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PLAYBILL ON OPENING NIGHT: A Naked Girl on the Appian Way
By Harry Haun
11 Oct 2005
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Way-farers: Richard Greenberg, Doug Hughes, David Rabe and Jill Clayburgh, Matthew Morrison, Susan Kelechi Watson, Todd Haimes, Walter Bobbie, Jane Alexander, Amy Irving, Patricia Clarkson, Campbell Scott and Blair Brown.
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| photo by Aubrey Reuben | Despite his saucy, continental title—A Naked Girl on the Appian Way—Richard Greenberg has rustled himself up a highly domestic comedy
Lynne Meadow and Barry Grove, who produced Greenberg's last two Broadway outings (The Violet Hour and the Tony-winning Take Me Out), were in attendance along with Roundabout biggies Todd Haimes and Gene Feist, directors Kathleen Marshall (who's doing the next AA opus, The Pajama Game), Scott Ellis and Walter Bobbie, lyricist Sheldon Harnick, and a strong outpouring of actors like the freshly Emmy-ed Jane Alexander, Anthony Edwards, Tony Roberts, Margaret Colin, Eli Wallach (in a baseball cap) and Anne Jackson, Amy Irving, Michael Arden, Jim Dale, T. Scott Cunningham and Simon Jones. Like I said, The Family of Theatre.
Above and beyond the support to Greenberg, it's safe to say most of the above were there to welcome back to The Great White Way a wonderful, much-missed star. When Broadway last saw Jill Clayburgh, she was simpering as best such could in an amorous arm-pull between Frank Langella and the late Raul Julia in Noel Coward's Design for Living—then, there was a blink of two decades—and now she's back, playing (as she does in real life) a mom to twentysomethings. The ones in the play come with complications.
Specifically, she plays something of a cuisine queen who authors cookbooks and runs a tight Martha Stewart kitchen. (For exercise, she spends much of the first scene preparing an exotic salad that requires 49 different ingredients.) She lives with her fuddy-duddy hubby (Richard Thomas, himself a long way down the road from John Boy Walton) and their three now grown, adopted, internationally checkered children (Take Me Out's James Yaegashi, The Light in the Piazza's Matthew Morrison and The Story's Susan Kelechi Watson). The last two have just returned from 17 months abroad—with some of those aforementioned complications which upend home-and-hearth. The less said, the better.
Otherwise, there seems to have been no interruption in service in the style and wit departments. Clayburgh glides gracefully, in her blonde and willowy way, above the churning conflicts of her children as if she has been honing her art to a fine point all these long years out of the limelight. She said she hasn't, but then again what would she say?
This: "It felt better tonight than I had remembered," she admitted, obviously relieved to be at last out of the starting gate. "Opening night is always a little nerve-racking, but I did have a good time. I did. I'm certainly glad to be back—and I'm back for the rest of my life." (Next stop is Barefoot in the Park, a revival of Neil Simon's play, which goes into rehearsal the day after Christmas with Amanda Peet, Tony Roberts and Patrick Wilson.)
Thomas, since switching coasts last year, has been something of a daring young man on the flying trapeze in terms of continuous theatre employment, but he hasn't a clue what's coming next—beyond an installment in a Stephen King anthology series that TNT will film in January. "But, fortunately, this play will keep us busy until December. It's a fun play to do. Not only is it funny, but it's funny with meaning—with a lot of meaning."
Mind you, he didn't say it was easy. Given the kind of controversy that the comedy courts, the sledding gets a little rough and dodgy in spots. "Well, you know, making a souffle is difficult. A souffle is a hard thing to make because you have to be light, you have to have a lot of flavor, and you got to know you've had something when it's over—it's getting all those elements together, not laying too much into the drama, not keeping it too much on the surface, not intruding on the reality of the characters. All those things will give you comedy. I mean, that's not just this play, either. But we had a director who is an absolute genius. We have been very lucky indeed."
Said genius director, Doug Hughes, is also the most sought-after in town, the natural consequence of the award windfall (Tony included) that Doubt brought him last season. This fits into his oeuvre like an outcast—a contemporary comedy unlike what he usually does. But "I loved the play, and the company couldn't have been more delightful to work with. I've always wanted to work with Richard so it was a grand experience all around."
His best touch was the bright idea of bringing Clayburgh back to Broadway. "We did All My Sons with Richard Dreyfuss at Westport, and she was just magnificent in it. So, when I read this play, I thought it would be a perfect role for her. I think it's a great fit." Continued...
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