Tiny Pineapple

Last night I walked over to the Cougar Eat to grab some dinner before the show and a woman stopped me on the sidewalk and asked me if I had played the part of Wickham in Pride and Prejudice the night before. I answered, “Yes,” and waited politely for her to tell me how much she had enjoyed my performance.

Instead, she gushed:

That girl who played Lizzie had such a beautiful voice. I loved her! She’s so talented…

…and went on, at great length, about how much she had enjoyed this other person’s performance.

Later, as I was waiting for my food, I was approached by another woman who asked me, again, if I had played Wickham. I again answered in the affirmative, and, again, waited politely for the praise that was sure to follow.

Instead, she effused:

That woman who played Mrs. Bennet was hilarious! She was so good! I was just telling my husband how much I enjoyed her performance…

…and, again, went on, at great length, about how good this other person had been.

I assured her that I would convey her compliment to the third party and then raised my eyebrows expectantly, as if to say, “Is there anyone else that you can think of whose performance last night might be worthy of mention?”

Apparently not, because she just thanked me and walked away.

During the luxurious three-day break between our run at The Shell and the performances at BYU, I had time to sort through the last batch of photos from the rehearsal process, so I thought I’d take advantage of a few of them to introduce a few more members of the cast.

Robinne Booth

As you can probably tell from this article in the Daily Herald, Robinne is a force of nature theater. Being on stage with Robinne, I feel much the same way I do when I’m dancing with Lydia. She’s doing all the work, I spend most of my time just trying to keep up (literally), and I end up looking much better than I deserve simply because we’re sharing the same stage. It’s just impossible not to get swept up and carried along by her energy and enthusiasm.

In fact, during the finale, Robinne approaches me enthusiastically, grabs me violently by the shoulders and yanks me forward so she can plant a kiss on each of my cheeks. Even though I know it’s coming, the ferocity of the interaction always leaves me looking a little stunned. I’m not acting, I’m concussed.

Dane Allred

Dane earned all sorts of stage cred in my book simply by being the only male cast member with the chutzpah to grow muttonchops for the show.

He’s also responsible for my favorite acting moment in the whole play. It’s just after Mr. Bennet has returned from his search for Lydia in London. The Bennet daughters are in the garden talking and Dane stands in the wings, offstage left, and says (as if speaking to the maid), “I’ll be around back, Hill…”, and then he wanders on stage. As the daughters finish their dialogue, Dane turns and takes a few steps upstage, mutters something offstage about someone getting their bags, and then turns around and walks into the scene with Lizzie and Jane.

They are two or three throwaway lines that exist only as a cue to let the Bennet daughters know that their father is approaching, but it’s not the lines themselves that I love so much. It’s that Dane is able to take those two or three throwaway lines, and in the sound of his voice and the manner of his entrance, convey more about what Mr. Bennet is feelings in those five seconds than most actors could in the entire scene that follows.

That moment takes place a few minutes before I make my entrance with Lydia, but I always make it a point to get there a little early so I can sit in the wings and watch Dane make that entrance.

Kristen Southerland and Jessica Crandall

Poor Mary and Kitty have been dealt with rather harshly in the film adaptations of Pride and Prejudice. Mary usually comes off as either an automaton or a sociopath, and Kitty is like a cheerleader with ADHD. I think Kristen and Jessica have done an excellent job of grounding the characters in some reality without making them any less delightful. (And perhaps making them more so.)

I’ve actually known Kristen for quite a while. Her family was in our ward when we lived in the Green-Roofed House. I think she was six at the time.

Pardon me while I go get my walker…

Josie Rogers

When I looked at this series of photos for the first time, I could have sworn that there was an actual glow around Josie. After taking a closer look, I came to the conclusion that it was probably just an optical illusion caused by a combination of her hair color and the saturated theatrical lighting.

However, I’m perfectly willing to believe that she has some sort of force field surrounding her after she somehow escaped a certain flattening when one of the flats attacked her during the last week of rehearsals. So, it’s either an optical illusion, a force field, or perhaps she’s just so beautiful that she glows on stage. All three are plausible explanations…

Pride and Prejudice: A Musical

The Gerrit de Jong, Jr., Concert Hall is used for concerts of the major choral and instrumental organizations, musical theatre productions of the opera workshop, special lyceums, and official meetings of the college or University. It is also used for high-quality recordings and live film and television productions of musical events.

The de Jong Concert Hall is beautifully designed, aesthetically and acoustically. Its seats are arranged in continental seating style with no center aisles. The stage is 94 feet across and 47 feet deep, with a tip that adds 10 feet for a total depth of 57 feet. A functional, handsome facility, it seats 1,268.

Source: BYU Arts Venues

The hall is so central to the school of musics [sic] operations that studies aimed at getting ideal sound quality in the hall have been published by the Audio Engineering Society.

