By Harry Haun
23 Feb 2007

Journey's End produced beginnings from the get-go. When it debuted as a play, it turned its author from a nondescript insurance clerk with some horrifying war memories into one of the last century's foremost dramatists of stage and screen. The play took director James Whale and actor Colin Clive to Broadway and then on to Hollywood where they would reteam, famously, a year later for "Frankenstein."

Now it has opened the door to Broadway for Grindley, who insists the play was not brushed-up and tweaked for U.S. audiences or even for his smash "dry run" in London.

"There are a couple of edits," he conceded, "but in terms of rewriting — no no no. It's about playing the text, about mining the text and giving it a reality and an authenticity.

"For me, personally, a key moment was when I recognized that they were engaged in a very modern notion in the trenches, which was displacement activity — i.e, in order to insure the war doesn't invade their minds, every character had a vigorous displacement activity to keep their mind off it. Trotter eats and makes people laugh. Stanhope drinks and works. Osborne listens. Mason creates with pitiful ingredients these extraordinary nouvelle cuisine menus. And the only person who can't do that is Hibbert, and, as a result, he can't live there any longer — he's got to leave because he's consumed by his fear.

"Once you latch on to that idea, it gives the show a vigor and an animation that previously seemed maybe a bit reflective, a little bit sober and slow — whereas with this production, and particularly with these actors, there's a dynamic and a drive. They need to tell a story, and they're constantly taking the audience by surprise. Particularly here. The reaction from the audience is incredible. They're listening harder than they had before, and they're laughing harder because I don't think they know the show. They've never heard of it.

"In England, it's a very well-known, tried-and-trusted war-horse. It worked there because we reinvented it for a contemporary audience. They didn't realize the show could be played in this way whereas here nobody knows what's going to happen next. As a result, they are much more engaged than I could possibly imagine. They're desperate to know what's going to happen next and desperate to release the tension when they're allowed to."

Truth to tell, Olivier only performed Journey's End two times, according to Grindley. "Originally, it was given two staged performances — sort of like rehearsed readings — at the Apollo Theatre in London in front of the public, critics and also producers with the future hope of giving it a fully staged production. Nobody trusted it or wanted to produce it because it didn't have enough going for it. All the conventional producers said, 'Sorry, we're not going to put it on because it's about the war and that's only 10 years ago. It's still too close to home. There's no leading lady. It's an all-male cast. And it's not in this lovely English drawing room with French windows overlooking glorious English countryside. It's in a dug-out underground, lit only by candles. We can't do it.' And it was this maverick Maurice Brown who put on the show, but, by the time he committed to the show, Laurence Olivier had already signed up for Beau Geste so the original cast from the reading did the show, except Laurence Olivier who was replaced by Colin Clive."

Beverly Sills, of all improbable people, led the big — well, medium-sized — parade of first-nighters. Claire Danes was there (on Dancy's arm), and the I Am My Own Wife contingent included producer David Rosenthal and Pulitzer Prize author Doug Wright.

The latter has made his way out of Grey Gardens and is now busily scripting The Little Mermaid for its July 26 lift-off at Denver's Ellie Caulkins Opera House, prior to Broadway.

Director Christopher Ashley was spied chatting amiably in the aisle with his ex-Xanadu leading lady, Jane Krakowski. "I'm recasting as we speak," he yelled (meaning, in particular and with some urgency, her role). It wasn't an easy show for Krakowski to walk away from. "I'm glad people like the workshop because I had a great time doing it," she said, "but it conflicted with my '30 Rock' schedule and I couldn't make it work so I'm disappointed. My heart was torn. I loved both jobs, and I'm sad I couldn't do both."

Another Christopher heeding another NBC calling is Christopher Sieber, back from London's Spamalot and poised to begin a pilot tentatively title "Wildlife." "I play a head zookeeper who's very eccentric and egomanical," he said. It being an NBC-Universal enterprise, it will be shot in L.A. at Universal in "late March-early April, which is great because we booked a vacation to go to Hawaii for two weeks, and I think it's going to overlap. The best way to get a job is to book a very expensive, extensive vacation."

Annie Golden, from The Full Monty, was in the first big wave of opening-night celebs to stream through the doors of Bond 45: "I just saw somebody pushing by Lynn Redgrave. I said, 'Okay, don't be pushing Lynn Redgrave around.' She turned around, and she went, 'Oh, darling, he's on a mission.' I said, 'Yeah. To get a drink.' She appreciated that."

Deuce hasn't even begun official rehearsals, and already Marian Seldes is waxing eloquent about her co-star, Angela Lansbury: "Angela — isn't she an angel! You can't take your eyes off her beautiful face. We go down to Terrence's house [their playwright, Terrence McNally] and we do the play together, and I think it is the most wonderful face I've ever looked into. We love each other already. We depend on each other already."

Mary Stuart Masterson was present, with some unexpected news: "I just finished directing a film," she beamed. "It's in the blood." Her dad (Peter Masterson) directed her mom (Carlin Glynn) to a Tony (for The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas). Bruce Dern, Elizabeth Ashley and Kristen Stewart star in the picture which is, right now, between titles. "Today I changed the title from 'The Cake Eaters' to 'Bright Light of Day.'"

Not that the Tony nominee for Nine is turning in her Actors' Equity card: "I'm always looking for a play. That's my favorite thing to do. David Grindley, in fact, directed me in a play at the Old Vic called National Anthems with Kevin Spacey and Steven Weber."

Liz Callaway, off to Chicago in a week and a half with Malcolm Gets to do a concert version of Working for the Actors Fund, was raving about how powerful the evening's entertainment had been. Her husband, director Dan Foster, had seen the London version, with David Haig (an Olivier Award winner for Mary Poppins) in the Boyd Gaines role.

A New Brain's Michael Mandell and The Times They Are A-Changin's Thom Sesma both mentioned that the power of the play was strongly connected to the times we live in.

"You know why it held up so well?" said Sesma. "Because you had a director and a cast who trusted the material so completely. They treated it like it was brand new and didn't try to flesh it out with any sort of layered-on irony. They just let the play speak for itself."