PLAYBILL ON OPENING NIGHT: A Steady Rain — Two Cops Bonding
By Harry Haun
September 30, 2009
While the threat of real rain hovered above, a relentless drizzle of dazzle welcomed A Steady Rain to Broadway Sept. 29. The glitzy procession that poured into the Schoenfeld looked like Stars Night Out and got the show off to an hour's delay.
The catnip that had brought the celebs out in droves was the stage pairing of two contemporary screen superheroes — "Wolverine, meet Bond. James Bond" — in the muck and mire of a more mortal plane than they normally function in on film.
Hugh Jackman of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia and Daniel Craig of Chester, England cross paths — convincingly, given the dialect coaching of Jess Platt — as Chicago cops riding out a tsunami of bad-judgment calls.
Basically, Keith Huff's play (his first for Broadway) is a two-hander — a coupla white cops sitting around talking, to themselves and to the audience — but it seems more. The incidents relayed in the conversations are vivid and gripping enough to stick to the roof of the mind. The secret is simple, said Huff: "You need two actors who are really good storytellers. Hugh and Daniel both are natural, endearing, engaging storytellers — and they give life to all the other characters."
The 39-year-old author is much-produced in the Chicago area. "I've written about 40 to 50 one-act plays and full-length plays in the 25 years that I've been doing this."
Does he consider A Steady Rain his best work? "It is certainly my most seen play, and it feels like a breakthrough play," he responded cautiously. "And I hope that if people enjoy this play, it will call attention to my other work."
The person that Huff credits to making this come to pass has a conspicuously terse three-word biography in the Playbill: "FREDERICK ZOLLO (Producer)." Of course, that name comes first among the ten producers presenting A Steady Rain.
"Fred Zollo was one of the producers of the show when we ran it in Chicago, and he knows Daniel," Huff explained. (Writer's Note: More than "knows," Zollo and his wife, Barbara Broccoli, produce the 007 series in which Craig now associates.)
"Daniel came to him and said, 'I'm looking for a play to do. Do you have anything?' Fred had the play in his pocket so he just whipped it out and handed it to him."
It actually seems to have been that simple. Craig took an immediate shine to the play and, in particular, to the part of Joey, the shy, reformed drunk who harbors a passion for his partner Denny's wife and family life. "He always wanted to do that role, from the very beginning. He found the layers of it appealing, and I knew he would be good in the play. What he did with it is just a revelation — a playwright's dream."
It was Craig's idea to give himself a sad, droopy, mojo-sapping mustache to help you further forget he'd ever been in Her Majesty's Secret Service. "Once he got rid of the handlebars, it was a good idea," Huff conceded. "At first, it was a little 'YMCA.'"
Arguably, the most tragic misstep that Huff's two officers make doing their chaotic rounds — returning a hysterical Vietnam teenager to the outstretched arms of his "uncle" — carries a real-life resonance. "It should," the playwright admitted. "It was actually three Milwaukee policemen who turned a Laotian boy over to Jeffrey Dahmer in 1988, and I always thought that was a dramatically potent situation because the two cops were still fighting to get their jobs back while the police were still building a case against Jeffrey Dahmer. I thought 'There is so much here to explore,' so I took the incident, fictionalized it, recast it in Chicago with two Chicago cops and worked it in, and I'm really pleased that it has that sort of resonance."
At the final critics preview, the power of that scene was interrupted by a cellphone, pretty much leveling — for actor and audience alike — the anguish that Jackman had built, reliving the awful moment when the youth was clinging to him for dear life.
"Can you get that?" he said, breaking character (using the same line Craig had when he was similarly interrupted at an earlier preview). Keeping a lid on it, Jackman paced the stage till the ringing stopped, giving new meaning to "Amazing Grace."
At a press conference later, Craig opted to blow off the whole cellphone brouhaha (which made the YouTube rounds): "I don't know anything about that. I don't know what you're talking about. Hugh doesn't know what you're talking about." Etc.
But Jackman's wife, Deborra-Lee Furness, knew only too well. "It came at the worst possible moment," she noted, "but you know what? Someone I know who was in the audience said, 'All of a sudden, the audience was much more involved — like, they were really present to him. There was a great immediacy between the audience and the performers. They're both so fine — like a great tennis match. You got two fine actors up there, and it's so smooth the way that they play ball."
Director John Crowley, a Tony contender four years ago for Martin McDonagh's super-creepy crime thriller, The Pillowman, was almost the logical choice to helm A Steady Rain. Even Crowley conceded that there are certain, tell-tale echoes. "I guess there are," he said, "because I get drawn to such similar stuff, which is sorta dark material, but I wasn't drawn to this because it reminded me of Pillowman. No, quite the opposite, actually. The form of it is very different to anything I've ever done — that much direct address to the audience.
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The fact that A Steady Rain gives the two film stars a good shot at playing flesh-and-blood, fallible types, for a refreshing change, may have been a point of attraction for them, Crowley allowed — "except that both of them come to the stage free of that superhero stuff. I think what's exceptional about them in the films that they do — with Bond and with Wolverine — is that they both make those characters very real and also very human as well. That's why they're good at what they do."
Next on the director's agenda is the new McDonagh play, and the first of his to premiere on Broadway: A Behanding in Spokane. "We're going to open it here in the new year," he promised. "It's about a man who has lost his hand. He's looking for his hand, basically." And how does one cast that? "With a man who's got a hand, preferably, I think. We're in the middle of casting that show right now."
