PLAYBILL ON OPENING NIGHT: Barefoot in the Park : Observing the Shoe Dress Code
By Harry Haun
Elizabeth was not the only Ashley in attendance. Christopher Ashley , himself a director
with a pronounced comic flair, is wearing a long face these days to ready Alfred
Uhry ’s schoolroom drama, Without Walls , for the Mark Taper June 1-July 16. Morgan
Freeman won’t be going to the head of the class, as originally hoped, but “expect big
casting news in about a week.” By late summer or early fall, Ashley will be his silly old
self again, helming Paul Rudnick ’s latest, Regrets Only , for the Manhattan Theatre Club.
The comedy updates the sex-strike situation of Lysistrata to embrace the current battle for
same-sex marriage—i.e., the gay walker of a wealthy matron discovers her husband has
headed to the White House to work on anti-gay-marriage amendments and, in protest,
organizes his walker pals to walk out on the rich ladies they customarily escort. “It’s a
very funny play,” promises Ashley, who historically knows one when he sees one.
Peter Bartlett , who rather magnificently minced out in Rudnick’s one-act, Mr. Charles,
Formerly of Palm Beach , says that the author has come up with ten new pages for that play,
and there will be a reading of it next week for producers who want to pair it with Pride and
Glory , a 10-minute Jackie Hoffman kvetch that Rudnick wrote as his contribution to
“The Downtown Plays” that the Tribeca Theatre Festival presented in the fall of 2004.
Freshly kissed by Encores!’s Kismet success, Lonny Price says he’s bound for Houston
next week with Audra McDonald to present her in a couple of one-act operas in March: Francis
Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine and the world premiere of Michael John LaChuisa ’s Send
(who are you? I love you) that was commissioned by Houston Grand Opera. He and
McDonald and Patti LuPone have spent their last three summers together at Ravinia
doing a Sondheim show. This summer (Aug. 10-12), LuPone will get to do her
long-thwarted Gypsy —but what will he do with McDonald? “Mazeppa, maybe?” he offers.
After that, Price and McDonald will do the first Broadway revival of 110 in the Shade ,
the Harvey Schmidt-Tom Jones musicalized Rainmaker , for Roundabout next year.
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Among the opening night celebrities:
Kathy Bates , who has no definite Broadway plans
“but, when I come out to nights like this, it really makes me miss it”);
Stephen Bogardus ,
resting a bit after working both coasts (
White Christmas in Boston and
in
The City of Angels); Annabella Sciorra , luscious in black chiffon; Peter Boyle , okay in a
business suit; Ricardo Chavira , who’s Carlos to “Desperate Housewives” and went
through the last cinematic fall of The Alamo with Wilson; Molly Shannon ; blonde Ana Gasteyer ; Clayburgh’s playwright hubby, David Rabe ; who’s putting the finishing
touches to his novel, “Dinosaurs on the Roof”; their actress daughter, Lily Rabe , who’s
starting a film now and hunting for a new play; director Walter Bobbie and producer
Robyn Goodman , both bullish on their next show, High Fidelity , which has songs by
“the next Comden and Green”: composer Tom Kitt and lyricist Amanda Green , and a
book by Rabbit Hole ’s David Lindsay-Abaire ; playwright Martin McDonagh , bracing
for the Atlantic Theatre launching of The Lieutenant of Inishmore Feb. 27 and escorting a
sweetie who gave her name as Ethel Mertz.
The two young stars of Barefoot posed for pictures and moved from galaxy to galaxy of
well-wishers. Peet looked particularly appealing without her overly protective California
publicist and seemed relieved to be over the hump of a Broadway debut. “It is different,”
she concedes. “It’s a lot more pressure. I was really nervous when I started out”—when
she starts out, she’s on a wobbly ladder getting tangled in wallpaper paste (a very funny
bit of physical comedy)—“but, when my co-stars came on stage, I felt a lot better.”
Wilson, who hovered close to his six-months pregnant wife Dagmara , was pleased
someone noticed he got through a Broadway show without any song and dance. “It is my
nonmusical Broadway debut,” he confessed. “You know, I guess people thought of me as
a musical guy, but the reality is that I’ve been acting pretty regularly in films since Angels
in America ” [the Tony Kushner play that was turned into an HBO movie by the
ubiquitous Mike Nichols]. “When I first moved to New York, I remember doing a few
musicals and just needing to go do a play. In college, I did more plays than musicals. I
guess I’m just lucky that, whether it’s a musical or a play, it was a great role. One of the
decision-makers is what the role is like. It was a kind of a decision. I hadn’t done a play
in New York. I hadn’t done romantic comedy. So Neil’s play was just right for me. When they
came and asked me a year and a half, two years ago, I said, ‘Absolutely. Make it work.’”
Conspicuous in his absence was the show’s 78-year-old author, but Simon did check it
out, according to general manager Roy Gabay : “At the invited dress, Elaine [Joyce , Mrs.
Simon] was there. She called him at intermission to tell him how much she liked it and
then called him at the end of the show. He came the next night, our first live performance,
and then he went back to California because he’s working on something new right now.”
Did Simon do a little tweaking and tinkering, as is his wont? “One little thing,” says
Gabay. “He added a line that was not in the play. It was a line that was written for the
movie, and it was his line. He had Jill repeat one of Tony’s lines to get her exit applause.”
Isaac Mizrahi certainly had an easier time designing for this show (15 costumes, tops!)
than he did for his Drama Desk Award-winning Broadway debut, The Women , for which
he outfitted 26 of that gender a number of times (including a controversial curtain call in
their undies). Director Elliott had hired him for that, and he has hired him for The Threepenny Opera , which will bow April 24 at Studio 54.
Various models milled among partygoers in their Mizrahis long after the master had gone.
He left early, according to one gorgeous creature in red, “because his little doggie, Harry,
was sick.”
The cast gives their opening night curtain call.
photo by Aubrey Reuben
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