PDF: Read Applause magazine, issue 6, March 1997

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March 1997
~-~,. .......... Issue 6 £2.50

Lady in the Dark
comes into the light
David Nathan talks to
I
New face
I
II '"
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9 771]64 76]009

Editor's Letter
ime was when new Irish plays, regardless of their quality, rarely performed well at theatre box­
ulfices in England. Great reviews did not necessarily guarantee great audiences and mounting a
new Irish play was something of a high-risk venture. But not anymore. The air is alive with the
.J of quolity Blarney as an impressive crop of Irish dramatists, following in the colourful tradition of
" &'ucicault, JB Keane, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, Sean O'Casey, J M Synge and Samuel
=-=_',;<,[( have become de rigueur.
The problems of an oppressed, rebellious country, divided both religiously and politically, have for
_=: ~J_: been angrily, and poetically expressed by dramatists whose passionate flair for words is apparent
u, -h contemporary Irish playwrights as Billy Roche, Tom Murphy, Marina Carr, Frank McGuinness,
: ["":btian Barry, Brian Friel and, the new boy on the block, Martin McDonagh, whose Th e Beauty Q ueen
. Lu·"" ne and The CripJlie of Inishmaan have been hits at the Royal Court and the Royal National
:-he:Mre respectively.
Later in the year the Royal Court will be mounting the prolific McDonagh's Connemara trilogy (of
...h lCh Leenane was the first), to be staged in conjunction with the Druid Theatre of Galway; while the
"~!ll>nal are following lnishmaan with parrs twO and three of their own McDonagh trilogy.
Tom Murphy is to have a season of his plays presented by the Royal Court, including The \lYake,
':trected by Garry Hines at the Royal Court Downstairs. The Court is also contemplating a season of
clri~n Friel plays. The Tricycle Theatre, meanwhile, continues its tradition of presenting some uf the beSt
"r irish theatre with Passion Machine's Kirchensink by Paul Mercier, and D'Unbelievables, (alias Jon
Kenny and Pat Short, twO of lrelands's top comic performers) in I Doubt It.
• •
It would be invidious of a theatre magazine not to acknowledge television as an important medium for
J,sseminating, to the widest possible public, drama in all its forms. Hence the introduction, this month,
of a regular TV column by Ronald Bergan, who kicks off by reviewing the first three (of 5) plays to BBC's
P"rformance series.
There is no point in bewailing the time when viewers had the chance to see frequent adaptations of
classic plays and modern masterpieces as well as almost all the plays of Shakespeare. What makes TV
drama exciting today is not only its techincal accomplishments, but the chance it gives both new and
eStablished performers, writers and directors to manifest their skills in single dramas or series - both
period and contemporary. And because we no longer have a particularly active film industry in this
country, there is also more of a TV crossover than ever before in which many stage stats can regularly be
seen on the box. Stage and small screen are no longer rivals but partners supplying each other with an
abundance of talent. Long may they continue to be so.
applause
THE APPLAUSE BUILDING 68 LONG ACRE LONDON WC2E 9JQ
PUBLISHED BY APPLAUSE LTD . MANAGING DIRECTOR PAUL BURNETT
EDITO R CLIVE HIRSCHHORN EDITORIAL

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FAX [phone]

ART DIRECTOR TERRY SESSIONS

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MARKETING PAUL RAVEN TELEPHONE [phone]

FOUNDING EDiTOR RAYNER BOURTON ISSN 136A -7 636
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THE CLASSICS: THE NEW PLAYS:
Waste from 4 March Hurlyburly frvm 2.1 ~arch
by Harley Granville-Harker by O'll!id Rahc
, Cloud Nine frc>l)l,l0 March Prayers of Sherkin

by Caryl 'Im""ill from 18 )"by

The Seagull from 28 April
by Sebastiau Ha,rry

by Anton Chekhov Grace Note from 6 July

translaled by '10m Stoppard by Samuel ALWlllson

Waiting For Godot , Playhouse Creatures
from 16 June from '14 Septemher
by Sqmuel Beckett by April de Angelis
, The Provok'd Wife Snake in th¢ Grass
from 23 June from 12 O ctohe r
by Sir Johll \/a/lbrugh /;y Roy MacGregor
King Lear , from 25 Aug\lst , Shining So~ls

hy Willilim , hakespeare from 9 Noyc mbt...'r

, by Chris HaJllulII '