The de Jong hall was designed by Harvey Fletcher (the “Father of Sterophonic Sound”).

Source: Wikipedia

 Pride and Prejudice Poster

The show opens this Friday. (See the poster on the right.) It plays August 1-16, every night but Wednesday and Sunday. Then we pack everything up and take it to the De Jong Concert Hall at BYU for four performances during Education Week.

It’s going to be interesting to see what kind of an opening night crowd we’ll have. I know the “We ♥ Wickham Fan Club / Support Group” is caravanning in from Deluth, but other than that, we’re in totally uncharted territory. It’s an unfamiliar adaption of one of the most familiar books in the world. Do those two things cancel each other out?

Anyway, before things get too hectic this week, I wanted to introduce a few of the cast members to you.

Brittni Bills Smith

The girl can’t take a bad picture. I’ve taken hundreds of pictures of the cast over the course of the past few weeks, and in every one of them she looks just as fresh-faced and adorable and charming and <insert your own synonym for “perky”> as she does here.

I never fully appreciated just how much of the story Lizzie carries on her shoulders. She’s in nearly every scene and has four times as many lines as anyone else in the show. I don’t know how she does it. I’m having a hard enough time keeping my three-and-ten lines straight.

She and David Smith (who is playing Mr. Darcy) starred opposite each other as Ado Annie and Will Parker in our 2004 production of Oklahoma. (They’re standing center stage in the photo.) The girls and I also had the pleasure of seeing them star opposite each other in BYU’s recent production of The Foreigner. (Which was HI-larious.)

Now they’re married. Apparently, if you fall in love with someone every night for weeks on end, it eventually takes.

David Smith

I hate him.

No, really. I hate him.

He’s tall. He’s handsome. He’s got a great voice. He’s got that tousled blond hair that women seem to favor. He’s got a jaw of granite. (I purposely chose a photo that over-accentuates his jaw, just to spite him.) He’s the nicest guy in the world. And every night he’s going to get up there on stage and portray every woman’s ideal and in the process make life infinitely more difficult for the non-Darcys of the world.

So, I take great pleasure in pointing out that he does possess at least one negative quality: he frightens small children.

My niece Abby mentioned the other day that she found it odd that he’s so friendly and funny offstage. “But when he’s playing Mr. Darcy,” she said, “he scares me a little.”

Jenni and Curtis Goodman

Jenni has a beautiful, classically-trained voice that is perfect for Jane, and I would have cast Curtis for his hair alone. (Is that not “Mr. Bingley hair?”) The fact that they’re charming actors is a total bonus.

And I hate to mention it because the last thing I want to do is make them self-conscious, but when Jane and Mr. Bingley are reunited at last, the music swells and they burst into a Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald-ish reprise…

Love’s spell has captured me,
it takes me by surprise.
Love’s spell enraptures me;
I’ve found it in your eyes.

It’s a touching, joyous, transcendent moment…which, for whatever reason, I find hysterically funny. It’s not supposed to be funny, but it’s so touching and so joyous and so transcendent and so absolutely perfect for those characters at that moment that I can’t help it. I’m usually laughing so hard, I have to excuse myself.

We suggested that the scene would only be enhanced by the addition of paper hearts falling from the heavens and small cherubs flying out on strings, but so far the director has failed to incorporate our suggestions into the number.

Matt Christensen

Yes, this is the man who stole my part. What makes it especially irritating is that he’s much better than I would have been. (My “Don Knotts with Tourettes” interpretation would have grown tiresome rather quickly.)

When I described David Bamber’s performance in the 1995 BBC version of the Pride and Prejudice, I said…

The word that always comes to mind when I see David Bamber’s Mr. Collins is “obsequious.” I’m not even sure if that’s the right word, but that’s the word.

Jenny and I tried to find the right word (or words) for our Mr. Collins and I think the closest we came was “excruciatingly earnest,” but that’s still not quite right. I’ll let you know when we figure it out.

Samantha Frisby

Samantha is our 16-year-old Lydia. She has a lovely voice, is a beautiful dancer (when I’m not treading on her feet), and I can tell she’s doing a great job as Lydia because every time I’m on stage with her, I want to slap her.

That’s pretty much the benchmark for any actress playing Lydia, isn’t it? If, by the end of the show, the audience wants to grab you by the shoulders and shake you until you gain some sense, you nailed it.

Kiersten Honaker, Eric Harper, Jennifer Rasmussen

The Three Brusque-eteers. I spent last rehearsal just watching (and laughing heartily at) their facial expressions. You could cut the disdain with a knife.

Yes, that’s my sister, Jenny, on the right, playing Mrs. Hurst. And, yes, she’s much funnier than I am.

