By Harry Haun
15 Nov 2004

Currently, Norman is deep in musical theatre land. She is working on Princess Caribou with Jenny Giering and Beth Blatt. More immediately — like, "July or next season" — is her adaptation of Alice Walker's novel and Steven Spielberg's movie, The Color Purple, which world-premiered in Atlanta in September under the direction of Gary Griffin. He said he's going to address a Broadway-bound production as soon as he gets "an Encores! or two" out of the way at City Center (The Apple Tree for sure, and the other one in doubt).

Jim Carnahan, who has casting credit for 'night, Mother but claims he was only executing director Mayer's original ideas, is focusing on upcoming projects that have men in leading roles: plumping up The Pillowman with Billy Crudup, Jeff Goldblum, Zeljko Ivanek and lining up John C. Reilly to play Stanley to Natasha Richardson's Blanche in the Streetcar Named Desire revival. "Ed Hall [the director] is coming in this week and we'll do Stellas and Mitches and hopefully the rest of it," Carnahan said. "Then I get a vacation!"

Mayer, having devoted himself entirely to intense theatre work for the past five months (first with After the Fall and now with 'night, Mother), left Tavern early in the evening to make an early morning flight to the West Coast. Hardly a vacation. You might rightly wonder what could possibly follow such double barreled sturm und drang. "Why, he's doing a remake of 'My Friend Flicka,'" his agent, George Lane, told me with the straightest of faces. The Roddy McDowall horse movie?!? "That's right. No, really." He averred it was a great script — "I saw all the drafts" — but couldn't remember who wrote it. And of course Lane, the terrible tease, was not at liberty to say who will star in this born-again "oater."

At the hub of the party commotion was Falco, being pulled on from all sides but behaving generously and graciously to all, taking time to look after her grandmother and still play with friends and relatives and former co-stars. Kevin Geer, currently one of the Twelve Angry Men at Roundabout's American Airlines Theatre, and Frank Wood, of The God of Hell down at the Westbeth Theatre, constituted the contingent from Side Man, her first Broadway gig (it won her a Theatre World Award when she originated it Off Broadway).

It's more than slightly ironic that her two other Broadway appearances have been in roles originated by Kathy Bates, quite a dissimilar type of actress — Frankie in Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune and the daughter in 'night, Mother — but it's a coincidence, she insisted: "Two times I was approached to do plays that she had originated by different people under totally different circumstances, and part of the reason that I agreed to do them was because my memory of them was so rich because of her performances in them."

"I've worked with Kathy before. She has directed me in an episode of 'Oz' and again in a pilot for 'Fargo' that I did years ago, so I called her recently to say I couldn't stop thinking about her because my memory of her performance in this is so infused into the rehearsal process. And she called me back and left me the most loving message."

O'Hare numbers among Falco's almost-but-not-quite-co stars. "We did a reading of an Elaine May play that Dan Sullivan directed at MTC last year. I love her. I feel she's so incredibly versatile. She's really versatile. And that was a great performance tonight."

The Oscar that O'Hare has on his immediate horizon is Oscar Linquist, the thin-reed swain of Christina Applegate in Sweet Charity, which starts rehearsing Dec. 20 and will tour its way (from Minneapolis to Chicago to Boston) to Broadway, arriving here for previews April 4, 2005. "I did a workshop of it with Jane Krakowski so I already know what the part is going to feel like. He's kind of a funny nerd who ends up being not a nice guy. He's weak at the end, but humanly weak. It's a good journey. I only do dark musicals so, after Assassins and this, I'm done. There's not anything left. I've done all the dark ones."

Half of the forthcoming Little Women — Sutton Foster and Megan McGinnis — were in attendance, and the action of the play was not wasted on them. McGinnis, who plays the doomed Beth, would in fact be well advised to order "a death scene like that!" Foster said she is continuing to research Jo March, who to many minds is the definitive Katharine Hepburn performance. "I've seen two out of the three movie versions of 'Little Women,' and I have the other one at home ready to watch. I'm also reading a Hepburn biography. The role changed her career. She was always trying to repeat what she did in that film."

Actor-playwright Charles Busch, who told The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, had a reading of his latest opus at and for Manhattan Theatre Club last week. "It'll be next season," he said. For now, there are more readings. "I'm the prince of stage readings, I think. A week from Monday, at the Shubert Theatre in Boston, I'm doing Dolly Levi in The Matchmaker — they have a series of readings of great American plays — and the week after that, on Nov. 29 at the Manhattan Center, I'm doing this fabulous concert version of Pippin. I'm playing the grandmother. When did I turn into Irene Ryan? I did one mother role — 'Die, Mommie, Die!' — and suddenly there are grandmother roles. I think very shortly that I'm going to have to do Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm just to get my age back."

Still wearing that honeymoon glow were playwright Jonathan (Geniuses) Reynolds and set designer Heidi (Dracula) Ettinger. He said he has three plays in the works, "one of which is a secret from her. One play is about abortion, and the other is about Roger Williams (no, dummy, not the pianist — "the 17th century religious guy who was the founder of church and state"). Ettinger is in negotiation to do another production of A Little Princess, this for Broadway next season. Her only Main Stem effort for this season is the Beach Boys clambake, Good Vibrations, and, for that, mum's the word. "It's going to be a big surprise," she promised. "There's a really good coup de theatre that happens, and I'm not giving it away." After that, she heads for L.A. Opera to do some Offenbach. "Secrets and surprises — that's what we go by," trilled Reynolds happily, signing off.

Actress Barbara Barrie, present in her capacity as mother of one of 'night, Mother's co-producers (Aaron Harnick), wore the benefits of a summer at the beach. "I'm on salary from Fiddler," she beamed sunnily. "They have to pay me for a year so I can't do another play. I've been doing television in Vancouver and a little Symphony Space, but no plays. I'm on a paid vacation. They fired me so they have to pay me. Isn't it great? I got a raise in October."

Avenue Q's Tony-winning lyricist, Jeff Marx, always ducks the question of what he's up to with a quip. Sunday night he claimed to be working on 'night, Mother: The Musical. The big first-act finish is something called "And I Am Telling You I am Going"...

Brenda Blethyn (left) and Edie Falco give their opening night curtain call
photo by Aubrey Reuben

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