Sir Peter Hall
Director:
Dominic Dromgoole
New Plays Director:
Producer: David Mirvish in association with Bill Kenwright
applause

OFFSTAGE 6
News and gossip from
around the West End
8 LADY IN THE DARK
Dick Vosburgh on a musical that gets its
West End premiere 56 years after it was first written
MARIA FRIEDMAN 10
David Nathan interviews the actress, and talks

about her starring role in Lady in the Dark

15 0NSTAGE
Clive Hirschhorn reviews the
West End's latest offerings
DIARY 18
New productions in and

around the West End

20 MAn WOLF
.. .questions the wisdom behind
this year's awards nominations
APPLAUSE THEATRE CLUB 23
Christopher Biggins brings you more

great mone)'-saving offers on top

West End shows

31 NED SHERRIN Dark Lady. p.I O
PEOPLE WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE 33
David Nathan talks to producer Bill Kenwright
35 RICHARD NELSON
Sheridan Morley assesses the work of an American
playwright who does very well over here
REMARKABLE CAREERS 37
A look at the work of actress

Constance Cummings, with Michael Arditti

39 BOOK REVIEW
Sam Ingleby on Neil Simon's memoirs
QUIET AT THE BACK, PLEASE! 40
The theatre nuisance according to Ronala Bergan
42 NEW FACES
Ruaidhri Conroy, currently making
his mark in The Cripple of lnishmaan
SPECTRUM 43
Opera, Dance, TV and Art reviews and previews

by Max Loppen, Jeffery Taylor, Ronala Bergan

and John Russell-Taylor

49 OFFSTAGE BROADWAY
Michael Riedel with news and gossip Remarkable. p.37
from the Big Apple
QUIZ 50
50 SHOWS THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE
... to Gerala Kaufman, MP
iv\ARCH 1997 APPlAUSE 5
stage

