July 2011 Archives

Even as gay people celebrate the achievement of marriage equality in the state of New York and the repeal of the U.S. military's ridiculous "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, it's important to remember the various forms of persecution that gay men and lesbians have faced throughout history.

Heinous and despicable as such persecution was, it makes for compelling theater. A "witch-hunt" to identify and punish a group of young gay men at Harvard University in 1920 served as source material for two recent, well received plays, Veritas and Unnatural Acts. And one of the hits of the 2010 Fringe Festival in New York was The Twentieth-Century Way, Tom Jacobson's play based on a 1914 episode in Long Beach, California, in which police entrapped more than 30 homosexuals who engaged in "illicit acts."

Now, The Twentieth-Century Way is about to receive its Philadelphia premiere courtesy of the Walking Fish Theatre. I met and spoke with the two actors who comprise the cast, Thomas Raniszewski and Peter Andrew Danzig (pictured l-r in photo above), during a break in rehearsals in New York.

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BROADWAYSTARS: I didn't get to see The Twentieth-Century Way when it was done in the Fringe in 2010, but it won the Overall Excellence in Production Award, and I remember that there was a lot of buzz about it.

THOMAS RANISZEWSKI: It's very intense. [To Peter:] Wouldn't you say?

PETER ANDREW DANZIG: Yes. It's one of the most intense scripts I've ever read. The playwright is very good with intricacies and nuances. There's so much stuff that I didn't get until we started rehearsals. He writes these little secrets throughout the script, and you don't really get them until you delve into the process.

THOMAS: The play is very much about the dark side of human nature, in terms of how far we would go in betraying someone like us to save our own hide. In some ways, I think it's as relevant today as it was in the early 1900s, when the story takes place.

STARS: You are the only two actors in the play, so I assume you play multiple roles.

PETER: Yes. At any given moment, there might be 11 or 12 characters on stage, but with only two actors portraying them. The playwright wanted there to be a clear delineation between the characters in terms of speech and physicality, but he wanted them to flow seamlessly from one to the other. We sometimes switch characters in the middle of a sentence.

STARS: How closely is the play based on historical truth?

PETER: There were definitely undercover operations by the police in the early 20th century. Sodomy was illegal, of course -- but it was even illegal for two men to publicly show any kind of affection toward each other.

THOMAS: The play also touches on what was happening with McCarthyism in the '50s, where people in Hollywood were turning in their own friends and colleagues to save themselves and their own jobs. It's the same thing here: We have two actors who are presumably gay, who are hired by the police to bait and entrap other gays.

STARS: What sources did the author draw from in writing the play?

PETER: I believe it's based on newspaper articles that loosely described what happened, and also on discussions that the playwright had with people who had heard stories about actual events. Men were arrested for "social vagrancy," and they would lose their jobs.

THOMAS: We're talking about a very specific time period, right before and at the beginning of World War I.

STARS: Is it historically accurate that some of the men hired by the police to entrap gay men were actors?

PETER: I think that's a mechanism the playwright used. He found it interesting to introduce that into the story.

THOMAS: There was an actual incident in 1914 in Long Beach, but other than a few mentions of it in the newspapers, there's not a lot of detailed information to be found. We've had discussions as to whether or not the men who were hired to bait the homosexuals were gay themselves. There are a lot of gray areas in the play, a lot of questions that are left unanswered.

PETER: The thing is, the men who were hired to entrap these gay men in changing rooms or public restrooms would actually engage them in some sort of homosexual act, so there was a line they had to cross.

STARS: Occasionally, I still read about that kind of thing happening today.

THOMAS: Yes. Just a few years ago, I think it was in New Jersey somewhere, there was a park where police were entrapping homosexuals. And about four or five years ago in Cape May, where there's a nude beach, there were park police in plainclothes who would try to entice guys into the dunes, and then they'd arrest them.

PETER: But that kind of entrapment doesn't and didn't only happen in public situations. In the play, there's a scene where the police break into a private home. One of the characters says, "Where's your warrant?" But the police didn't care about that. They went ahead with the raid, whether they had a warrant or not...

THOMAS: ...and whether the men had done anything or not. Some of them were just guilty by association. There were and are still so many people who have to live within the limits that society sets for being gay.

PETER: It's so interesting that the playwright has two actors entrapping these men. He makes the point that it's not easy to love an actor because they're always playing somebody else; they have this gamut of emotions to draw from at any time, but sometimes it's hard for them to be who they really are. He correlates that with gay men who just can't be who they are. Our director is constantly bringing home the playwright's point that all of these men are wearing masks.

