns perky and somber,
reveals this misunderstood American heroine in a performance
that has Obie sewn all over it.
"Mark
& Hal: Ever the Twain Shall Meet"
Despite the inventive
conceit behind Eileen Atkins' ambitious twin tribute to actor
Hal Holbrook and Mark Twain, it fails, alas, to paint a convincing
dual portrait. In Act 1, as a youthful, clean-shaven Twain, the
usually resourceful Ms. Atkins (so memorable in past seasons
as Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton, Mao tse-Tung and Marge Schott)
dons a white wig and puffs a stogie, then returns after intermission
as an aging Hal Holbrook, reminiscing about his long career disguised
as the famed author that made Holbrook famous. It's a daring
leap for the versatile actress, but Ms. Atkins may finally have
met her match.
© 2000 by Gerald Nachman. The Nachman caricature is ©
2001 by Jim Hummel. The Betsy Ross illustration is from IMSI'S Master
Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506,
USA. The head on Betsy Ross belongs to Katie Couric, bless her
heart.
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