TED, A NEW MUSICAL by Tony Drew and Rob Stoppard's new one about A E Housman, author SHOCKHORROR! Stephen Fry may return to the
Bettinson about a gwup of teddy boys in 1950s' of A Shropshire Lad. I t opens at the Lyttelton stage in a year's time. Outing his last and
Blackpool, is already slated for a March 1998 on I Octoher, the day Trevor N unn takes over. somewhat notorious theatrical outing, a sudden
opening in the West End. The musical will no • • • urge to taste Belgian chocolates in situ overcame
doubt have the Bettinson feel about it. His two him and he abandoned the production. Plans
prior musicals - Buddy and Jolson - could have PLANS TO STAGE OKLAHOMA! at the Open Air for his return to the theatre are very provisional
had their darker moments but the composer­ Theatre have, unfortunately, gone west. as yet, but he may take a cameo role as a waiter
director chose to go for the feelgood factor. The However, A rtistic Director Ian Talbot has opted in a multi-med ia theatre event at the ICA.
teddy boys in his new production will probably for a highly suitable replacement in Kiss Me Actor Colin McFarlane has devised the piece
help old ladies with their shopping and are sure Kate, Cole Porter's adaptation of Th e Taming of which should also feature Frances Barber and
to be safely tucked up in hed by nine o'clock. th e Shrew. The musical will join A Midsummer Anita Dobson.
• •• Night 's Dream and All's Well That Ends Well in •••
the repertoire in July.
ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER'S two new musicals THE OffEN ASKED QUESTION over the last year
A Scar is Born and Whistle Down the Wind are has been, Who's going to pay the Rent' The
both definitely going to open in the West End American producers seemed to be making such
next year, so it seems likely that 1998 will be high demands during the negotiations for a
christened the Year of O ur (New) Lord. British transfer that a posse of producers had
• • • shown interest and then shied away. However,
Duncan Weldon has now secuted the British
THE GOODCOMPANY'S ADAPTATION of Dickens' rights to the Tony-laden tuner and he hopes to
Hard Time s is on its way into the West End in bring it to the Prince of Wales this Autumn.
May. Aled Jones, the ex-choirbboy, seems to
• • •
have given up his attempt to become a rock idol
(thank God for small mercies) and he stars PAM GEMS' MARLENE, a biographical play about
alongside fellow Welshman Philip Madoc and Marlene Dietrich, is due at a small West End
Fenella Fielding. (Welcome back, Fenella, venue in April. The critics may not have
where have you beenI). Unlike the world of warmed to the musical play while it was out on
television, the West End has so far remained tour but Sian Phillips' central performance as
largely immune to 'costume commotion' - i.e. the drink-sodden diva is incredible.
the inability to believe that any project could
• • •
capture the popular imagination if it doesn't
involve a vandalised Victorian text, an overdose FINALLY, SPARE A THOUGHT for the young
of sideburns and a series of gravity-defying American director Wilson Milam. He has been
dresses. We have had our fair share of musical plucked from relative obscurity to direct the
adaptations - Heathcliff and Scrooge for example Bri tish premiere of H urly Burly, the first new
- but so far we have been spared an epidemic. play in the Peter Hall Company's repertoire at
Could this be because our often maligned critics The O ld Vic. At a recent press conference, he
have a collective allergy to such projects! stood shyly at the side of the room as Sir Peter
••• introduced him to the gathered bigwigs of the
British arts press as the 'wonderful American
BACK IN JANUARY, Julian Mitchell wrote an director, Mr. .. I'm sorry, I have no idea what your
article claiming that Richard Eyre had name is'. Hopefully, Hurly B~(rly will be a great
completely failed to fulfil the National Theatre's success with the director's name em everyone's lips.
remit to produce new plays. Eyre's final nine
months in charge will have included premieres
of new plays from Martin McDonagh, Peter ONE WORD IMPROV, playing at the Albery,
Gill, Tony Kushner, Patrick Marber, David provides the only chance to see Eddie Izzard in
Hare and Tom Stoppard. I think that Julian's the West End this year. I hope that this does not
real point is that Richard Eyre has singularly mean that the surreal transvestite comedian is
failed in his remit to produce new plays by to spend ml)re time writing television scripts.
Julian Mitchell. InCidentally, the very last play His Co ws for Channel 4 was lamentable but
to be produced under Eyre's tenure will be Izzard on stage is something else entirely.
6 APPlAUSE MARCH 1997

