BWW Interviews: Boyd Gaines in THE GRAND MANNER

A.R. Gurney's play THE GRAND MANNER is filled with memorable scenes. The fictional account of the playwright's youthful encounter with legendary actress Katharine Cornell brims with nostalgic references, brilliant characterizations, witty aphorisms and touchingly human scenes. However, the June 6th matinee featured an extra, unscripted, delight.

At the curtain calls, actress Kate Burton, who plays Cornell, spoke to the audience. She explained that cast member Bobby Steggert had been nominated for a Tony Award for his acclaimed performance in this season's revival of RAGTIME. As the Tony Award ceremony was to be only a few hours later, the audience cheered and as the cast exited from the thrust stage, co-star Boyd Gaines wrapped his arm around young Steggert, creating an image that words could only roughly convey.

Gaines, as most theatre-goers realize, is a four-time Tony Award winner, having received the prestigious award for his work in THE HEIDI CHRONICLES (1989), SHE LOVES ME (1994), CONTACT (2000) and the 2008 revival of GYPSY. He was also nominated as "Best Actor in a Play" for his work in the 2007 production of JOURNEY'S END; making him one of two actors who have been nominated in all four eligible categories. Gaines' embrace of Steggert seemed to indicate a seasoned performer was giving his benediction to one of today's most promising talents. It was extremely touching. "He's a lovely, fantastic actor," Gaines commented about Steggert. "Bobby's got his head on his shoulders and his talent speaks loudest. He loves the work for all the right reasons. I'm very, very impressed with him."

Chatting in the relaxed atmosphere of his dressing room deep in the bowels of Lincoln Center, where cast members of SOUTH PACIFIC wander about between cues for their show, the Georgia native happily conversed about his current project as well as some in his most recent past. Of course, the most obvious one was his brilliant performance as ‘Herbie' opposite Patti LuPone's widely acclaimed portrayal of ‘Madame Rose' in GYPSY. It was the performance that won Gaines Tony Award Number Four.

"It was one of the greatest experiences of my career," Gaines states between bites of a turkey sandwich. "I got to work with incredible people in what many consider one of the best, if not the best musical ever written. Two of the authors are still alive. Arthur directed and was lovely to me-and helpful. Yes, he was a bit intimidating," Gaines recalls. "Patti and Laura were revelations. Not only in what they brought to the table but just the way they worked. You learn a lot of things doing a play or musical many times. You learn things you don't learn doing plays with shorter runs. There was time for more experimentation and more ‘happy accidents' happen. Patti and Laura have such improvisational spirits about them and Arthur encouraged that. He gave us freedom to play scenes differently; not that the audiences would be aware of them but we certainly were."

Gaines extrapolated a bit more on the topic: "Most of that emanated from Patti and her character was the motor of the piece. Certainly my character, Herbie stood on the periphery and in the prop-wash of that motor. It certainly kept us on our toes and all-in-all, it was a great experience. The only sad note is that it closed a little earlier it might have done. It was just that the economy tanked and a few weeks before they were talking about extending the run and for Patti to go off and do her concert tour and re-opening the show when she came back. There was also talk about going to London." Is there still any possibility that this production of GYPSY will head to London? "It's always a possibility," the actor says with a shrug. "Believe it when it happens."

During the run of what became known as Patti LuPone GYPSY (because the word "in" never appeared in print ads), Ms. LuPone received considerable media notice for breaking character and chastising audience members who were text messaging, taking photographs or videotaping what she was doing on stage. How does her co-star feel about that? "They deserved it," he responds with a laugh. "Patti has an enormous amount of temperament. That may sound like a euphemism but it's part and parcel of her talent. I think what people don't realize is the amount of effort, dedication and discipline it takes to get out there and play Madame Rose eight times a week for a year. She missed three shows--and one of those was two-show day-out of three hundred something performances. That's extraordinary. Patti expects the rest of the company and the audience to be respectful of the work at hand. In the midst of giving every ounce-she leaves nothing in the dressing room-of singing and ripping her guts out, for someone to intentionally interrupt the evening, not only for her but for the rest of the audience, makes her crazy."
The actor continues by saying, "I don't think it's unwarranted. You can
certainly say that's extreme, but it's not unjustified. This has become legendary because Patti's so passionate but, you know, that's the reason why people pay to see her! The only thing you worry about is that people will do it intentionally to see if they can set her off."

