Toni Collette & Mandy Patinkin.

Posted: 9/8/05 at 5:41pm

Can anyone help me here? I keep hearing rumours about what went on between these two in "Wild Party" backstage but I can't get anything solid. any clues?

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 6:16pm

Toni broke Mandy's "very favorite" red crayon.
Mandy snitched Toni's Oreos during "Milk and Cookies" time.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 6:21pm

Toni was the first performer in history who wouldn't kiss Mandy's ass, and he didn't like it.

Posted: 9/8/05 at 6:21pm

He would adlib and make up stage directions and actions - this started happening when he knew the show was not gonna work - it was like he didn't care anymore - as I have said, I loved that show and thought it was stupendous!!

[otis33]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 6:23pm

SHE was amazing...he was annoying and one of the downfalls of the show in my opinion. But it remains one of the best things I've seen on Broadway.

Posted: 9/8/05 at 6:29pm

Otis - Bravo! To this day - I can see the staging and certain moments! I loved it!

[WonderBoy]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 6:52pm

I agree! This show was more than brilliant and Toni should have won the Tony that year!

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 7:02pm

I still get funny looks when I say that I prefer the Broadway version to the off-Broadway version, but it's true. the score is one of my favorites. and the way everything meshed on-stage was just brilliant. 2000 will always be the first year in history that a play won best musical... and over the wild party too... for shame.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 7:07pm

The story behind the Patinkin-Collette rift (from Riedel's column at the time -- for those of you who hate Riedel, feel free to ignore this):

"IN the new musical "The Wild Party," Mandy Patinkin gives an intense and frightening performance as Burrs, a gin-swilling, psychotic vaudeville clown who beats his girlfriend.

But for many of his fellow cast members, Patinkin's performance has at times been a little too intense, a little too frightening and a little too real.

Cast members say that during previews, the actor has ad-libbed bits of physical and verbal abuse, including smacking people in the head, shoving them, spitting water in their faces and making offensive remarks to them under his breath.

He has also been prone to strange emotional outbursts - at one point holing up in his dressing room and sobbing uncontrollably for four hours because he was unhappy with the show's lighting.

The actors say they were never sure what Patinkin was going to do to them on stage. One said they "walked around like we were wearing lead underwear for protection."

Patinkin's co-star Toni Collette got so fed up with his antics that she decided to get even. During the performance last Friday night, she crept up on him from behind and gave him a "retaliatory shove," according to a cast member.

After the performance, a furious Patinkin said he was quitting "The Wild Party." He did not show up for the Saturday matinee, prompting the producers to threaten him with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, production sources said.

The threat worked: Fifteen minutes before the Saturday night performance, just as his understudy was preparing to go on stage, Patinkin walked through the stage door and did the show.

One of Broadway's biggest stars, Patinkin has long had a reputation for being difficult.

Even he concedes he can be flaky. At the start of rehearsals for "The Wild Party," he told cast members that "Mandy" is short for Mandel, which in Yiddish means "nut."

"And that's what I am, a nut," one performer quoted him as saying.

How nutty soon became abundantly clear, according to cast members.

During one preview, Patinkin smacked two male actors in the head and then kissed them violently on the mouth - two actions that were not part of director George C. Wolfe's staging.

Another time, while sitting at the bar on stage, he took a swig of water and then spit it out in an actress' face. The spitting had never been rehearsed or discussed, so the actress was caught off guard.

Patinkin clashed with Collette early on in rehearsals.

While working on an intense scene in which she holds a knife to his heart and threatens to kill him, he decided that instead of singing a tender song to her, he would turn to the audience and sing it to them.

A frustrated Collette finally yelled: "I'm holding a knife to your heart and I am going to kill you! Why are you singing to the audience?"

When Patinkin refused to look at her, she threw down the knife and walked out of the rehearsal room.

"You never know what he is going to do," said a cast member. "Sometimes he's nice and contrite about something he did the night before. Other times he's seething, and you have to watch out."

Patinkin's defenders say his outbursts and ad libs are part of his creative process, and that each time he has gone too far with another performer, Wolfe has spoken to him and the incident has not been repeated.

They also say that, because of its subject matter, "The Wild Party" itself has stirred up weird behavior not just in Patinkin but in other cast members as well.

"This is a violent show," said one source. "There's simulated sex, drug use, fighting and drinking. It brings out the dark side of everyone."

Wolfe told The Post: "The parameters of this material are so volatile, it has taken everybody - and I mean everybody - some time to learn what they are."

