|
 |
THE LEADING MEN: Page and Feinstein
By Tom Nondorf
03 Dec 2007
 |
|
Patrick Page as himself and The Grinch in How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
|
| photo by Paul Kolnik (Grinch) | Chats with Broadway's Grinch, Patrick Page and cabaret favorite Michael Feinstein.
THE GRINCH SPEAKS
"Greatest day ever." That's what Patrick Page said it was when I reached him for what I thought was going to be a chat about how frustrating it is being offstage during the strike. Minutes earlier, he had gotten the news that the State Supreme Court had ruled in favor of The Grinch producers, and the show was back on. He gave us a first-hand account of what an actor goes through during a labor dispute as well as what an actor goes through covered in a green fur suit.
Question: Give me a glimpse of what it had been like during the holding pattern days of the strike.
Patrick Page: It was an incredible roller coaster for us because the threat of the strike had been looming for so long, and we had not known from day to day whether or not we were going to open. We thought, "Will we do our final preview? Will we do our opening night?" Both times, we got by, there was no strike. We opened. We had a fantastic opening-night party. We wake up the next morning to across-the-board wonderful reviews, and then we go to the theatre, and we find out the strike has started, and we can't get in the theatre because there's a picket line. Of course, we were devastated. The other thing is, since we were the very first show struck — we had an 11AM matinee that day — we were the ones that were actually greeting the audience and giving them the news for the first time and trying to cheer them up, so that was a very emotional day. And, every news camera in the world was there, which also made it very stressful. We then began trying to convince Actor's Equity and Local One that Grinch producers did, in fact, have a separate agreement with the Local One, and the Local One should take down the picket line in front of The Grinch. That was ongoing, a week of back-and-forth — then they went into their negotiations with the League of American Theatres and Producers. The Local One said they would take the picket line down in front of the theatre because it's a limited run, and [they] know this would devastate [our] show. We thought, great, we're going to get to do our show. At that point, we found out, not so fast, the theatre owners are going to lock us out of the theatre. That's when the producers of our show filed an injunction.
Q: Was it tough as far as making plans to do anything or be anywhere while the dispute went on?
Page: Sure. I'd been planning on being onstage.
Q: Did you imagine that you would have this much drama doing The Grinch this time around?
Page:[Laughs.] I had no idea. It's a cliché, but clichés are clichés because sometimes they perfectly describe the situation: It was a roller-coaster ride.
Q: It is interesting that you were not passive but quite active in the cause of getting the show up again — not just sitting back, waiting for a phone call.
Page: Actors can do a lot when they give their voices because we're the ones that have the ability to speak to the public most frequently. And, in this case we also have the ability to speak to our union members. As a representative for the show, I'm able to speak directly to our executive director of Actor's Equity, and make the case that Equity ought to support us and ought to petition the Local One to take down their picket line, and he was extraordinarily helpful with that. That's something that as a member of the union and the most visible member of the cast, I can go to my union and say, "Look here's our case, help us out with this." And that's something that maybe somebody else wouldn't be able to do, so I did do what I can do, and you have these incredible people in all the other departments doing what they can do.
Q: There was that powerful image in the newspaper of Cindy Lou Who crying when she saw she would not be performing.
Page: Yeah, it was very hard for both the kids in our show and for the kids who were in the audience and got turned away. I was there in the theatre comforting a lot of crying kids. The adults can talk about the labor disputes and the contracts and all those kind of things, but when you're six years old and you've shown up at the theatre and you've driven three hours that morning to come see a show in New York City, it's pretty hard to explain to them why it isn't on.
Q: Good that it's back, though.
Page: It's great that it's back, and what is so peculiar and wonderful is that it's very hard to find the villains and heroes in [the strike] situation — just like in our show, the title character is both the hero and the villain. In this case, you have a lot of people talking about how they are going to keep Broadway viable, and I think everybody thinks they are doing the right thing. But I am so grateful to the Local One for their support of our show and for taking down the picket line.
Q: Let's move on to the show itself. How much do you relish the role of the Grinch?
Page: It's the most wonderful role imaginable and especially this year because we're in the St. James Theatre. I was talking with Tim Mason, who wrote the book and lyrics, and to Mel Marvin, who wrote the music, and I was saying the thing about rehearsing The Grinch is it's very difficult because really your main acting partner is the audience. I have my great acting partner onstage, Rusty Ross, who plays Young Max. But the Grinch, until the very last scene is really dismissive of Max and uses him more as a sounding board than as a friend or a partner, and the Grinch has the one scene with the little girl. Other than that, he is essentially playing the audience. So it's very difficult to rehearse because your main acting partner isn't there. When we did the show last year and the audience came into the Hilton Theatre, to a certain extent they weren't there. Although I loved doing the show last year, the Hilton is so huge, and the audience is so distant from the stage, that the real back-and-forth play was not possible in the way it is this year in the St. James, where it is just a constant volley between me and the audience. I talk to them, they sometimes talk back to me. I run up the aisle, I scare them. I touch them. I come out of holes in the ground, so it's very interactive with the kids. I know from my own childhood experiences of being six years old and going to the theatre, those are the things you remember when you grow up and you're 40 years old: "The Grinch ran up the aisle and his sweat got on me." That's what you remember!