In addition to the pictures above, I’ve posted two new sets of rehearsal photos on Flickr.

Melville Cooper

According to IMDb:

Phil Silvers was asked to screen test for a role as a vicar despite having a strong New York accent. It turned out to be a cruel prank by studio executives who passed the screen test around Hollywood. In his autobiography, Silvers says “These three minutes were perhaps the funniest I’ve ever done.”

Source: IMDb

It doesn’t specifically say that the screen test was for the role of Mr. Collins, but I can’t think of another “vicar” they could be referring to.

This clip gives you a good look at the infamously non-period women’s costumes:

According to Edward Maeder, Adrian, the costume designer, asked director Robert Z. Leonard to place the film in a later time period than that of the novel so that the costumes might be more opulent than those of Jane Austen’s time.

Source: IMDb

Also:

Many costumes designed by Walter Plunkett for Gone with the Wind (1939) were used again the following year in this film for some of the large crowd scenes, although Adrian created the gowns for the principals in this film. A modest budget partially explains why the costumes are not at all accurate for the assumed period of the film and reusing Plunkett’s elaborate fashions saved MGM money in making this film.

Source: IMDb

And costumes weren’t the only things MGM wanted to recycle from Gone with the Wind. MGM’s first choice for Darcy and Elizabeth? Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.

Malcolm Rennie

It’s a difficult to know what to do with this “teleplay” of Pride and Prejudice, produced in 1980 by the BBC as part of a series of Jane Austen’s works.

On the one hand, as a “teleplay,” it can’t really be held to the same technical and aesthetic standards as a true “film.” On the other hand, when held up to other video productions of the same time period…well, let’s just say that Three’s Company looks positively lush in comparison.

Speaking of Three’s Company, every time the Bennet sisters look at each other knowingly I feel like there’s something missing, so I’ve made an attempt to remedy that here:

And the history of costume recycling continues here:

• The pink walking-dress worn by Miss Bingley at Netherfield is the same one worn by Emma in the BBC version of Emma (1972) (Emma wears it during the strawberry-picking-party at Donwell).

• The beige and pink floral print muslin gown Clare Higgins (Kitty Bennet) wears at Longbourn was previously worn by Constance Chapman (Miss Bates) in Emma (1972).

• The pale blue gown with gold-flowered bodice and sleeves Jennifer Granville as Mrs. Hurst wears to dinner on Elizabeth’s first evening at Netherfield is the same gown Doran Godwin as Emma wears to the Christmas party at Randalls in Emma (1972).

• The white floral-print muslin gown with cut-out sleeves Sabina Franklyn (Jane Bennet) wears at Longbourn following the Meryton Assembly ball is the same costume Doran Godwin (Emma Woodhouse) wears at Hartfield in Emma (1972) while discussing Jane Fairfax’s “reserve” with Mr. Knightley.

• The brown and burgundy pelisse with embroidered bodice and matching bonnet Sabina Franklyn (Jane Bennet) wears on the walk to Meryton with Mr. Collins is the same costume Doran Godwin (Emma) wears to visit the poor in Emma (1972).

• The yellow-checked dress Tessa Peake-Jones (Mary Bennet) wears in the scenes before and after the Meryton Assembly ball is the same costume Debbie Bowen (Harriet Smith) wears at the Box Hill Picnic in Emma (1972).

• The green gown and overdress with scalloped neckline worn by Jennifer Granville (Mrs. Hurst) at the Netherfield Ball is the same costume Fiona Walker (Mrs. Elton) wears to dine at Hartfield in Emma (1972).

• The deep blue military-style coat Elizabeth Garvie wears in the scenes of Elizabeth Bennet arriving at Hunsford and at Pemberley is the same costume Ania Marson as Jane Fairfax wears in Emma (1972) during the scene in which Jane visits Mrs. Elton at the parsonage to discuss the party Emma is throwing for Mrs. Elton.

Source: IMDb

As for Mr. Rennie’s performance, since this is the version with which people are probably least familiar, I’d be interested in hearing people’s first impressions based on this clip.

David Bamber

The word that always comes to mind when I see David Bamber’s Mr. Collins is “obsequious.” I’m not even sure if that’s the right word, but that’s the word.

And I’ve started practicing that look he gives Jane across the table. It has that perfect combination of ardor and affectation that women find irresistible.

Tom Hollander

Tom Hollander is still my favorite Mr. Collins. His approach is quite different than the other three, who are essentially just doing variations on the same buffoonish theme. And he isn’t just another exhibit in the British Museum of the “Comedy of Embarrassment.”

I’m sure we all know someone like this Mr. Collins. The kind of guy whose inappropriate actions are born out the kind of social awkwardness that self-improvement efforts only seem to amplify. With every self-help book he reads, the farther he gets from anything approaching naturalistic behavior; the harder he tries to say and do the right thing, the more mannered and stilted his speech and actions become.