He added: "The rehearsal and preview process ... has been demanding, exhilarating and exhausting. The material requires that actors go to very complicated emotional places inside of themselves. All of the actors have gone on that journey passionately, intensely and fearlessly."

Wolfe called Patinkin "an amazing artist who has transformed the role of Burrs in ways I never imagined. He is a one-of-a-kind creative force ... I would relish the opportunity to work with him again."

Calls to Patinkin's lawyer, Victoria Traube, were referred to the show's press agent, who said the actor was "unavailable for comment."


http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/6025/mpart.html

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 7:07pm

Funny, I thought it was one of Mandy P's best performances.

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?boardname=bway&thread=844422#948791

[otis33]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 7:12pm

Wow! Brilliant article Margo. Thanks for that!

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 7:18pm

"so the actress was caught off guard."

That's what live theatre's ALL about!

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 7:19pm

Come back to Broadway, Toni Collette, Toni Collette....

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 7:23pm

She has a new movie out/coming out.

Posted: 9/8/05 at 7:27pm

How she never got in to CABARET is beyond me - talk about perfect fit!

[ljay889]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 7:40pm

Someone send Mandy to a mental hospital, he needs help.

[Broadwayboobs]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 8:05pm

OMG Otis...I felt the same exact way....LOVED Toni, but Mandy was an annoyance..he ruined that show for me !!!! He also ruined "Urinetown" for me..but that's another story.

[otis33]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 8:10pm

Boobs - you realize you're now going to have to elaborate on the Mandy/Urinetown story.

"so the actress was caught off guard" - "That's what live theatre's ALL about."

Not necessarily...not if it's unrehearsed, out of line, or unsafe. Which it sounds like some of his outbursts, I mean adlibs, were.

[BroadwayBettini2]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 8:16pm

One of my friends is related to hom through marrige. He says he's just like that in person, or when he's about to go to work he's a little, well not a little off the wall.

And I could see how a show like that can push you off the edge. But when in rehursal it's best to take chances then, then to do it opening night and completly throw off the vibe the cast has been trying to create throught the rehursal process.

[Broadwayboobs]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 8:25pm

Okay Otis...here's the Urinetown story. I went to see Urinetown when it was still Off-Broadway. When I sit down in a theater I don't notice who's around me..I either read the Playbill or chat with who I'm with. I was lucky to have an aisle seat for this performance..anyway, the show starts and this person who is directly across from me on the aisle starts laughing hysterically....LOUDLY...sometimes at things that weren't even really funny. The person had what I like to call the "Theater Laugh"..the laugh that is obnoxious. I missed many lines at this show because of that laugh. Well when the lights go up for intermission the person bolted so I didn't see who it was. My 2 friends also commented on this person's laugh. Act 2 didn't get any better..the loud obnoxious laughter continued...except during curtain calls, as this same person yelled out "bravo" I turned to see no other than Mandy Patinkin. I really wanted to throw something at him and tell him thanks for ruining my evening. Luckily I did get a chance to see Urinetown again on Broadway and truly enjoyed it.

[bdwaygirl]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 8:46pm

Aw, Boobs, you've had to relive your Mandy story so much lately!

[Broadwayboobs]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 8:49pm

Yea Girly...why does he keep coming up...will he haunt me until the day I die???

[Jon]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 9:35pm

I saw a trailer for Toni's upcoming movie, "In Her Shoes". Shirley Maclaine is the mother of two daughters - Cameron Diaz - looking very hot - and Toni as the "plain" one - with fake buck teeth.

Looks very "Terms of Endearment"-like to me - but I have no idea if anyone dies.

I met Toni backstage at WILD PARTY when I was visiting my old friend Sally Murphy. In fact, I met all the women in the cast, and they were all very nice. I took pictures of all of them EXCEPT Toni Colette. She was as nice as can be, but she had no make-up on, her hair was cut very short since she wore a wig in the show, and her eyebrows were shaved off. She said she just did NOT want any pictures of her looking like that floating around. She also said the nice thing was that she could go completely unrecognized on the street!

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 9:38pm

Karen Ziemba recorded the In Her Shoes audiobook. It's an excellent performance.

Updated On: 9/8/05 at 09:38 PM

[Gothampc]

Posted: 9/8/05 at 10:03pm

It was reported at one point that Collette reported Patinkin to Actor's Equity (which is exactly what I would have done).

I lost respect for George Wolfe for saying that crap. First and foremost is every actor's safety and security. What would Wolfe say if they were playing Othello and Patinkin was choking someone?