By Harry Haun
18 Nov 2008

Osment had fallen off Falls' radar into academia, but not for long. "Frankly, we really wanted to find a name actor who was young," the director said. "I think, along with Shirley Temple, he's the greatest child actor of all time. I knew he was in NYU, and again I said, 'Let's get together.' He knew the play, loved it, wanted to take the risk."

It was a risk, too, going from "The Sixth Sense" to Five Cents, from seeing dead people to seeing drug people. "But I think that's what's interesting," Falls noted, "that drug addicts and heroin addicts are not always these skuzzy guys. He can be a perfectly innocent-looking guy who is completely messed up on drugs. I think the important thing about that character is that he is trying to stay off drugs so, during the course of the play, he's clean and I think Haley's just a remarkable young actor."

	Emily Osment, Tamara Tunie, Tommy Tune and Kathleen Turner, Dominique and Al Sharpton, Maureen with Steven Van Zandt, and NYC Commissioner of Theatre Katharine Oliver
	photo by Aubrey Reuben

Anyone who plays Bobby has the option of how darkly to color his situation, Osment contended. "It's up to us in each production to decide on what the measure of his addiction is and how that has concrete effect on his actions in the play, because Bobby spends a lot of mysterious time off-stage. It's unclear what he's doing."

There was enough for him to like about the character to create a performance that touches. "You have to find something you like about every character you're playing, even if they do things that aren't in line with what you would do personally. There's a lot of sympathy that I have for Bobby, and I think that the audience eventually has for Bobby, because he's trying to do the right thing, but he always screws up."

If anything, Osment admitted he was high from breaking into a professional clearing and finally taking his bow as a Broadway actor. "It's thrilling to be here. Just thinking of when we started this process in rehearsal, it's wild to think of the distance between then and now, and how much more we have learned about the material."

Elliot Martin, who is lead-producing this American Buffalo with Ben Sprecher and produced the previous Broadway revival with Al Pacino, denied that he was going to keep producing it until he got it right. "I completely got it right before," he shot back. "That was a powerhouse performance from Pacino. I didn't like the original production so much. There was no humor in it. It was all tension and unhappiness. But I think this production brings the humanity out in these three guys, and they need one another. There is a love and respect shown here between these three street guys that we didn't have with Pacino. Pacino was just too powerful a force."

Mamet's absence from the festivities went vaguely unexplained — it has become par for the Mamet course — but Martin did acknowledge a sighting recently. "He was here when we just first went into rehearsal, and we went down in the Village to hear his wife [and frequent leading lady in his films, Rebecca Pidgeon] sing in a club."

Set designer Santo Loquasto (who designed the original clutterful set as well) and lighting designer Brian MacDevitt took a thorough paparazzi blasting but feigned indifference. Said one to the other: "Where do these pictures go? We never get them."

Jerry Seinfeld led the list of opening-night celebrities, but not so you noticed. There is no photographic evidence of his speed-by. Even the in-house photog missed him.

Kathleen Turner and Tommy Tune, an improbable pair ordinarily, headed up the "T" contingent apparently, followed by Tamara Tunie (not producing, just looking pretty). Tune was there, graciously supporting Falls — a silent favor since Turn of the Century, his new show written by Jersey Boys' Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, just closed at Chicago's Goodman. "Now we're doing our fixing on it, and we're standing in line waiting for a theatre," said Tune. "I think it will be in the summer, maybe." When it does come to Broadway, Jeff Daniels and Rachel York will star.

Other first-nighters: Michael Wilson (who's directing the other Broadway opening this week, Horton Foote's Dividing the Estate), Rev. Al Sharpton, a bandana-ed Steven Van Zandt, a skimpily attired Emily Osment (sister of the star and regular on "Hannah Montana"), radio's Tom Joyner, columnist George Rush, publisher Glenn Young ("I'm starting a new imprint for fiction, publishing novels, so get to work — immediately"), Richard Osterweil (whose documentary on party-town Manhattan, "Painting the Town," comes out on DVD this month — "with extras on it"), and Katherine Oliver, Commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting.

One last note: The lady in L-111 not only ignored the instructions to turn off her cellphone but actually answered her cellphone in the middle of the performance.

Mamet has a word for it.

The cast of American Buffalo at curtain call.
photo by Aubrey Reuben

View article on single page

Previous Page   1 | 2 Next Page