STAGE TO SCREENS: A Chat with Tony Winner and "Dead Like Me" Star Mandy Patinkin
By Michael Buckley
01 Aug 2004
"He also invited me to teach for a week at the North Carolina School of the
Arts [the Winston-Salem facility where Freedman is the dean]. I just loved
doing that." Patinkin also "was invited to teach at Harvard, and I loved
that, too. That's something I want to find more time to do more of. I'm
trying to work that into my life now."
After leaving Juilliard, Patinkin "went across country, and then got my
Equity card doing children's theatre at Baltimore Center Stage." (They claim
that most of the children recovered.) Patinkin's New York stage debut
occurred in a church production of Maxwell Anderson's Joan of
Lorraine. "Alan Arkin directed. My friend, Ted Chapin, who was my
college roommate and now runs the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, was
Alan Arkin's assistant at the time. I got to do a scene with the actor Mike
Kellin, who was brilliant, and I got the part [of Durant Laxart] that I was
twenty-something years too young for. It was a thrilling opportunity!"
Ted Chapin (who wrote the superb "Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the
Musical 'Follies'") and Patinkin are involved in a current project, "an arts
center that we'll start in Creede, Colorado, where we'll develop new works
in theatre, music, film, television, dance — any of the art forms. We're on
the board of directors, with Billy Carden and his wife, Pam Berlin, who run
the HB Studios."
Highlights of the actor's long association with the New York Shakespeare
Festival include "Hamlet, and having a great time in Trelawny of
the 'Wells' — with Johnny Lithgow and Meryl Streep."
Michael Cristofer's The Shadow Box marked Patinkin's Broadway debut
in 1976. Cast member Geraldine Fitzgerald heard Mandy vocalize backstage and
gave him the gift of a singing lesson with Andy Thomas Anselmo. "I went once
and I liked him, but I didn't want to spend the money.
"Awhile after that, I got the part in Evita. I realized that this guy
[Che] sings for two hours and doesn't shut up or leave the stage. I
remembered Andy Anselmo, called him up, and asked, 'Could you make me
strong, and teach me not to hurt myself?' And he did."
During the run of Michael Weller's Off-Broadway play, The Split,
Mandy met his future wife, cast member Kathryn Grody. He proposed "on our
first date, April 16, 1978, and have been together since. [They were married
June 15, 1980.] It was my marriage and my children that made me realize that
either I was going to have to change and grow up a bit, or I'd end up an
80-year-old man with nothing — sitting in a rocking chair, talking to a
wall."
Isaac, 22, and Gideon, 18, are the Patinkins' sons. "Isaac is the head of
the National Students for Fair Trade and travels the world helping farmers.
He attends NYU and runs Project Minga, a self-sustainable agricultural
community in Ecuador. Gideon just graduated high school. He was one of five
chosen out of four hundred for the New York team of 'Urban Word,' which is
slam poetry, and he's also preparing a pottery show. Before college, he's
taking a year off — first to work for Kerry-Edwards, then to learn more
about the country."
Che Guevara in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Evita proved to be
Patinkin's breakthrough role. He remembers the experience as "very
enjoyable. Patti LuPone remains one of my dearest friends.
"Patti and I have put together a new show. We did it at a Texas theatre a
few years ago, and as soon as we have time we plan to take it on the road. We have a great time together; when
you're onstage with Patti, you're with one of the gods. We take a journey
using familiar and unfamiliar songs. We put it together with Paul Ford.
Annie Reinking did the choreography, and Theoni Aldredge helped dress us up.
It's something we can play for the rest of our lives."
A 1989 announcement paired Meryl Streep and Patinkin in a film of "Evita,"
to be directed by Oliver Stone. "That fell apart," notes the actor. In 1996,
when Alan Parker made the movie (which Patinkin has yet to see), Madonna and
Antonio Banderas had the leads.
Though he played the male lead, opposite Barbra Streisand, in "Yentl"
(1983), Patinkin sang nary a note. "I didn't sing?" he jokes; adding, "I'll
always be frustrated about that. Even before I got into the picture, the
songs were conceived [by Streisand, who also directed, produced and
co-authored the screenplay] as being her thought processes. We did talk
about my singing, but it never came to fruition. As a friend of mine later
remarked, 'You don't think?'"