THOMAS: "Everyone's life is an improvisation, every relationship a masquerade." That's the line.

STARS: As far as the entrapment and harassment are concerned, it's hard to understand why people spend so much time and effort on that sort of thing.

THOMAS: My mother always told me, "Anybody who goes to an extreme to persecute another person has something to hide." I've found that to be true.

STARS: Before I let you guys go, I should ask what the title of the play means.

PETER: "Twentieth-century acts" was a code phrase of the time, referring to "unnatural acts" -- specifically, oral sex.

STARS: As if no one ever exhibited such behavior before the modern era. Hadn't they heard of the Greeks?

THOMAS: Exactly. There's a line in the play where someone says, "Fellatio was only christened with a formal Latin name in 1893, but the practice was well known throughout recorded history."

PETER: There's another line where a newspaper editor says, "We can't print the word 'penis' in The Sacramento Bee!" If they couldn't use the word 'penis,' they certainly weren't going to write about fellatio. So they came up with phrases like "twentieth-century acts," "vagrant acts," "indecent acts." It's similar to that Harry Potter thing, "He who must not be named." People wanted homosexuality to go away, and the quickest way to get it to go away was to give it a general name and sweep it under the rug.

[For more information on The Twentieth-Century Way, or to purchase tickets, visit Walking Fish Theatre or call 215-427-9255.]

The first time I saw Stephen Bienskie on stage, several years back, he was playing a born-again Christian in The Last Session. It's a far cry from his current role, that of serial killer Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb in Silence! The Musical at Theatre 80. Billed as "the unauthorized parody of The Silence of the Lambs," this outrageous show has a book by Hunter Bell, music and lyrics by Jon Kaplan, and direction/choreography by Christopher Gattelli.

Stephen's other credits include Rum Tum Tugger in the final Broadway company of Cats, his award-winning performance as Cal in the American premiere of the political musical The Fix, and the role of a theatrical agent in the current web series Submissions Only. (Check it out; it's hilarious.) I recently spoke with him to find out what led him to Silence!

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BROADWAYSTARS: Stephen, did you see The Silence of the Lambs when it first came out?

STEPHEN BIENSKIE: Oh God, yeah. It was a huge movie back in the day. I remember going to see it with my older sister. It was definitely creepy, but it's not just a gory slasher flick; it's got the psychological aspect, as well. And it's one of those movies that stays with you for a long time, like The Exorcist. You can't shake it out of your body after you've seen it.

STARS: In your bio for Silence!, you make a point of thanking Ted Levine, who played Jame Gumb.

STEPHEN: His performance is so unbelievably iconic. Both he and Anthony Hopkins [as Hannibal Lecter] have very little screen time in the movie, but you walk away and you remember those characters. What Ted did in just a few minutes on screen was so disturbing. I don't even know if he's aware that he created such an iconic villain; the character comes up in the strangest places. The other night, I was watching the Craig Ferguson show, and he randomly started imitating Jame Gumb for laughs. All you have to say is "It rubs the lotion on its skin," and everyone gets the reference.

STARS: I seem to recall that some people charged the movie with being homophobic -- because, in a nutshell, Gumb is a man who wants to become a woman in the sickest way possible. What's your take on that?

STEPHEN: I think it was mostly about timing. The movie came out at the height of the AIDS crisis, and people's anger was at a fever pitch -- about AIDS, about how gay people were portrayed on screen. Whether or not Jame Gumb is homosexual is sort of irrelevant. The subject of homosexuality isn't even broached in the film, but I think just having a character like that at a time of heightened anger is what caused the problem. People were hypersensitive to negative stereotypes, and I'm not saying they were wrong.

STARS: Have you corresponded with Ted Levine?

STEPHEN: No -- not yet. I'd love it he came to the show, although I don't know that I'd be able to get through the performance. I'd be so terrified.

STARS: Do you think that shows like Silence! and The Book of Mormon are making extreme profanity and vulgarity acceptable on stage? And, if so, is that a good thing?

STEPHEN: It's all in the context. Profanity just for the sake of profanity is pointless. But the source material for our show is so specific, and the lines and situations are so strong. The effect of the show is based on the idea that, of course, no one would EVER do a musical of The Silence of the Lambs. That's what makes the whole thing so ridiculous.

STARS: What are some other movies you can think of that would be highly unlikely source material for musical adaptations?