You just feel so sorry for the poor fellow because he is so obviously ill-suited to the life and position he has mapped out for himself.

And there’s something about that first line at the dinner table:

“What a superbly featured room and and what excellent boiled potatoes. Many years since I’ve had such an exemplary vegetable.”

I start cracking up at the pronunciation of “po-ta-toes” and by the time he gets to “exemplary vegetable” I’m doing involuntary spit takes.

He also gets extra points for “rectory” and “abuts.”

As I mentioned before, in preparing for our upcoming musical production of Pride and Prejudice, we’ve been working our way through the different film adaptations of the book that are available on DVD.

There are four straight adaptations (or translations):

1940

1980

1995

2005

…as well as two modernizations:

The “Bollywood” Version

The “Mormon” Version

(What? You didn’t know there was a Mormon version of Pride and Prejudice?)

And as we were watching them, it occurred to me that it might be entertaining to do a few “compare and contrast” exercises. So today I’d like to start with the straight adaptations (we’ll cover the modernizations later) and look at Mr. Collins’ arrival.

These photos were taken during the early rehearsals of a new musical production of Pride and Prejudice that is premiering in August.

They were taken indoors without a flash or tripod (meaning slow shutter speed, high ISO, wide aperture, and less-than-steady hands), so I apologize in advance for the graininess and focus.

See the entire set on Flickr…

This has to be one of the best worst Pride and Prejudice book covers ever. It looks like a publicity photo from the Bentonville Community Theater’s Spring production of The Pirates of Penzance.

 Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, 1984

Mom’s fishing for husbands — But the girls are hunting for love…

What’s a girl to do?

Scatterbrained, social climbing Mrs. Bennet makes one demand of her five daughters.

Marry. Marry well. Marry RICH.

But sweet Jane is hopelessly in love with Mr. Bingley, who doesn’t seem to notice. Flightly Lydia wants a man — any man — preferably one in uniform. Kitty just wants to have fun. Shy Mary has her nose in a book. And Elizabeth — brilliant, stubborn, independent Lizzy — refuses the advances of the most “marriageable” man in town — haughty, handsome, wealthy Mr. Darcy.

Mrs. Bennet’s in hysterics, Mr. Bennet’s in his study, Lydia’s eloped with a soldier and Jane’s heart may well be broken. Will any of the Bennet girls find true love and fortune?

Back in April I participated in the first read-through of a new musical production of Pride and Prejudice that is premiering at the SCERA Shell outdoor amphitheater in August. I read (among others) the part of Mr. Collins, which, as a character actor, I think is the plum male role in the show.

A few weeks later when they held auditions, I was invited to call-backs for the part of Mr. Collins. It was at call-backs that I learned that the part of Mr. Collins was written for a bass.

I am not a bass.

Thus, I am not Mr. Collins.

(If you want a mental picture of my performance at call-backs, just imagine Beaker from the Muppets attempting to sing “Old Man River” in the original octave.)

Oh, well. It would have been fun to play Mr. Collins, but I would be perfectly happy just being in the chorus, so I wasn’t too disappointed.

Two days later, I received the following:

“Thank you again for auditioning for Pride and Prejudice.  We really enjoyed your audition and would like to offer you the role of Mr. Wickham in our production.”

I honestly thought it was a typo. Surely someone at the theater office had read the wrong line on the cast list and typed “Wickham” when they should have typed “Townsperson #18 (Man With Bucket).”

I fired off an email message to Robert, the Assistant Director:

I just wanted to double-check…am I really Mr. Wickham, or did they send me the wrong information?

His reply?

That’s the right role.  You are to play the handsome Mr. Wickham.

As if “Mr. Wickham” wasn’t ludicrous enough, he just had to throw in “handsome,” too.

It is, to say the least, a “non-obvious” casting choice. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that it is the least obvious casting choice, so I have to trust that they know what they’re doing. But, still…

I feel for poor Lydia. I initially heard that the young lady playing Lydia was only 17 years old, but that was incorrect.

She’s 16. Barely.

So, either this version of Pride and Prejudice is set in Texas, or they wanted to give the Lydia/Wickham relationship a new twist. In our production, if Lydia and Wickham get along really well, but things don’t work out romantically, instead of marrying her, he can adopt her.

Because of the venue, my age is less of a problem than it might be. As my sister, Amy, pointed out, the SCERA Shell is so huge, and the audience sits so far from the stage, you could have Phyllis Diller play the part of Liesl in The Sound of Music and half the audience would be none the wiser.