Q: Yes, at the show I saw, a kid made a comment to you during an otherwise quiet moment, and your reaction was priceless. That has to be fun, coming from a non-cynical audience member.
Page: Exactly right. Of course, the great thing is, in the St. James, I can hear them. For all I know, last year there were kids talking back, and I just couldn't hear them.
Q: What other differences are there between Grinch, year one and Grinch, year two?
Page: Jack O'Brien went back into it with all of the creative team, and they improved the storytelling. They added new songs. They did an enormous amount of work, which is very unusual for a show that last year was the highest-grossing show over the holidays. You'd think, "Well, that's great, let's leave it alone." But they didn't, they went back and they took a risk, and they made the show so much better.
Q: There's that sequence when you become sort of a wealthy Texan Grinch. I thought that I'd like to see a whole show featuring that character.
Page: That's right. That wasn't in the show last year. That's a lot of fun. I actually did a wonderful reading of a show written by Louis Flynn, who's a wonderful composer, and Flynn wrote the music for a show that at the time was called Democracy, but now I think it's called something else. I played a character based on LBJ that had a Texan accent like that.
Q: There's the old saw: Don't work with kids or animals. You get to do both, in a way. How has that been?
Page: I teach acting a lot. I teach privately and down in the graduate program at NYU and all over the country. One of the things that I talk about is why it is that kids and animals are so dangerous to work with onstage. It's because the audience won't look at anything else. Why won't they look at anything else? Because [children and animals] are alive and unpredictable. They are absolutely there in the space, for real, at that time. Therefore, you can't take your eyes off them. So it shouldn't be a bad thing to be onstage with a kid or a dog. As long as you're as alive and present as the child or dog, you'll be fine. It's only when you've got everything sort of fixed and planned and calcified that being onstage with a child or animal is a problem.
Q: Does it ever lead to scary moments onstage though, not just because of where the audience's attention is, but because a child can be unpredictable?
Page: If by scary you mean something exciting and good, yes. If it has any negative connotation, no. It's a mistake to try to get rid of the fear. You're going out into a situation, and although you've rehearsed it, the situation is live. It's the same with playing the audience. In the same way that the audience is unpredictable, the child is unpredictable. As long as you're there and ready to play off whatever she does, you'll be fine
Q: Obviously as the title character, you carry the show, but also, physically, you do a ton. Do you get a chance to breathe during the show?
Page: One of the things that they were doing this year in going back into the show is trying to find a couple more places for me to breathe. Once I go on, there are about six minutes when I'm not on. And, of course, I'm covered in a fur suit and a fur hat, make-up on my face and gloves. It's a challenge, but everybody — the costume designer, the costume shop, the make-up designer, the wig designer — has worked very hard to make sure that given the reality of the show, which is that I have to wear a fur suit, nevertheless, I will be as comfortable as anyone can be wearing a fur suit under hot lights. So we've done a lot of stuff. I have an amazing dresser, Danny Paul, who the one time I am able to go offstage for a few minutes, takes off my suit and puts ice packs under it. I wear an ice pack in my hat and two ice packs on my wrists. I sit in front of a huge fan for about 60 seconds when I go off and I have some time. It's an incredibly physically challenging part. Not only for me but for Rusty in his fur suit, for Ed Dixon who plays Old Max in a fur suit. But everybody's working as hard as possible to make it as comfortable as it can be.
Q: You have a lot of Shakespearean acting experience. How does that inform your take on the Grinch?
Page: It is enormously helpful to have performed a lot of classic parts, especially the bad guys like Richard III, Macbeth and Iago. We owe everything to Shakespeare. All of our storytelling ultimately goes back to Shakespeare. Before Shakespeare wrote Richard III — or, more specifically, the third part of Henry VI in which Richard III first appears — a character who was a bad person basically came out on stage and they were just evil and that was it. Then everything changed when Shakespeare came to town and the bad guy walked out on stage and said, "I am evil because... because my body is deformed, because I cannot fit in with the rest of the people. Therefore I am determined to prove a villain." It was that "therefore," that one word in the first speech in Richard III, that changed the history of drama in terms of, we as an audience want to know "Why?" So when you are playing a character like the Grinch, which is very sparely written, because it is Dr. Seuss verse on the page, having done all of those roles where you have to go, "Why does Macbeth do what he does, why does Iago do what he does?" I am able to fill in the blanks so that the Grinch can be genuinely frightening at the beginning, genuinely bad, and also we sense there's more going on so we buy it when he turns around, later on. So there is no question that playing Shakespeare informs everything I do.
Q: How much fun are you having now?
Page: Oh, I am having the time of my life. Believe it or not, I want back in that sweaty, nasty green fur suit.
[Dr. Seuss's The Grinch Who Stole Christmas plays the St. James Theatre, 246 West 44th Street.]
Continued...
Contact Us | Advertise | Privacy Policy
Send questions and comments to the Webmaster
Copyright © 2008 Playbill, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
|
|
|
|
|