Dick Vosburgh looks at the origins of a musical which is the product of
a collaboration by Ira Gershwin, Kurt Weill and Moss Hart, and which
takes psychoanalysis as its unlikely theme,
ne of the loveliest musical scene. Eleven years later, Rodgers and Hart (no
shows of recent years' (New relation to Moss) agreed ro write the score for
York Times). 'One of the Kaufman and Hart's Dienich musical, but the
most stupendous evenings project was abandoned when the second act
the theane will afford in proved intractable. Instead, the foursome joined
this or any other season' (Variety). 'The first forces on the political satire I'd Rather Be Right.
time so successful a wedding between play and After five more collaborations with Kaufman,
music has been consummated in the modern Moss decided ro write on his own in future.
theatre.' (Bosron Daily Record). These are This came as no surprise ro the playwright Marc
typical of the superlatives lavished on Lady Connelly, who had once observed, 'Moss is in
in the Dark 56 years ago. Thanks ro the such a state of genuf1ection roward George all
Royal National Theaue, this 1941 Kun the time that I don't know how they ever get a
Weill-Ira Gershwin-Moss Han musical play wrinen. Moss really wants ro be George's
play finally opens in London on March 11, son.' This profeSSional break was urged by
starring Maria Friedman and directed by Hart's psychiatrist, the noted Freudian,
Franceska Zambello, whose 1995 Dr Gregory Zilboorg, who felt that his patient's
television production of Weill's Street veneration for the older Kaufman was stunting
Scene won the Nombre d'Or-Preis. his emotional well-being. It was therefore
Moss Han's first success in the highly appropriate that Moss's first play after
theatre was the comedy Once in a the break was another attempt at dramatising
Lifetime, which he wrote with the psychoanalysis -this time as a serious drama. It
mercurial George S Kaufman in 1930. was also appropriate that one of the decisions
By 1937 they had also collaborated on its troubled heroine Liza Elliott ultimately
Merrily We Roll Along and the Pulitzer makes is ro end her long relationship with her
Prize-winning You Can't Take It With lover, an older man, about whom she has a
Ymc. it was then that Hart, who had been in father fixation.
psychoanalysis for four years, suggested ro The initial title for this work was I Am
Kaufman that they write a Broadway musical on Listening, a phrase with which Zilboorg began
The 1943 Playbill from ,he Broadwa)' Theatre the subject, ro star Marlene Dierrich. Although his analytic sessions. Liza Ellion is a female
where Gercnuie Lawrence opened
he srrongly disapproved of psychiauists, Hamlet - a woman who cannot make up her
in Lady in rhe Dark.
Kaufman eventually agreed, and he and Hart mind. For ten years she has been the ediror of a
went shopping for a lyricist and composer. successful fashion magazine, but, for reasons she
can't explain, experiences periods of terror and
Though I know I may be worse'n
melancholia, which prevent her making any
Any other crazy person
kind of decision, personal or professional. At
When in dreams I glide,
these times, fragments of a little song (the
I feel subconscious pride .
exquisite 'My Ship') come into her mind. Like
Some night I will wake right up by chance
'Rosebud' in Citizen Kane (also 1941), this song
And kick my old subconscious in the pants'
is the key to Liza's unhappiness, and is finally
sung in full at the climax of the play.
Part of a lyric wrinen by Lorenz Hart (to Hart envisioned the distinguished actress
Richard Rodgers' music) for Peggy-Ann (1926), Katharine Cornell as his protagonist, but as the
a successful show about the Freudian writing continued, he came to realise that the
interpretation of dreams. Like the later Lady in all-important Freudian dream sequences should
the Dark, Peggy -Ann had no overture, and, be musicalised, and that a star acrress/singer was
indeed, no songs until after a lengthy dialogue needed. About this time, Kurt Weill, ~
8 APPlAUSE MARCH 1997
a fan of American comic strips, asked Han t,) minstrel show was larer changed to a circus. film version, which starred Ginger Rogers.
r,,\\me the book of a musical called Th e (Today, after the 0 J Simpson trial, a Although a financial success, this Technicolor
FunnIes . Moss declined, but invited Weill to courtroom-cum-circus has lost much of its travesty jettisoned nearly all the