Another plus is that Wickham’s part isn’t very big, so even if I’m dreadful I can’t do that much damage. My sister, Jenny, who is playing Mrs. Hurst, noted that I am not unlike the dull-but-wealthy Mr. Rushworth in Mansfield Park, who is given a miniscule part in a play…

Miss Crawford accepted the part very readily, and soon after Miss Bertram’s return from the Parsonage, Mr. Rushworth arrived, and another character was consequently cast. He had the offer of Count Cassel and Anhalt, and at first did not know which to choose, and wanted Miss Bertram to direct him, but upon being made to understand the different style of the characters, and which was which, and recollecting that he had once seen the play in London, and had thought Anhalt a very stupid fellow, he soon decided for the Count. Miss Bertram approved the decision, for the less he had to learn the better; and though she could not sympathise in his wish that the Count and Agatha might be to act together, nor wait very patiently while he was slowly turning over the leaves with the hope of still discovering such a scene, she very kindly took his part in hand, and curtailed every speech that admitted being shortened;—besides pointing out the necessity of his being very much dressed, and choosing his colours. Mr. Rushworth liked the idea of his finery very well, though affecting to despise it, and was too much engaged with what his own appearance would be, to think of the others, or draw any of those conclusions, or feel any of that displeasure, which Maria had been half prepared for.

…and then spends the better part of the next three chapters blathering on about it.

Mr. Rushworth followed him to say, “I come in three times, and have two-and-forty speeches. That’s something, is not it?—But I do not much like the idea of being so fine.—I shall hardly know myself in a blue dress and a pink satin cloak.”

“I had my choice of the parts,” said Mr. Rushworth; “but I thought I should like the Count best—though I do not much relish the finery I am to have.”

“You chose very wisely, I am sure,” replied Miss Crawford, with a brightened look; “Anhalt is a heavy part.”

“The Count has two-and-forty speeches,” returned Mr. Rushworth, “which is no trifle.”

“Me!” cried Fanny, sitting down again with a most frightened look. “Indeed you must excuse me. I could not act any thing if you were to give me the world. No, indeed, I cannot act.”

“Indeed but you must, for we cannot excuse you. It need not frighten you; it is a nothing of a part, a mere nothing, not above half a dozen speeches altogether, and it will not much signify if nobody hears a word you say, so you may be as creepmouse as you like, but we must have you to look at.”

“If you are afraid of half a dozen speeches,” cried Mr. Rushworth, “what would you do with such a part as mine? I have forty-two to learn.”

Like the dull-but-wealthy Mr. Rushworth, I come in three times, but in order to condense a 300+ page novel into a two hour musical, they’ve “curtailed every speech that admitted being shortened.” So, unlike the dull-but wealthy Mr. Rushworth, I do not have two-and-forty speeches; I have three-and-ten.

That’s it: 13 lines. A miniscule part, to be sure. And now I’m going to spend the better part of the next two months blathering on about it.

I’ll warn you right now, if you don’t care for Jane Austen, you might want to leave and come back in September. Because, until the show closes on August 22, Tiny Pineapple is probably going to be ALL AUSTEN ALL THE TIME!

To get into the proper Austenian mood, the girls and I have been working our way through all of the various productions of Pride & Prejudice on DVD. So, in addition to the musical, I’ve been drawing up a list of other possible topics of conversation. Among them:

• What price must Colin Firth pay for setting the bar for the rest of us men so ridiculously high?

• Is the 1980 BBC production proof that you can light a film with nothing but two 40-watt bulbs and the foil from three sticks of Doublemint gum?

• Why didn’t Mary and Mr. Collins get married, and if they did, would you dare invite them over for dinner?

• Is Crispin Bonham-Carter’s Mr. Bingley the biggest goober to ever appear on the screen? (And I mean “goober” in the best possible way.)

• Who should be crowned Ultimate Darcy?

So, welcome to “The Summer of Wickham”…

 It's A Bird, It's a Plane,
It's Superman

I said “yes” again. That’s why things have been rather quiet around here. Just as we were finishing up rehearsals for Fiddler on the Roof, a friend called and invited me to be in a musical she was directing entitled, It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman.

My first response was, “Sorry, no.”

Actually, my first response was, “There’s a Superman musical?” But my second response was, “Sorry, no.”

Between working two jobs, parenting, Fiddler rehearsals, and the beginning of the new school year, taking on yet another responsibility would be lunacy. But this was someone I’ve always wanted to work with and she assured me that it was a small part and that I wouldn’t have to be there for any rehearsals until after Fiddler closed. So, I said yes.

And it was lunacy.

Doing two shows back-to-back means that anything not parenting-, work-, or musical-theater-related has been completely neglected since mid-June. I abandoned Jodi in mid-technical-support crisis, I haven’t spoken to Kate in over six weeks, and my InBox is so full that I may have to declare email bankruptcy.

