|
 |
PLAYBILL ON OPENING NIGHT: Waiting for . . . 9 to 5 — Sam & Dolly, Together Again
By Harry Haun
01 May 2009
|  | |
9 to 5 stars Stephanie J. Block, Allison Janney and Megan Hilty bow; guests/original film stars Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and composer Dolly Parton
|
| photo by Aubrey Reuben |
In marked contrast to the calm, considered tete-a-tetes that transpired at the creepily deserted, tomb-like, pre-show Studio 54, the commotion outside the second-floor entrance of the Marriott Marquis was concentrated chaos — a virtually uncoverable circus unless you wielded a TV camera. Cindy Adams, flying the black-and-blue colors of ink-stained wretches everywhere, was the only print person to steamroll her way to a place remotely near the eye of all this promotional commotion.
And what, you must be wondering, was at the epicenter of this turbulence — the cause of all the pushing and shoving and jostling and snapshot-popping?
Why, the original and quite triumphant triumvirate of "Nine to Five" (The Movie) — Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and La Parton — all looking spectacular, like the last three decades hadn't happened. From where I was squashed, it looked like hard work if you could get it, but they were all smiles and animation. At one point, they broke into a spirited rendition of the title tune — "still a movement anthem," in Fonda's opinion. "I saw the show in L.A. just a few months ago, and it had just as powerful or even more powerful reaction, among men as well as women. Men and women workers won't be facing the same discrimination, but it's still very relevant."
Also showing up from the movie cast were Peggy Pope, the original "Atta Girl" office lush, and that wonderfully seasoned scene-stealer, Elizabeth Wilson, who played the office snitch who was smitten with her sexist boss (Dabney Coleman).
Fonda had a show to give four blocks away (33 Variations at the Eugene O'Neill) so she cut out early after the red-carpet action, but Tomlin stayed for the performance and was whisked inside the theatre by Security. Parton, having quite a body to guard, disappeared into a phalanx of bruiser bodyguards who dwarfed her, eventually surfacing backstage to watch the show from that vantage point.
After the final curtain, Parton took the stage with the confident stride of a new conqueror in town rather than a Broadway yearling, all spangles and cleavage. In contrast, Patricia Resnick, who wrote the musical book and the movie, came on with her in a strangely lumpy black frock she could have pilfered from Wicked.
Resnick shared with the audience an out-of-body experience she seemed to be having: "This seems like this really weird thing you tell your therapist. 'I had this dream I wrote a Broadway show, and I'm standing on stage with Dolly Parton.'"
She also did a deep bow to the cast on stage. "I have to say these people up here — and, actually, everybody — worked so hard. Forget nine-to-five, the guys worked six days a week, 12 hours a day. Until you do one of these things, you cannot imagine the amount of work. We've got the hardest working ensemble on Broadway."
Parton told a new, minutes-old story on Joe Mantello, the show's director. They were watching the show on backstage monitors when there was a technical glitch during a song, "and Joe was just going to pieces, and I just said, 'Joe. Maaaain-taaain.'"
The opening-night party wasn't a tough commute: three flights up by escalator at the Marriott. Mantello, bobbing from table to table and conversation to conversation, looked very much like a man who had just delivered another major musical to Broadway. (Wicked is his.) But he put a nice face on the work he had put in on this project: "Dolly makes everything joyous. She's the most authentic person I've ever met."
Tomlin was sitting at one of the tables just inside the ballroom entranceway, basking in reflected glory. "The three of us saw it in L.A. with Dabney Coleman — we sat together — and it was so surreal to see, so I was little bit prepared this time, although Dolly wrote some new songs. Everything was so iconic, so familiar."
And what about that wild reception that greeted the trio outside the theatre? "Oh, it was fun — great fun," Tomlin said. "We've been friends ever since the movie, you know. We've done events together and benefits and stuff like that. The most recent thing that we did that was big — we did the 25th anniversary of the movie, the release of the DVD — and tonight is 29 years. I can't believe that. I'm just dumbfounded."