compose the music for I Am Listening. (antasy value.) This jurisprudence-anJ-sawdusr Weill/Gershwin songs, gave pride of place to a
O ne of the first actors to be cast was a sequence contained rwo of rhe best known new ballad by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van
28-year-old nightclub comedian named Danny songs in the score: Gerrie's 'The Saga of Jenny', Heusen, bowdlerized 'The Saga of Jenny', and
Kaye, for whom Hart wrote the role of the which immediately followed Danny Kaye's rendered Han's plot meaningless by never
effeminate fashion photographer, Russell tongue-twisting 'Tschaikowsky', rrobably the illiowing its leitmorif, 'My Ship' to be sung
PaxtOn. Hart found his Liza one Sunday night, most irrelevant show-stopper since Mary in full.
when he and Kaufman went to a rehearsal of a Marrin sang Cole Porter's 'My Heart Belongs Moss Hart wfOre four more plays after
British War Relief benefit, in which they were to Daddy' while doing a strip tease in the Lady in the Dark, but never another musical ­
to rerfc)rm a d"uble act. Gertrude Lawrence was snow ourside a Siberian railway starion in alrhough he direcred the original productions
alst) taking rart, and after the rehearsal, Han Leave It to Me. of My Fair Lady and Camelot. He wrote an
im'ited her "ut for a snack. 'As we drank our acclaimed autobiography, Act One, in 1960,
l'eer. I .lsked her point blank if she wanted to ady in the Dark made Broadway hisrory; and died a year later at rhe age of 57, jusr six
he,r nw new rla\,', he recalled. 'She was, as a not only did it rlay ro sold-our houses months after the dearh of his longtime partner
rna! <'r ,,( fact, searching wildly for a play for the rhroughour its two-season run, but ro a George S Kaufman.
new ,e;tS,ll1 and would give me an answer consistenrly packed standing room. In
Im me,iiarely.' his New York
That 'immediately' took four maddening Times review, Brooks
111.,nths, at the end of which Weill roo lVas in Arkinson congratulated
need of psychiatric counselling. When Gertie Han on finding one way
l clearly born ro playa character wracked by of gerring back all the
indecision) finally said yes, Hart and Weill money he'd given to
\\'ent shopping for a lyricist. Dr Zilboorg.
Despire its fine
If )'ol.<'ve any mental problem that perplexes score, Lady in the Dark is
If there's an),thing that's wrong -with your reflexes rarely revived. Although
If you're reall), nut certain as to -which yuur sex IS (ar more women today
We are positive that you had better see ed it presrigious
Dr Freud and lung and Adler, magazines, and childhood
Adler and lung and h eud - Six sex ps)'chos, we' trauma is even better
understood than in 1941,
So ran pan of a lyric written by Ira Gershwin Hart's book has
(to George Gershwin's music) for Pardon My inevitably dated; the
English (I933), a show about duo-personality media have poured out so much material about
that managed only 46 performances. Seven psychoanalysis in the past 56 years thar liza's
years later, Ira agreed to wtite the lyrics for 9-day voyage to self-discovery now seems rarher
1Am Listening, his first musical since the death simrlistic. Also, the currency value of such
of his brother. dialogue as 'I can't stand aside while you
With George, Ita had already written two proceed to destroy something very imrortanr
musicals for the formidable Gertrude Lawrence: to me' has been devalued by overuse, and
Oh, Kay' (1 926) and Treasure Girl (I928). Time many of the play's elements are anything bur
had not mellowed Gertie in the interim; the PC: irs heroine realises she needs a man who
new musical was renamed Lad), in the Darl< at will dominate her, that man is a sexist type
her insistence. (She liked playing the tide role who likes to rinch womens' bottoms, and
in a show.) O ne day at rehearsal, she srorped Russell ('Really, I could spit!') Paxton is a
singing 'My Ship' during the middle 8: 'I could stereOtypical flounCing gay. And how will
wait for years/ TiI.1 it appears/ O ne fine day one Franceska Zambello get around rhe
spring'. Acidly, she inquired of Ira, 'Why fOllr technical problems posed by the play's
years - why nor five or six?' Gershwin solved cinematic structure ?(The original
rhe rroblem by replacing the 'for' with a less rroduction employed 58 performers,
ambiguous 'the'. (BaWingly, the acting edition 51 sragehands and (our revolving stages.)
