By Harry Haun
19 Oct 2007

Although he plays Doolittle big and broad-stroked for laughs, he considers the character a sizable cut above in buffoonery department. "Bush [in Stuff Happens] I would call a buffoon, but I think of this man as a very smart guy. He comes in looking as if he's at a disadvantage, but he never is. In a funny way, he's Shaw's voice, the smartest guy on the stage."

To do the part required a lot of deft juggling of Sanders' work-schedule. He would record narration for documentaries on PBS's "Wide Angle” in the AM, rehearse Doolittle in the afternoon and play (a very well-received) Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream at night up in Central Park. "It was hard on everyone. How I survived it, I don't know, but Roundabout was very patient about letting me do it. They wanted me to do it. And it's turned out very well. It nearly choked me on the way, but it makes me that much more pleased that we got to where we did."

Helen Carey, who made her Tony-nominated Broadway debut a decade back with Roundabout in London Assurance ("that was Dion Boucicault, but very Shaw-like"), had a high old time of it as Henry's haughty mother. Note the lofty way she takes exception to Eliza's "deliciously low" small talk — she comes down from on high to utter the line, "It's perfectly good to say on a canal barge." She was clearly reveling in her return to The Great White Way: "I just had a ball, and I particularly liked seeing the brilliant, young, intelligent, talented woman come into her own on stage. I know she has been wowing audiences on film, but it's a different animal to get on the stage. I just think she was glorious tonight really and truly."

	Claire Danes in Pygmalion
	photo by Joan Marcus

The fair lady in question, of course, was TV and film star Claire Danes, making her Broadway debut.

Director Grindley seconded that motion in spades: "All you want from an actor is that they remain open and as fierce as they possibly can, particularly for her who's doing it for the first time. What was fantastic for her that she never at any moment — although, obviously, she was nervous about what she was getting herself into — she never at any moment withdrew or became inhibited. The things she was having trouble with — she absolutely learned and is delivering a fantastic performance. It is a very, very difficult part for someone who's extremely experienced, much less for someone who's doing it for the first time. She's done a tremendous job. I'm absolutely delighted with her."

Kent-born Sandra Shipley put some authentic English on the role of Freddy's mum, Mrs. Eynsford-Hill. "I liked working with David a lot," she admitted. "I'm English so there's a sensibility there, and I haven't worked with a Brit for a while as a director. There's a shorthand somewhere — phrases he would come up with took me home."

This prompted a funny story she tells on herself: "On the subway going home, one of the cast members heard the people next to him talking about the show, and they said, 'I really liked it. Some of the accents were a bit odd, though — that mother and daughter. Where was she meant to be from, that mother?'"

There was a contingent from Is He Dead? walking amongst us — Patricia Conolly, the habitually employed Byron Jennings, designer Martin Pakledinaz. (The Mark Twain antic, now in rehearsal, will play Broadway's Lyceum.) A blitz from The Ritz arrived late after their show (Ryan Idol, Rosie Perez in a Liza-like man's hat, Ashlie Atkinson, Teddy Coluca, author Terrence McNally, Angela Pietropinto) as did a faction from the other Roundabout show in town (at the Laura Pels), The Overwhelming (Sam Robards, author J.T. Rogers).

Also in attendance: Hugh Dancy, the chronically reliable and brand-new Theater Hall of Famer Dana Ivey, In My Life's Christopher J. Hanke and Company's Elizabeth Stanley (both bound for the La Jolla Playhouse on Monday for the Cry-Baby tryout), Jason Antoon, Chloe Sevigny with director Scott Elliott, Brooke Shields, Mamie Gummer, Blythe Danner (with fingers crossed for a TV show that would be NYC-made), Amy Irving, designer Zac Posen, Jessica Hecht, Pig Farm playwright Greg Kotis (whose new opus, Yeast Nation, just opened waaaaay out of town — in Juneau), Gaby Hoffman, directors Walter Bobbie and Mark Brokaw, "The Hours" author Michael Cunningham, playwright Lynn Nottage, lyricist Sheldon Harnick, John Weidman (still Bounce-ing with Stephen Sondheim, angling for The Public), Brian Murray and Marian Seldes (who will play Doolittle and Mrs. Higgins in the monthly reading of Shaw at The Players Club on Dec. 17), Dan Sullivan, Frances Sternhagen (checking out the play's Sarcastic Bystander — her son, Tom Carlin), Carolyn McCormick, Side Man's author and director Warren Leight and Michael Mayer, and I Am My Own Wife's director Moises Kaufman.

Doug Wright, who won the Tony and the Pulitzer Prize for I Am My Own Wife designing the role of transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf to Mays' specifications, was quite taken with the actor's new look: "I thought it was splendid. That boy can even act in trousers."

Jefferson Mays, Jay O. Sanders and Boyd Gaines in Pygmalion.
photo by Joan Marcus

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