Lots of thought went into Sunday in the Park with George, the
Pulitzer Prize-winning Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical. The actor's
preparation for the part of Georges Seurat (1859-91) included several trips
to Chicago's Art Institute to study the artist's "Sunday Afternoon on the
Island of La Grande Jatte," the painting that inspired the project.
One of Patinkin's conversations with Sondheim resulted in the song
"Beautiful": "No one had ever taken something I'd said and turned it into a
poem, let alone one with music. It was one of the finest experiences I've
ever been privileged to be a part of in my entire professional life, and the
people I got to work with.... It's hard to beat something like that. I loved
it!" In 1986, Mandy, Bernadette Peters and the original cast repeated their
performances on PBS.
***
Patinkin performed an electrifying "Buddy's Blues" in Follies in
Concert, an all-star, two-night 1985 benefit, highlights of which were
shown the next year on PBS (and later released on video).
The role of Buddy led to Patinkin singing Lt. Cable in a studio cast
recording of South Pacific, though he surmises, "That might have been
helped by Ted Chapin." Next came the offer to record his first solo CD.
Recalls Patinkin, "I wanted to do that more than anything else in the world,
but I was chicken. I was afraid if I make it and it fails, my dream won't
come true. So I thought it would be better to put it off — forever. But I
didn't. I got together with [music director] Paul Gemignani and Paul Ford,
and about a year later I sang for about 50 people. Then, I said, 'Let's
record it.'" He since has made six other solo CDs.
Journeying to London in 1990, Patinkin co-starred with Jose Ferrer in
Born Again, the musical version of Eugene Ionesco's
Rhinoceros, at the Chichester Festival. Directed by Peter Hall, who
co-authored the book with Julian Barry, the score was by Jason Carr.
Back on Broadway, Patinkin starred in the Marsha Norman Lucy Simon musical,
The Secret Garden. Playing Archibald Craven "was one of the most
enriching things I've ever done. I was only supposed to stay through the
opening. Four weeks was all they said they needed me. But I just loved it
so; I stayed six months. I adored singing to the little girl [a Tony-winning
Daisy Eagan] at the end, when she came running into my arms. To learn about
the garden and about how you live through your children is a complete
parallel to my own life. It sounds corny, but it's all so damn true."
Next on Broadway in 1993, he succeeded Michael Rupert as Marvin in
Falsettos, the William Finn-James Lapine musical. "I loved it. I was
very much moved by it, and what it expresses in terms of how one struggles
to be close with people one loves — children, friends, family. Marvin was
frighteningly close to my own personal journey, in terms of selfishness and
self-absorption. I think Bill Finn's one of the geniuses of theatre, and
James Lapine's one of the diamonds of my generation. The two together are a
joy!"
Patinkin's most recent book musical on Broadway, Michael John LaChiusa's
The Wild Party, ran 68 performances in the spring of 2000 — and was
not a pleasant experience. "Sometimes trying to make a work of art can be
very difficult and very painful. Everyone's working harder than ever to make
it what you hoped it would be. You set out to do something you believe in,
and sometimes the train gets derailed. The Tony nomination did not heal the
difficulties. Sometimes, if you walk the wire, you're gonna fall off."
Stephen Sondheim has described Patinkin's singing voice as "brilliant — a
gift from God"; Sidney Lumet, who directed the actor in the film "Daniel,"
called him "a bolt of lightning"; Joseph Papp termed Patinkin "worse than a
perfectionist. A perfectionist reaches some degree of satisfaction...."
Family man, consummate actor, unique entertainer: While some march to their
own drummer, Mandy Patinkin parades to his own brass band.
***
Michael Buckley also writes for TheaterMania.com and The Sondheim Review.
He's the author of "Between Takes (Interviews with Hollywood Legends)," to
be published in spring 2005.
Contact Us | Advertise | Privacy Policy
Send questions and comments to the Webmaster
Copyright © 2008 Playbill, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
|