of Lad)' in the Dark, published by the Dramatists Will the National have to include a
Play Service, retains 'for years', and it will be glossary in the programme ro explain arcane
lnreresting to hear whar Maria Friedman sings.} references ro Tommy Manville, Wendell
Arart from some uncharacteristically impure Wilkie, the WPA, and this Ira Gershwin
GeHrt/de Lawrence sinRing 'The Saga of lenny'
rhymes, ('prosecution' and 'electrocution' is the couplet: ' ..... she's so glamorous / She makes all
from ,he Broadway prod'lCl.i/)n (lOp) .
mosr glaring), Gershwin's lyrics are as adroit as other women arpear Hammacher and Ginger Rodgers in ,he 1943 mou,e.
anything he wrote wirh his brother, and Weill's Schlammorous' ?
music is admirably eclecric. One of their dream Excert for a 198 1 Norringham Playhouse
fantasies at first combined a courtroom scene rroducrion \\·hich starred Celeste Holm, Lad ), in
1,
wirh a minsrrel show, but mercifully, the (he Dark ,'n,''''n in Britain only by rhe 1944
ivlARCH 1997 APPIA.U5E 9
A dedicated actress who has had no formal training, Maria Friedman talks to
David Nathan about her passion (and Passion), and about her latest role as
a woman discovering herself through pschotherapy in Lady in the Dark.
t is possible that Maria Friedman, in I am very protective about my work process
one of the dream sequences in Lady in the because, so far, it works for me. When ir srops,
Dark, opening at the Lynelton in March I'll chat ro you all day long abour it.'
for the Royal National Theatre, will The tightrope sequence, for which she was
walk a rightrope. She may even sing ar being trained by an acrobat from Circus Space,
the same time. Ir is a ready-made meraphor for may be dropped as, at an early stage in
the way her private life and her performing rehearsals, she could nor bear anyone ro watch
life are linked by the same means rhat keeps her while she was on the rope. This, she
them apart. realised, could cause a problem with an
I t is a precarious exercise, for her audience. She has rhe gift of vulnerabiliry, but
,
performance, so frank and open, depends for its hanging in mid-air with only the slenderest
power upon personal memories which are never means of suppOrt can rake ir roo far. For the
revealed. This lady always keeps parr of herself rest she is confident enough once the nightly
in rhe dark. Once, shortly before her one­ moment of fear is banished as she steps onto
woman show at the Whitehall Theatre the stage.
18 months ago, I asked her rhe commonplace She has had no formal training as an
desert island castaway quesrion of whar her actress. Her family was musical, her mother a
10
choice of music meant ro her personally. She concert pianisr, her farher, Leonard, a violinist.
would nor, could nor rell me, except ro say, So is her brother, Richard. She was born in
'songs have deep memories, but I never say why Switzerland and they moved ro Germany
I sing a particular song because rhar's privare. when her father was offered a post with the
I want people ro feel what I'm feeling, but nor Bremen Philharmonic. German - and she finds
ro know derails. They are their songs, not the facr 'bizarre' - is her firsr language. She
just mine came ro Britain when she was five years old,
This time she told the srory of a champion 31 years ago.
javelin thrower she saw being interviewed Her parents divorced amicably and in the
about his technique. 'He tried ro describe it and mid-sixties her father moved ro Scotland where
afterwards, this man who had broken records, he founded rhe Sconish Chamber Orchestra,
began to lose. What had been instinctive, Sconish Opera and rhe Scorrish Baroque
unforced and natural became self-conscious and Ensemble. He was a direcror of the
he was trying to recreate what he had said Mendelssohn on Mull Festival when he died.
rather than being in the moment.' Bur before that he was able ro bear witness ro a
In the moment! seminal moment in the family's life.
'One of the hardest things as an actor - no, Maria had starred singing with a close
one of the most glorious things as an actor - is harmony group, had spent eighteen months in a
when you are in the moment, a quiet, safe, rouring version of Oklahoma! which ended up
concentrated space. If you start ro do stuff when in the West End, had appeared in Blues in the
you are out of the moment it becomes acting. Night at the Donmar and was now cast ~
10 APPlAUSE MARCH 1997