This season's Fonda, Tomlin and Parton — namely: Stephanie J. Block, Allison Janney and Megan Hilty — take their curtain call collectively, hands clasped in symbolic sisterhood, and it brings the house down. Similarly they arrived at the party as a unit and smoothly leap-frogged over each other doing interviews.
"It has been an amazing journey from start to finish," admitted Janney, who was slightly stunned to be making her musical bow in this show. "I thank Joe Mantello for giving me the opportunity to do this." Singing was a new frontier for her, but "I used to be a dancer — and a figure skater, too — so I didn't come unrehearsed to this."
Her flair for physicality has carried her far in life. A funny fall down some stairs while she was flirting with President John Travolta in "Primary Colors" was "what got me 'The West Wing,'" and that in turn got her four Emmys and four SAG Awards.
Hilty, who plays what looks like the office bimbo, does a dead-on Dolly Parton imitation — much to the delight of the audience and Parton herself. "Oh, she loves it," the actress said. "If I ask her for any advice, she's, like, 'Oh, honey, you're fiiiine. You don't need me. You're fine.' But just having her around influences a lot of what I do.
"My goal is to pay homage to what she did to make that role so iconic but then kinda to bring my own flavor to it too so it doesn't just seem like I'm copying what she's doing. I love playing a woman who celebrates being a woman and doesn't make any apologies for it. I love that. That's Dolly."
Block arrived, still coming down for the high of an enthusiastically received first night. "I think opening nights are always this kinda mixed feeling where you're joyful because you think, 'Ah, the show's all ours. We get to own it and just play it.' But then there is always the expectation of 'Oh, what are people expecting?' And we just hope we delivered. And tonight it was joyous. The audience was there with us, and I think they left happier than when they came in. That was our goal."
Playing the most vulnerable of the three leads — a freshly dumped housewife new to the corporate world — Block embraced the role as a welcome change of pace from the strong passionate women she usually knocks out of the park (Liza Minnelli, Elphaba, The Pirate Queen). "Oh, I loooooove this character of Judy," she cooed contentedly.
"One thing as an actor that I like is that she's brand spankin' new. I've been in New York now for six years, and I keep playing all these women with courage, strength and purpose. Judy is this fragile and tender thing. As an actor, I had to break that trend. I thank Joe Mantello for giving me the opportunity and saying, 'There's more to you than that. Let's show a different color to you, which is this vulnerability and uncertainty.'"
When her ex-husband's affair doesn't work out, he comes back, scratching at her door, and she gives him the gate in a big 11-o'clock sonic blast called "Get Out and Stay Out" (no hidden meaning there). "Judy finds her voice through the course of the play, and I get a fantastic number at the end where she certainly finds her purpose and gets to kick her man out of the house. I love that! By the time I sing that, the audience is cheering me on and hoping for the best for Judy."
Marc Kudisch is the show's whipping boy — the snarky, sexist boss who belittles his "girls" when not making passes at them — and the actor attractively dispatched loathsomeness. "The truth is Dabney Coleman looks a little bit like Burt Reynolds," Kudisch advanced. "Every guy wanted to be Burt Reynolds in 1979. That's what I was shooting for. Dabney was brilliant in that role, and we wouldn't have had that character without him, so I just tried to take what he gave us and elaborate."
He spends most of the second act kidnapped and strapped to a flying harness by the three white-collar musketeers, and he insisted it's not a painful place to be. In fact, "It's surprisingly liberating because, given that I'm truly strapped in and that I truly cannot get out — it gives me the freedom to just go, because I really am caught. I can express myself however I want. The physicality of it, the dancing — it really goes great with the character. It's been a lot of fun. And it's the best weight-loss program ever devised. Dude! I'm losing poundage day by day! Seriously."
 |
|
The cast of 9 to 5 takes its opening night bow.
|
| photo by Aubrey Reuben |
Contact Us | Advertise | Privacy Policy
Send questions and comments to the Webmaster
Copyright © 2009 Playbill, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
|
|
|
|
|