But I’ve been having more fun than I’ve had in years. I play Jim Morgan, the going-for-‘dashing’-but-only-managing-‘smug’ lab assistant of the evil Dr. Sedgwick, the villain of the piece. (I’m a good guy, though.) And, in the end, Lois has to choose between Superman and me. Of course, there’s no real question as to who she’ll end up, but I take some consolation in the fact that while Superman doesn’t get a kiss, I do.

As it says in the script:

ACT ONE
Scene 6

The screening room at the Daily Planet, an open room with a few seats and a large movie screen that drops from the top of the stage. LOIS and JIM enter.

LOIS
(Looking about)

Oh, looks like Dr. Sedgwick isn’t here yet.

JIM

Good. Let’s go up to the balcony and neck.

LOIS
(Girlish)

Jim, cut it out! Professor Sedgwick could walk in any minute.

JIM

Not Abner. It’ll take him another hour to get his car started.

LOIS

Don’t make fun of him. He’s a very wonderful man.

JIM

You think Sedgwick’s wonderful. You think Superman’s wonderful. But when you’re alone with somebody who really is wonderful, you don’t know it.

(HE suddenly kisses her. A good, long kiss with etc. in it. THEY come apart slowly.)

(Music starts)

A kiss “with etc. in it?” What does that mean exactly? I still have no idea, but I’ve been exploring the dramatic possibilities…which presents a certain moral dilemma since Lois and I are experiencing the kiss from very different perspectives. Me? I’m kissing a very charming, very attractive, and very 21-year-old young woman. She’s kissing a middle-aged nerd in a lab coat.

All is know is that, from a purely aesthetic perspective, it is a very pleasant experience. I just wish I weren’t as keenly aware of that fact as I am.

The show itself is hilarious and I’m really surprised it isn’t done more often. It originally opened on Broadway on March 29, 1966 and received pretty decent reviews (The New York Times declared that it was “…easily the best musical this season”), but it never really found an audience and closed after only 129 performances.

Jaime Weinman did an excellent write-up on the show back in 2004. (Though I would take exception to his assessment of the song “It’s Super Nice,” which, in the context of the show, is absolutely hilarious.) As he puts it:

Superman was one of those shows that seemed to have everything going for it and still flopped.

He thinks the show’s failure was due to the fact that Superman isn’t really the stand-out role in the show. But I think it may have just been the wrong show at the wrong time.

Hal Prince, who directed the show, won the Tony that year for Best Direction…but for Cabaret, not Superman. The book was written by David Newman and Robert Benton, who were nominated for an Oscar for Bonnie and Clyde the following year. And if Cabaret and Bonnie and Clyde were what the sophisticated palette of 1960s theater-and-film-going public was looking for, I can’t imagine a piece of fluff like Superman faring well.

The show probably offended the sensibilities of Superman purists, too. Lex Luthor is nowhere to be found and, in classic 1960s fashion, Superman isn’t defeated by Kryptonite, but by psychoanalysis.

Get a load of this dialogue between the evil Dr. Sedgwick and Superman:

SEDGWICK
(Compassionately)

I know of your unfortunate childhood. What a shock it must have been when your parents placed you in a rocket and shot you out of their lives. Rejected, alone. Is it any wonder that you depend so on the adulation of millions?

(SUPERMAN shaken, falling apart, drops in a chair.)

SUPERMAN

But they do love me —

SEDGWICK

Oh do they? Yes, they love the performer, the stunt man who flies in the sky —

(As if HE just thought of it.)

Flying? You know, of course, that flying is a well-known dream symbol of frustration, but let that pass.

(Patronizingly)

I know you really can fly. Of course Clark Kent can’t fly. But then he doesn’t need to. He has a job, a home, friends. Remember, the world created Superman, but you created Clark Kent. Why have you found it necessary to live this double life? Could it be because you are unable to accept responsibility?

SUPERMAN

Dr. Sedgwick, I…can’t…think anymore —

SEDGWICK
(Heading for home, driving hard)

Superman, this is truth. A child who is rejected thinks in his childish way that he has done something wrong. A creature, who walks among men, disguised as one of them, and yet rejects the idea of living as one of them?? Such a man is consumed by guilt! Such a man will perform so-called good deeds in the hopes of alleviating that guilt!

SUPERMAN

Have I no right to do my job?

SEDGWICK
(Relentlessly, ruthlessly hammering him down)

Who gave you that right?

WEIRDO MUSIC

Who set you up as the judge? Who told you that men couldn’t deal with their own lives? Who told you that we need a Superman?

(SUPERMAN slowly drops to the chair, his head in his hand, beaten. Totally self-absorbed, and broken.)

SEDGWICK

I did it! I did it!

(I think more musicals need to have “WEIRDO MUSIC,” don’t you?)