Much of this audience rudeness can be traced to the casualness of today's theatre. It's not uncommon for theatergoers to find the person sitting next to them chatting on the phone or text messaging during a performance. "Oh, we see those blue lights for the stage," Gaines comments. "You know, this is a tiny theatre and we hear the ringtones. It's due to a number of things. Our culture has gotten away from courtesy but in live theatre we find that people have gotten used to watching television where they can get up and go to the bathroom, talk, respond, take phone calls; they are used to getting up for a beer and asking ‘What did I miss? What happened?' when they come back. If you go to rock concerts, it's so loud that no one thinks anything of moving around, but theatre is a different piece. The audiences aren't as schooled as they used to be. People used to dress up to go to the theatre. Heck, they used to dress up to go to a baseball game! That part of it is gone. Some of that is necessary and good, but I bemoan its loss. The biggest loss, though, is courtesy. Older audiences--like the audience for serious plays-are aging. That's been happening for some time. The older audiences can't hear as well and can't see as well. They speak out because they don't realize that they can be heard. Their hearing aids squeal; there's that. However, I find that more forgivable than the rudeness of taking a phone call or taking flash pictures."

Gaines continues on this topic by saying, "We operate under a mutual consent: that they actors are going to try to get the audience to suspend their disbelief and the audience is going to try to suspend that disbelieve; we're gonna all be in this together. It's a communal event and it's magical because of that. However, it takes concentration. I came to New York in '75 and I only heard one musical that was unamplified. It was magical to me. It was THE MOST HAPPY FELLA from the Houston Grand Opera, not the two-piano one, and someone like Giorgio Tozzi was playing Tony. It was magical to me, but I had to lean forward to listen. It wasn't loud but it demanded my concentration. That's the sad thing about amplification. We're inundated with television, advertising, film; it all requires no effort on our part. All of this is asking less of our concentration skills."

The amount of amplification also boggles Gaines' mind. "That's what's so mystifying. Everything is being amplified but you still can't understand what they're saying. I played rock music as a kid and I swore I'd never become an old fogey who said, ‘I can't understand what they're saying!' Now I really can't understand what they're saying and I have to get my 12 year old daughter to translate. Interestingly enough, she'll often explain, ‘I think they're saying...'" he adds with a hearty laugh.

His current vehicle, THE GRAND MANNER, isn't amplified at all and throughout the performance, you can hear the proverbial pin drop because of the audience's rapt attention. True, it was an older crowd in attendance and many of the infrared hearing devices were in use, but the crowd was completely involved in Gurney's play. In the actor's words, "The quality of listening was high." This play is certainly a piece that involves the audience from the get-go.

At the time of this conversation, THE GRAND MANNER was still in previews. When it officially opened on June 27th, Ben Brantley in The New York Times would praise it as "A homey needlepoint embroidery." In the play, Gaines marvelously portrays Cornell's husband and director, Gunthrie McClintic and makes his flamboyant entrance kicking open a door and shouting an expletive at the top of his lungs. It's been a rather calm preview period, though. "No massive re-writes but a lot of trimming. You know, a few things moved around slightly. It's close to what we started with," he explains.

What drew Gaines to this play? "First of all, I think it's a Valentine to the theatre and I was really attracted to this character when they sent it to me. Shortly thereafter they told me that Kate Burton was going to play Kit and I love Kate. I've known her for years. She's spectacularly good and is wonderful casting for the part. She and I are old friends and I knew we'd have an instant rapport. Certainly that was a draw. Brenda Wiehle, an old friend,soon came onboard and we'd done PYGMALION together at The Roundabout a few years ago. I didn't know Bobby but a lot of friends had worked with him and told me, ‘this kid's an ace!' and he is. I also consider Lincoln Center ‘old home' and I love working here because they treat us very, very well. I've also known Pete (Gurney) a long time. My wife (actress Kathleen McNenny) has done several of his plays. She and I just did SYLVIA at George Street.