STEPHEN: It's funny you should ask. Christopher and Hunter developed this concept that we're all just a group of musical theater geeks from the hills of West Virginia who really love the movie The Silence of the Lambs and who think, "Hey, let's make it into a musical!" The joke is that we're totally serious about it. So we started thinking, "Wouldn't it be funny if this troupe also did Ordinary People: The Musical, or Schindler's List: The Musical?" At one point, we even thought about making posters of the company's other productions and putting them up in the theater.

STARS: Like in Waiting for Guffman and The Producers.

STEPHEN: Exactly. The idea was to approach Silence! The Musical as seriously as possible, if that's even within the realm of imagination.

STARS: In The Last Session, you played a very moralistic, born-again Christian named Buddy. How do you think he would react to Silence! The Musical?

STEPHEN: I don't think he'd last past the first song. He'd storm out.

STARS: Silence! was presented in the 2005 NYC Fringe Festival with much of the same cast, but for the current production, you have a new Hannibal Lecter: Broadway star Brent Barrett.

STEPHEN: Yes. What an amazing man, to step into this kind of craziness.

STARS: Before I let you go, I have to ask you about Submissions Only, which is a hoot.

STEPHEN: It's kinda crazy. What's so funny is, the group that Kate Wetherhead and Andrew Keenan-Bolger have put together -- Colin Hanlon, Max von Essen, and Kate herself -- are some of my best friends. I play Kate's agent.

STARS: What real-life person or persons did you draw on to create the character?

STEPHEN: [laughs] Well, certainly no agent I've ever worked with!

STARS: Good answer.

STEPHEN: In the series, I'm in a relationship with Kate's character's best friend, so there's all this background. I'm just trying to be the best agent I can be and keep an eye out for her.

STARS: In real life, you and Chris Gattelli have been a couple for years. What word do you use for your relationship with Chris?

STEPHEN: I usually say "partner." To me, "boyfriend" always sounds like we're in eighth grade. So I say partner -- and maybe someday I'll say "husband." But that's a whole different article!

STARS: Well, thanks so much for talking. I hope you're having a blast in Silence!

STEPHEN: I'm having the time of my life. This show is like a dream come true. Some people aspire to play Hamlet or a great musical role on Broadway, but for me, to play Ted Levine in Silence! is the ultimate.

As Patricia Morison herself remarks, "I really had two careers, one in film and one in the theater. I was lucky." The lady made her Broadway debut in 1933 and logged appearances in two shows before heading off on a Hollywood sojourn that included major roles in such films as The Song of Bernadette, Dressed to Kill, Queen of the Amazons, and The Song of the Thin Man. She returned to Broadway in a flop musical called Allah Be Praised, but her next show was nothing less than the smash hit Kiss Me, Kate. Morison reprised the role of Lili/Kate in London, then headed back to New York to play Mrs. Anna for the final stretch of The King and I's long run.

Throughout the 1960s and '70s, she starred in touring and stock productions of Kismet, Milk and Honey, The Merry Widow, Do I Hear a Waltz?, The Fourposter, Private Lives, and other shows, as well as major revivals of both Kate and King and I. She also shone in two TV versions of Kate, one for American television, the other for the BBC. Now 96 years of age, and with total recall of her astonishing life, Morison resides in Los Angeles and hasn't performed in years -- except for treasured guest appearances in two recent editions of the annual S.T.A.G.E. benefit concert. I recently had the privilege of interviewing her via telephone. Here's what she had to say:

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BROADWAYSTARS: It's a great pleasure to speak with you, Ms. Morison. We've just gone through the awards season here in New York, and I realized that when Kiss Me, Kate was up for Tonys, it was only the third year of the awards' existence. There were far fewer categories then, but Kate won for Best Musical; Cole Porter was honored as composer and lyricist; Bella and Samuel Spewack won for their book; and Lemuel Ayers won for his costume designs.

PATRICIA MORISON: My goodness, what a memory you have.

STARS: Oh no, m'am, I'm looking it up. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you look back at Kiss Me, Kate?

PATRICIA: I think of Cole Porter. He was a very good friend, and he really was the one that got me to play the role. The producers didn't want me; they didn't know that I was a singer, because I had been making movies. So I sang for Cole, and he called them and told them they were crazy. I was with the first U.S.O. group during World War II, with Merle Oberon and Al Jolson. We were entertaining the troops in England, and then Bob Hope said, "We're flying everyone to New York to do a big show at Madison Square Garden." I told him I couldn't go because I had signed to do one of the first television series they were making, which was called The Cases of Eddie Drake. It was supposed to start filming in L.A. in a week. But my agent said, "You get on that plane to New York!" So I went and did the concert, then I went to the Century Theater [where Kiss Me, Kate was slated to open] to sing for Bella Spewack and all of the other people who didn't want me. I got the part, but I was committed to the TV series.