There was a 100-minute TV version produced in 1975 in which Leslie Ann Warren played Lois Lane and Loretta Swit played Sydney. (Can Loretta Swit belt?) But they apparently stripped the TV version of a lot of the musical numbers, which is sort of like stripping a coconut cream pie of the coconut and the cream. You’re left with nothing but crust. And who wants to watch a crusty non-musical musical?

And speaking of the music, it’s pretty terrific. Here are a few clips from the Original Broadway Soundtrack.

• Overture (17 seconds, 220 kb, MP3 format)

  I love the beginning of the overture. It’s so…manly.

• Doing Good (45 seconds, 540 kb, MP3 format)

  This is Superman’s first song, sung as he’s changing into his Clark Kent uniform (ala Mr. Rogers).

  It’s a satisfying feeling
  When you hang up your cape,
  To know that you’ve averted
  Murder, larceny, and rape.
  

  “Cape” and “rape?” That’s…um…quite a rhyme.

• We Don’t Matter At All (48 seconds, 580 kb, MP3 format)

  This is my song. Like Esqueleto in Nacho Libre, “I don’t believe in God, I believe in science.”

  Oh, sure,
  Ev’ry hundred years or so,
  We come up with a Gandhi
  or a Michaelangelo.
  “Hurray!
  Ain’t that dandy!” we say,
  Then we much things up
  The same destructive way!

  “Gandhi” and “dandy?” Does it get any better than that?

• You’ve Got Possibilities (63 seconds, 760 kb, MP3 format)

  This is my favorite song in the whole show. It’s sung by Sydney, the girlfriend of the evil, self-serving Daily Planet columnist Max Menken. She sings it to Clark Kent after growing increasingly frustrated with the ever-flakey Max.

  [Note #1: That’s Linda Lavin on the recording. She later achieved TV stardom in Alice.]

  [Note #2: Even though I’d never heard of this musical before, I thought this song sounded vaguely familiar. I finally figured out that Pillsbury has used it in some of their commercials.]

• It’s Super Nice (45 seconds, 500 kb, MP3 format)

  Ah, the controversial “It’s Super Nice.” Yes, it’s annoying to listen to, but I promise you it’s a hoot to watch.

• Meanwhile… (91 seconds, 1 MB, MP3 format)

  This one starts out…

  We see a small panel, lettered, comic-book style, “Meanwhile…” Then, as number progresses, we see six panels, of various sizes, arranged in two rows like a comic strip. Each panel is really a box in which CHARACTERS appear. Music underscores the entire scene.

  And in case you’re wondering, this section:

  Why are we always out of job?
  It’s Superman!

  …is sung by The Flying Lings, a family of Chinese acrobats who are out of work since, as they put it, “People don’t pay to see Flying Lings when they can watch Superman fly for free!”

  How’s that for 1960s cultural sensitivity?

And speaking of Chinese acrobats and 1960s cultural sensitivity, the whole show has a certain Thoroughly Modern Millie feel to it, which may be why I like it so much.

Anyway, it’s a really great production of an oddly great show. Unfortunately, we only have five performances left:

• Thursday: 7:30pm
• Friday: 7:30pm
• Saturday: 2:00pm and 7:30pm (Conflicting with General Conference, unfortunately…)
• Monday: 7:30pm

…so I apologize for not getting the word out earlier. But, as is true of a lot of my life: I can either do it or I can document it. I can’t seem to find the time to do both. So I usually opt for “doing.”

With only five performances left, I’d encourage you to make reservations as soon as possible. (It’s reserved seating, so buying your tickets in advance is a must.) And, if you come, we do a little cast Meet-n-Greet in the lobby afterwards so be sure to say, “Hi.”

The girls and I are performing in Fiddler on the Roof at the Scera Shell Outdoor Theatre this summer. I’m playing the Rabbi and the girls are playing my daughters…or maybe granddaughters, depending on how old Jerry Elison, the director, wants me to play the part.

At Jerry’s request, I’ve been growing a beard since early April. Summer in Utah is not the best time to be sporting facial hair, but I’m all for authenticity (says the guy who’s playing the perhaps-80-year-old Rabbi), so I don’t mind. Besides, I had a beard last summer for Crazy for You and the summer before that for Oklahoma.

I hadn’t trimmed the beard for a few weeks, so I got up early this morning to clean it up a bit before I had to wake up the girls and get to rehearsal. It was early enough that I was still a little bleary-eyed, but I was doing pretty well and I’d just managed to give the bottom of my moustache a crisp, bold, definitive edge with the electric trimmers when my hand slipped and I took a good 3”x3” chunk of beard on my chin right down stubble.

I stood there, staring at the gaping beard wound in the mirror for a few seconds, and then I went on trimming the rest of my beard as if nothing had happened. I must have been in beard shock, because I honestly thought for a moment that if I didn’t acknowledge the hole, it would just go away. Perhaps my beard auto-immune system would kick in and miraculously repair the damage. Or maybe no one would notice my lily-white chin shining out from the center of my jet-black beard.

