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PLAYBILL ON OPENING NIGHT: A Touch of the Poet
By Harry Haun
09 Dec 2005
Harnick was one of three Pulitzer Prize winners attending this drama by the all-time Pulitzer king—O'Neill won three during his lifetime (Beyond the Horizon, Anna Christie and Strange Interlude) and a fourth four years after his death (Long Day's Journey Into Night). The other two present were the most recent: I Am My Own Wife's Doug Wright and Doubt's John Patrick Shanley.
The latter, still reeling from the play at the party, didn't mince words about his appreciation of the piece. "This is the best production of an O'Neill play that I've seen in my life," he declared happily. "I more than loved it. It's one of my two favorite productions of anything I have ever seen in my life." [I had to ask. The other is Harold Pinter's No Man's Land with Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud.] "This blew me away on every level. The play is a revelation. It is, maybe, one of O'Neill's greatest plays. I don't think anybody knew that."
Shanley is girding up to go among them again, following Doubt with Defiance, a Marine boot-camp drama which director Hughes will premiere Feb. 28 at Manhattan Theatre Club's Stage I space at City Center (from whence—knock knock—cometh Doubt). Defiance tried out in July at the Powerhouse Theatre on the grounds of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, with top-lining Oscar winner Chris Cooper, Tony winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson and Dana Delany. None is available for the New York run, but Jeremy Strong and Trevor Long will reprise the roles they originated. Chris Chalk has taken over the Santiago-Hudson role, and the lead will now be played by Stephen Lang, who, you may recall, displayed a formidable, hard-nosed, Tony-nominated military persona in A Few Good Men. The role of his wife has yet to be cast.
The timing of the play's arrival could signal a second consecutive award-fight with The Pillowman's Martin McDonagh, whose new play, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, arrives only the day before at The Atlantic Theater, also stacked with a full compliment of good actors; characteristic of McDonagh's
skewed view of things, it's about a terrorist grieving over the assassination of his cat.
There was a discernible sense of serenity about Jill Clayburgh in the audience and at the
party. "I'm done!" she exclaimed by way of an explanation. Translation: her Roundabout
play, Richard Greenberg's A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, wrapped it up on Sunday,
and she's free again—if not for very long: she starts rehearsing Neil Simon's 1963
Barefoot in the Park with Amanda Peet, Patrick Wilson, Tony Roberts and director
Scott Elliott "the day after the day after Christmas" for an opening at the Cort on Feb. 16.
Her darlin' daughter, Lily Rabe of the last Steel Magnolias, and Sarah Paulson of the
last Glass Menagerie, accompanied Clayburgh. The girls recently played sisters in Colder
Than Here and were planning on Sunday to visit their mother in that play, Judith Light,
who's filming "a divorce comedy" in the city right now with Robert Klein called Ira and
Abby. (They play Jewish analysts on the Upper West Side in this script by Kissing Jessica
Stein's Jennifer Westfeldt.)
Rabe is also drawing a little film work—currently Aftermath
and, come February, Mostly Martha—while, she insisted, she's shopping around for
another play. Paulson has already found her play, but she has to go to Los Angeles to do it
on Dec. 27—a little number by Anton Chekhov called The Cherry Orchard, which she will
do at the Ahmanson, starting on Valentine's Day, with Annette Bening, Alfred
Molina, Jason Butler Harner and Roy Dotrice ("I think that'll cut mustard, don't you?").
Katie Finneran, the myopic, Tony-winning, ding-a-ling in the last Noises Off, was having
to introduce herself all over again, having lost her white-corn blondeness to auburn red
(the residue of Broken Bridges, a film she just finished in Atlanta with country-music
singer Toby Keith). Theatre-wise, she knows what's coming next. "We can't say, but
we're really happy to be here," chirped in her agent from the sidelines. (From Katie on
the Q.T.: It's "a great, great, great play"—and one which she'll do here this summer,
either Broadway or Off-Broadway. The venue has yet to be determined.
Fresh from Poland (if that's possible) was Laine Robertson, the bio based playwright
(Lady Day at Emerson's Bar, Nasty Little Secrets and the recent Woman Before a Glass)
who just had a play done there. He laughed when asked "How does it play in Polish?," but
they seemed to have loved him in Warsaw. Right now he's working on the book for an
original musical by the Smokey Joe's Cafe duo, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
F. Murray Abraham was loitering about, waiting in line—a long and congested line—to
congratulate Byrne. "Gabe and I did a picture in Spain a couple of years ago called The
Bridge of San Luis Rey—it was a big picture with Robert DeNiro and Kathy Bates, but it didn't
seem to go anywhere—so I wanted to say hello. He's a wonderful actor—a really good,
essential O'Neill actor, isn't he?—really black Irish." An Academy Award winning Salieri in Amadeus, Abraham has just authored a book for
Faber and Faber's Actors on Shakespeare series on how to play his favorite role—believe
it or not, Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream. "I read something from it at the 72nd
Street Y, and they seemed to like it, but I'd rather do the acting." To that end: "I
just finished a picture in Tunisia, and now I'm going to be doing The Merchant of Venice
and The Jew of Malta at the same time for the Theatre for a New Audience. That will be
later on this year, and we will do it in London as well. This has never been done before."
Late-arriving from her own Tony-winning workout in Doubt, Cherry Jones cheerfully
joined the Byrne receiving line. (Both were Tony-nominated for their own memorable
O'Neill outing, A Moon for the Misbegotten, five years ago.) "I bet he does every O'Neill
he can—he should," she said. "I just spoke to Arthur Gelb, who was just raving and
raving and raving. He and his wife, Barbara, have produced with Ric Burns and
written a major documentary on Eugene O'Neill for the "American Experience" series." The Gelbs, who wrote a defining 758-page biography of the playwright (O'Neill: Life
With Monte Cristo), were plainly proud of their adventure in the new medium, and
the passion showed. At the slightest provocation, he broke into a hard-sell soft-shoe: "It's a
documentary for PBS, which will be shown on March 27 with an all-star cast. We have
everyone from"—and the list of celebrated talking-heads commenced with Christopher
Plummer, Zoe Caldwell, Liam Neeson, Tony Kushner and so forth.
Another, more-newly-turned author is agent Margaret Emory, who's written for Watson-Guptill Publications, Ask an Agent: Everything
Actors Need to Know about Agents. (Well, hopefully, not everything.) She was in
attendance, sidekicking for Dulcina Eisen, who came up with Byrne's understudy (Colin
Lane) and talked Ciaran O'Reilly into stopping running Off Broadway's Irish Repertory Theatre
long enough to come uptown and do a brief, but believable (!), Irish gig on Broadway.
Other first-nighters included Steven Pasquale and Laura Benanti (both of whom
triumphed in a benefit concert revival of The Secret Garden Dec. 4, columnist Maureen Doud,
Matthew Morrison, conductor Paul Gemignani, Amy Irving with son Gabriel, Warren Leight, composer Stephen Flaherty,
set designers Tony Walton and John Lee Beatty.
There's something about A Touch of the Poet that brings out the niceness in exes.
Gabriel's ex, Ellen Barkin, was in attendance with their 16-year-old daughter Romey, and her husband,
Ron Perelman, wrapped in a rope of pearls for easy identification. "Gabriel is a great
stage actor," she said. One couldn't help but remember back to the 1978 opening night
when the ex-Mrs. Robards, Lauren Bacall, lead the standing ovation for another great stage actor. A nice memory.
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The cast gives their opening night curtain call.
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| photo by Aubrey Reuben |
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