Understudy

I like underdogs.

I like antiheroes.

I like the singing of songs unsung.

I like it when people who may not always receive the prime opportunity get their chance to shine.

I like understudies.

I have a friend who is making a go of it at professional theatre in New York City, and, for a long time, he was inviting me to see shows for which he was understudying. Mrs. Apron and I went to New York to see a show for which he was understudying both male roles. And, the day before, he went on. The performance we saw, he didn't. I was hoping he would, because I love my friend and it's exhilerating to see him perform in a professional venue, and I admit there's a modicum of professional jealousy there for me, because I know it is something I will most likely never do myself-- but I do get a charge out of seeing him do it.

Always have.

(Bloody voyeur.)

Understudying is a funny business. I can't imagine that the people who do it actually want to be doing it, but it's a way of paying your dues, and getting paid, of prepping and working with excellent directors and performers, of staying fresh in your craft, of staying busy, of staying involved. But it's got to be hard-- much harder than being the principal performer, I think, because you must hold yourself in abeyance in the event that your services are required. And, really, aside from your friends, nobody really wants to see you. Nobody wants to pay $150 a ticket to see that little paper insert in the program saying that you are taking over for Kelsey Grammer or Catherine Zeta Jones.

When Mrs. Apron and I went to New York to see the revival of one of my favorite musicals, "A Little Night Music", we were greeted by one of those little slips of paper indicating that the role of Desiree would, this evening, not in fact be played by Catherine Zeta Jones, but by her understudy, Jayne Paterson. We didn't give a shit, because we were there to see a show-- not an actor.

And Paterson was excellent. Because she's a professional, Broadway perfomer-- she just isn't married to Michael Douglas and isn't hot as bubbling ballsweat.

When we saw "Wicked", it wasn't Idina Menzel defying gravity, nor was it even the chick who was doing the Broadway tour-- it was Coleen Sexton, who blew the shit out of the Academy of Music with her powerful voice, astonishing looks (yes, we had good enough seats to tell) and sensitive portrayal.

Last night, we found ourselves at the Academy again, having procured rush tickets to see "Next to Normal". Again, the slip of paper told us that Diana Goodman would not be played by the supersonically famouse Alice Ripley, but by Pearl Sun. She was fantastic, in a performance that had me craning forward (and not just because they were 2nd Balcony seats) riveted and moved.

In an age where people are flocking to Broadway in droves to see big names-- and big film names, no less-- and not works created by accomplished playwrights and festooned by visionary directors and designers, we have our understudies to thank for opening our eyes to the fact that professionalism and talent do not necessarily have to come prepackaged, that theatre can stand on its own merits, and that there is more to top billing than a name encased within a star on Hollywood Boulevard.

The next time you go see a Broadway or Broadway touring show, and you see that little slip of paper in your program-- try smiling instead of complaining, because chances are you're about to see something, and someone, very unexpected, and very special.

To See the Stars

When I got the email, I admit that I got a little tingly in the trousers. And, no, it wasn't an email offering a way to get a "BIGGER PEN!S"

The e-mail touted half-price tickets to the Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music.” It’s easily one of my favorite musicals, wedged somewhere in between “Into the Woods” and “Assassins,” also by Sondheim (no, I’m not gay) and Jason Robert Brown’s “Songs for a New World.” Now, if you’re saying to yourself, “Wait—- what about all that G&S shit,” honey—those are operettas, not musicals. Jesus Beezus, have I taught you nothing?

Anyway, the reason folks were being offered half-price tickets is because Catherine Zeta Jones, who was appearing in the run as Desiree Armfeldt, was unable to perform on said weekend, and so the theatre management resorted to slashing box office prices to fill the house in her absence.

And I thought to myself, “Well, she’s hot and everything—but I just want to see the show. I can ogle moving and/or still images of Catherine Zeta Jones online at any time and besides, at the Walter Kerr Theatre, I would have to keep my trousers on.

Now, I know I think too much about things that probably shouldn’t require such exertion of my admittedly limited brain power, but the notion of selling half-price tickets to a Broadway show just because the big, hot-shit actress is in Maui getting her nipples repinkified kind of rubbed me the wrong way—even though my wife and I were the beneficiaries of a wonderful show. Doesn’t it devalue the importance and significance of the rest of the cast by saying, “Well, you’re all not good enough to justify people shelling out the full coinage to see your sorry asses unless Catherine Zeta-Jones is present in all of her Welsh yet ambiguously Asian glory to behold”?

I mean, if I were the twitchy d-bag playing Henrik, I’d be kind of pissed. N’yah mean?

It speaks, I think, to one of the problems that I see with live theatre, at least in America. It has gotten to the point where producers and other affiliated shittynecks are saying to themselves, “Well, the only way we can get these stupid motherfucker Americans into a theatre to see a play is to cram as many A-list celebrities onto the stage as humanly possible because, if we don’t, why the hell would people come see a play?”

I mean, why not just stay at home and Netflix Catherine Zeta-Jones? Much cheaper than seeing a Broadway play, yes?

I don’t know what happened to seeing a play for the sake of the play—its story, its plot construction, the complexity of its characters, the wit and wisdom of the writing, the subtle nuances that you just don’t get in a film or a TV show. I don’t know why we have to get our tussies tickled by the notion that Jeff Goldblum and Mercedes Ruehl are in “Prisoner of Second Avenue.” Why can’t we just see it because it’s a Neil Simon play and because we’ll laugh our balls off (if we’re Jewish).

What’s funny is that there’s a totload of super talented performers out there who are professionally trained stage actors—that is what they do and that is all they do—and they are consistently beaten out for sexcellent roles by Hollywood fartstarts because they have big names (and pricetags) and the classically-trained stage actors are waiting tables, living in cardboard boxes, or sitting in waiting rooms reading “Good Housekeeping” in the background of Celebrex commercials.

Why can’t TV actors do fucking TV, film actors do fucking films, and stage actors do fucking plays? Believe me, I know that live theatre needs to be saved, but putting Helen Hunt in as the Stage Manager in “Our Town” isn’t going to get Broadway off its ventilator and breathing on its own.