STARS: I guess you got out of it somehow.

PATRICIA: No, as it happened. The show was about a detective who was having psychological problems, and I played his psychiatrist. The producers told me, "All of your scenes are in the psychiatrist's office. If we can shoot them all in two weeks, will you still do it?" I said, "Yes!" So we shot my scenes, and then I went into rehearsals for Kiss Me, Kate. The producers of the series said, "Please promise us that if your show is a success, you'll publicize our series."

STARS: You played a female psychologist in the '40s? Very progressive!

PATRICIA: That's right. It was the infancy of television. I remember doing The Milton Berle Show, which was the big show at the time.

STARS: I see that you made your Broadway debut in 1933, in something called Growing Pains.

PATRICIA: Yes, it was a play about teenagers.

STARS: And then, in 1938, you were in an operetta called The Two Bouquets.

PATRICIA: That was directed by Marc Connelly, who was one of the greats. He had directed The Green Pastures and lots of other shows. The Two Bouquets was a British spoof of a Victorian operetta, and Alfred Drake was my leading man! He played a character called Albert Porter, who was too shy to tell me that he was in love with me. Leo G. Carroll was also in the show. I earned the magnificent sum of $80 a week. Alfred loved to sit up all night with the cast and discuss Shakespeare, but we couldn't afford Sardi's, so we would go to Child's.

STARS: How wonderful. I didn't realize that you two knew and worked with each other 10 years before Kiss Me, Kate.

PATRICIA: Yes. When I was offered a contract by Paramount, Alfred told me, "Don't go out there. They won't know what to do with you." Many years later, we did a tribute to Alfred at The Players' Club. He introduced me with this long speech, and he said, "I told her she should never have gone to Hollywood!" Alfred's first love was the theater.

STARS: I've always detected a bit of a British accent in your speech.

PATRICIA: My mother was born in the west of Ireland, and my father was born in England. But I was born in Manhattan in 1915, while my father was fighting with the British in France. When I was a couple of months old, my mother decided to take me to England so we could be closer to my father. We went over on a tramp steamer. There was a mad Irishman on board, posing as a priest, who was planning to blow up the ship. But they got him drunk and they caught him, or I wouldn't be here today. After the war, my father was suffering from -- what do they call it now, when they can't get over the experience?

STARS: Post-traumatic stress syndrome?

PATRICIA: I think that's it. They used to call it "shell shocked." So he took us back to New York.

STARS: I have so many questions about Kiss Me, Kate. It sounds like you really had to prove yourself to get the role.

PATRICIA: At first, only Cole Porter wanted me. They had a lovely opera singer in mind for the part: Jarmila Novotna. I was a trained singer, and I had sung on Broadway in the operetta. But when I went to Paramount and told them I was a singer, they said: "We're not M-G-M."

STARS: You were at the wrong studio! But what an opportunity to show your vocal stuff in Kiss Me, Kate. It's great that the 1958 TV version with you and Alfred Drake is now on DVD, though I'm told you're not completely happy with it for various reasons.

PATRICIA: Well, they left out "Too Darn Hot," because in those days it was considered too risqué for television. And I couldn't say my first line in the show: "You bastard!" They changed it to "You louse!" There was so much censorship in those days, in television and in movies. When I did the film Dressed to Kill, somebody sent me the notes from the censor about a scene I had with Nigel Bruce. I was the villain, and I was trying to vamp him; the notes said, "He must not put his hand on her knee, he must not do this, he must not do that." There's another movie where I'm billed, but I'm not in it at all: Kiss of Death, with Victor Mature. He played a gangster, and I played his wife. He's sent up to prison, then I'm raped by one of his henchmen, and I commit suicide. I got a wire from Darryl Zanuck saying, "Thank God, this is such a different role for you, and you may get an Academy Award for it." Well, the censors had the whole thing cut out. You couldn't show rape on the screen, and you couldn't show suicide.

STARS: Aside from the cutting of "Too Darn Hot," most of the risqué lyrics from the Broadway score of Kiss Me, Kate made it into the TV version, but there had been a lot of watering-down for the film with Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson, which was made about five years earlier.