But, like any man with a really obvious bald spot, I could only fool myself for so long…at which point I started thinking of ways to disguise it. I considered trying to hide the gap by continuously stroking my chin as if I was lost in perpetual thought about some very weighty issues. Then I considered that infomercial hair spray paint, but even with expedited shipping there was little chance of it arriving before rehearsal at 9:00am.

So I started “blending,” cutting the surrounding edges shorter to ease the transition…which succeeded in turning the original 3-inch patch into a 5-inch field. Then I decided the best thing to do was to trim the whole beard down to the same length…which didn’t work out quite as well as I thought it would. And by the time the girls woke up, I had a face that was so soft and smooth it would have put every baby’s bottom in a ten mile radius to shame.

So I’m back to square one…or hair one, as the case may be…

Friday night was closing night for Oklahoma! While I’ll be very happy to have my nights back, I’m really going to miss it. It was a lot of fun and it was an especially nice group of people to work with. Everyone in the cast treated Emma and Zoe like princesses. The high school and college kids especially went out of their way to make them feel like an important part of the ensemble. They had such a good time, they’re already asking when they can be in another play.

As for me, I’m re-entering retirement, which is probably for the best. My performance generated some…how shall I put this…”strong opinions” on the local theater message boards. Here’s my personal favorite:

“Judd Frye was a pansy. Instead of being a hatefilled hired hand who everyone was afraid of, he was a whining puppy, not very convincing.”

So, it’s either that or I portrayed Jud as a complex, mixed-up someone you truly feel sorry for. To-may-to, to-mah-to.

Having had to grow a scroungy beard for the peformance, I was finally able to shave last night for the first time in three months. But this morning I got out of the shower and was reminded once again just how tedious having to shave every day is. I flirted with the idea of keeping the beard for the winter, but I’m not really in a beardy mood right now. A few people suggested that I just shave the sides and keep a goatee. I shot them where they stood.

I remember thinking back in 1994, “OK, fellows, we’ve done the goatee thing…it’s time to move on.” And yet here we are a decade later and people are still advocating a small pointed or tufted beard named for its resemblance to the beard of a he-goat. I just don’t get the appeal. And while I understand on an intellectual level that “goatees don’t kill people; people kill people,” have you ever noticed how many of those people have goatees? (Exhibits A, B, and C.)

Pore Jud is daid, or so I’ve been singing every night in the deepest baritone a first tenor can muster. Jud is, of course, very much alive when he makes that assertion at the end of Act 1 of Oklahoma! That’s what passes for irony in a Rogers and Hammerstein show.

My acting career is daid, too, or so I have to keep reminding people since my recurring presence on the stage tends to give folks the wrong impression. I retired from acting a decade ago. Honest. But every once in a while I’ll get a call from a friend and the next thing I know I’m on stage wearing a coconut bra and grass skirt.

The past few times the call has come from Jerry Elison, the man who started my acting career 28 years ago when he cast him as the lead in a production of Tom Sawyer at Orem Jr. High School. I’d just moved to Utah from Virginia, so he didn’t have the slightest idea who I was, but he took a chance on me and changed my life forever.

Since then, I’ve done almost three dozen productions for him. He first lured out of retirement six years ago when his Luther Billis dropped out of South Pacific three weeks into rehearsals. Four years ago he needed a Jeff Douglas for his Brigadoon. This time, I’m Jud. And I’m dead. At least I am by the end of Act 2, a fact that has fascinated my daughters to no end.

Emma: Are you going to die today, Dad?

Me: No, I think we’re only running Act 1.

Emma: (Disappointed.) Awww…

Me: But we’re running Act 2 on Saturday, so you’ll be able to see me die then.

Emma: Yipee!

They’ve taken to saying “Yipee!” (along with other sundry Western exclamations like “Yeehaw!” and “Yow!”) because they’re in the show with me. That was the real enticement to come out of retirement this time around. I’m not particularly adept at playing the heavy, but the chance for the three of us to be in a play together was too good to pass up. So, for the past few months we’ve been trekking off to rehearsals almost every night. The girls would bring activity books or something to read between their scenes, and we’d spend the evening hanging out, surrounded by music, dancing, and some very talented people.

That’s one of the reasons postings have been few and far between for the past few months, but we opened on Monday so things things are starting to quiet down. If you’re in the area, we run for another week and a half at the Scera Shell (here are the details), after which we move the whole thing (windmill and all) down to BYU for a week of performances in the deJong Concert Hall during Education Week.

Your enticement to come? Well, I hear the villain’s not especially good, but there are two really cute kids in the chorus.