Very few actors get the chance to play characters based on true historic figures. Did this prompt Gaines to do any research as he prepared his characterization? "Oh yeah. Sure!" he quickly responds. "We have the great folks here at the Library of the Performing Arts here and one of their most important collections is the Katharine Cornell/Guthrie Mcclintic Collection. There's so much there that there was no possible way to go through the whole thing. There are rooms of stuff. The staff culled boxes and boxes of letters, photographs and business correspondence for us. There were lots of artifacts and Guthrie's script of ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA featuring the cuts that are such a pivitol part of our play. They also found a radio interview with him and Constance Collier done during the war so I got to hear him. He sounds like a Seattle boy who then went to drama school and had a slightly affected speech.

It was somewhat in line with what I was doing, so I felt good about that. The most illuminating thing, though, was how warm and loving the correspondence was between Kit and Guthrie. I think they adored each other. We read all the books Tad Mosel's book, Guthrie's book, Katharine Cornell's book-which was a little less informative-and a friend of mine sent me a memoir by Jess Gregg about Guthrie. We had Christopher Plummer's "In Spite of Myself" which is wonderful and chock full of stuff about them. We had massive amounts of printed stuff for us to peruse."

Gaines continues by stating, "I'd heard of Katharine Cornell all my theatrical career, not that I suffered under so many misconceptions of her. I knew she toured a lot and that she did Juliet when she was older was supposed to be fantastic. That was always used as a lesson about how the stage is different from film and that willing suspension of disbelief I was talking about earlier." The play is so effective that it makes many people in the audience wish they had seen this acting legend and race home to find view the sole clip of her that's available on YouTube.

Something that seems to bother the actor lately is specifically the current trend of "celebrity" and how it filters into the theatre. "Andy Warhol's prediction about fifteen minutes of fame is coming true," he states. "All that is fine and good; the only thing that bothers me is that it takes precedent over accomplishment in our society. It's been that way for a long time. What's the most important job in our society? Probably teaching. Really, who are your biggest influences? It's sad if you think that Paris Hilton is the biggest influence in your life. Does Lady Gaga mean more to you than Barak Obama? If so, then something's amiss. Everything is so star-driven today. Yet, the so-called celebrities are finding their names above the titles of one Broadway show after another. In order to produce plays they've got to find actors who will put butts in the seats-even if that person has achieved stardom only through a reality program on television. Doing TWELVE ANGRY MEN was such a rarity. Mark Blum was here last night and Peter Friedman a few days ago. That was a production of all journeymen actors. Maybe you could call Phil Bosco a star but he's really one of us and has just risen through the ranks." Despite the fact that there were no "celebrities" in the cast, TWELVE ANGRY MEN was not only well-received by the critics, but was enormously popular with audiences as well. There's something to be said for that, as well as for THE GRAND MANNER, whose cast of four are all Broadway regulars and none of them have been evaluated by Simon Cowell on television.

When Gaines was questioned about what it's like to win so many Tony Awards, he paused and thought about it. "It's different each time. There's no doubt about that," he finally remarks. "Each one means different things. Most of it has to do with the project." Interestingly enough, Gaines doesn't keep his awards.

"My mother has them," he adds with a laugh. "I give them to my manager, Elin Flack. She gets them for a year. Then they when they go to my mother it's their final resting place. We call them ‘Time-Share Tony's'!"

In a world and a profession that is filled with irony, it is conceivable that at some point in the future, some creative playwright may be tempted to write a play about a multiple-award winning actor who is dealing with the changes in his profession and is constantly coming up a winner. It would be even more ironic if Bobby Steggert were cast in that role. Stranger things have happened and probably will.

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For more information about THE GRAND MANNER or to order tickets for the play, go to www.lct.org.

Photo Credit: (From top) Boyd Gaines by Peter James Zielinski; Boyd Gaines, Kate Burton and Bobby Steggert by Joan Marcus; Boyd Gaines and Bobby Steggert by Joan Marcus.