PATRICIA: I didn't like the film. You know, the TV version was in color originally. We shot it at the Astoria Studios, I think. The orchestra was in another studio, and the sound was piped through. I remember that there was going to be a strike at midnight -- though I don't remember what union was striking -- so we had to be done by then. We had shot the whole sequence leading up to where I say goodbye to Fred, and then a stagehand walked across the set, on camera. That was all right, because the scene was set backstage, but the man looked right at the camera and said, "Oh, my God!" So we had to re-shoot the entire last act, and we finished just before midnight. I'm sorry [the surviving film] is in black and white, because it was beautiful in color.

STARS: Well, it's still a treat to have it available on home video. You and Drake have such great chemistry.

PATRICIA: I think we worked well together. You know, before M-G-M [secured the film rights], Alex Korda was going to do a movie of Kate in London with Alfred and me, and photograph it like a play. But M-G-M made the producers an offer they couldn't refuse.

STARS: Cole Porter had already had his terrible horseback riding accident by the time he began work on Kate, but I like to think that he felt rejuvenated because he knew he was writing a masterpiece.

PATRICIA: He was wonderful. He used to come to rehearsals at the New Amsterdam Roof on the arm of a young man. He'd sit there and watch us. When they would say, "Cole, we need something here," he'd get up and go to the piano with the help of his friend.

STARS: Have you been back to the New Amsterdam Theater since Disney renovated it?

PATRICIA: No, I haven't.

STARS: They did a beautiful job, but they didn't restore the "roof" as a theater. They use it for office space now.

PATRICIA: When we rehearsed there, it looked like the set for Follies. I believe they were talking about renovating it, but they didn't.

STARS: Well, you can't have everything.

PATRICIA: No, you can't, honey.

STARS: I've seen a clip of you in The King and I. You didn't immediately succeed Gertrude Lawrence in the Broadway production...

PATRICIA: No, I was in London doing Kiss Me, Kate when she died. They called me to replace her then, but I was committed to Kate for almost another year. When I came back to New York, I went into the show, and after it closed on Broadway, we toured the country for more than a year. It was "the grand tour." We had our own train, but Yul Brynner and I flew. In the big cities, we would play for two or three months. It was really something.

STARS: There's another amazing clip of you and Brynner performing at the 1971 Tony Awards.

PATRICIA: Yes. I was supposed to do "Wunderbar" with Alfred, but when they called Yul to be in it, he was in Paris, and he said, "I will not come unless Pat does 'Shall We Dance?' with me." So Alfred did "Where Is the Life That Late I Led?" instead, and I did "Shall We Dance?" with Yul. It was wonderful to be a part of that 25th anniversary Tony show -- a very exciting night at the Palace Theatre.

STARS: You sound so great. Life is good, and you're well?

PATRICIA: Honey, from the hips up, I'm fine. The rest is problematic. I use a walker, and now lately when I go out, they have to take me in a wheelchair. But otherwise, I'm fine.

STARS: I hear that you created quite a stir when you appeared in two of the S.T.A.G.E benefits in L.A.

PATRICIA: Yes. This year, I sang "Hello, Young Lovers," and I stopped the show. So, tell me, how is Broadway these days? The Book of Mormon is supposed to be very good.

STARS: Yes, but they really push the envelope. I'm not sure if Cole Porter would love the show or be horrified by it. His lyrics were mildly naughty by way of double entendres and innuendo. Now, they come right out and say far worse.

PATRICIA: I don't think he would like that. Elegance and subtlety were always important to him. He got away with some pretty raunchy things by being elegant.

STARS: As I'm sure you've heard, there's an excellent revival of his Anything Goes on Broadway right now.

PATRICIA: Yes, everyone I know who's seen it has just loved it. When something is really good, it doesn't date.

STARS: Especially that show. You watch it and you think, "This can't be that old."

PATRICIA: But it is! God love the theater. I just hope it keeps going, but I can't understand these enormous prices. When I was going to drama school a hundred years ago, for 25 cents you could stand in the back of any theater. I got to see the Lunts, I got to see Tonight at 8:30 with Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence. If young people today can't afford to go to the theater, they're going to take the easiest way and watch videos or whatever.

STARS: Heaven forbid. Well, it's been a thrill to speak with you. I'd love you to see this interview after I write it up. Do you do the Internet?

PATRICIA: No, I don't have a computer. I've been looking at the iPad -- but I've just been looking at it.

STARS: Then I'll print out a copy of the interview and mail it to you.

PATRICIA: Oh, I'd love that! Thank you so much.