After Rain had run its 90-minute course, selected first-nighters trudged a few blocks west to the swank Harvard Club for the opening-night party. Members of the first-night press were escorted to some nondescript room on the third floor for some fast photos and faster Q&As.
It seemed to be on Daniel Craig Central Standard Time. Notoriously press-shy, the actor mustered a casual demeanor with effort. When someone asked if he had trouble stepping out of the character after the show, he said, "I dunno. I mean, I'm very thirsty so I suppose I'm still in character" — a cue to speed things up.
Since his "yes" was a go for the project, Craig was asked what in particular attracted him to Huff's play. "It was just a piece of writing that grabbed me, and that's all I can say," he replied simply. "I wish I could embellish it more than that. I just read it and read it again, and I just felt compelled to get involved with it. It excited me because it was a new piece of writing, and I have always sorta fancied the idea that, if I was expected to come to Broadway, it would be in a new piece of writing."
Jackman, who is one Broadway show up on Craig, didn't entirely see it that way: "It has been a great joy for me to come back on Broadway," he said, "but it feels like the first time because this is a straight play, which was actually what I was trying to do.
"It's very much raw theatre, which is how John told me about it. He said, 'Raw theatre in that there are two actors who do interact with each other, but a lot of it is a conversation with the audience. And it's so thrilling because Broadway audiences are up for it. They're ready. Every night is different. Every night is fresh. It has been so for 20-odd performances, and I'm sure that it will be for the rest of the run."
As for rehearsing the material, Jackman said, "It has been amazingly joyous and fun and drama-free working with Daniel and John. We had probably far too much fun in rehearsals."
They even soaked up a little Windy City atmosphere. "Yeah, we went to Chicago for a few days, and we hung out with some cops," Jackman said. "I have to say it was invaluable. The cops were so honest about it, and we owe a lot to them because, in that short period of time, we pretty much had a university-styled education in what their lives were about. They were generous."
Crowley said he dispensed with his habit of getting his stars to play catch or Ping-Pong: "That stuff's just anything to break tension in the room, but the truth is there was no tension in the room. And they never played Ping-Pong, primarily because they had no interest in it. But we did have a shockingly good time rehearsing the play and laughed an awful lot. It was the happiest working experience I've ever had."
Huff seconded those sentiments: "Nobody threw any chairs or had any meltdowns or diva fits or anything like that. It was just a joy from beginning to end, and these guys — they're consummate professionals. They were there before the director and I got there. They stayed after we left, and I think it shows in their performances."
The make-nice could have gone on all night, had it not been for Craig's thirst. The press conference soon screeched to a halt, and The Charismatic Two joined the impressive star turnout munching on the lower floors. They marched out like champions, as well they might: Their opening week on Broadway broke the Broadway record for the highest weekly gross of a non-musical — $1,167,954.
And there's no let up in sight for A Steady Rain. Only a few seats remain.
Numbering among the show's first official audience were Jerry Seinfeld and wife Jessica, The Pillowman's Jeff Goldblum, Candice Bergen, chef Bobby Flay with actress-wife Stephanie March, directors Jo Bonney and Darren Aronofsky, playwright Lanie Robertson, Matthew Broderick, lyricist Scott Wittman, mogul Harvey Weinstein, Woody Harrelson, Nigel Havers, Jim Gianopulos, Crowley's actress-wife Fiona Weir, Gayle King ("It's Hugh and Daniel together! And it's good theatre!"), Julie Wilson's hunky son, Holt McCallany ("I have a new TV show on F/X that's going to debut in the spring and a new film from Warner Bros. called 'The Losers,' coming out in April"), David Schwimmer (about to direct a film called "Trust").
One of the few press people allowed into the opening night performance was Liz Smith ("They don't know I'm all washed up," she hooted). Another was Ingrid Sischy (in transition from 20 years at Interview to Vanity Fair).
The parade of Tony winners included Liev Schreiber (with wife Naomi Watts and still talking of bringing A View From the Bridge back to Broadway), B.D. Wong, Cabaret's Tony/Oscar winner Joel Grey (his third and latest book of photographs has just been published by Powerhouse, called "1.3 Images From My Phone"), Barbara Cook (Belfast-bound for her first concert there, "then I'm going to go to London to do something" — that "something," she underlined, won't be a revival of Carrie).
For a moment there, it looked like billionaire's row when Barry Diller entered the theatre with Diane von Furstenberg right after Rupert Murdock with wife Wendy and daughter Kathryn.
When someone asked Whoopi Goldberg what she was working on, the dreadlock darling of "The View" shot back smartly with "I'm working on my tan."
Our guy of "Glee" (formerly of South Pacific), Matthew Morrison, was wearing, ear to ear, the happy success of his new series. "We've done 13 episodes, and we just got picked up for nine more so we start filming again in January."
Then, he added, "I'm going to do a workshop of a new musical [director] Bart Sher is directing called Women on the Verge with Salma Hayek and Jessica Biel. We'll workshop that in a few weeks at Lincoln Center."
Eric Bogosian is also theatre-bound, as soon as he finishes up "Law and Order," he said. He'll co-star on Broadway with
The greatest star, though promised in the photo tipsheet, was a no-show — and, in retrospect, it seems impossible to imagine Barbra Streisand attending the opening night performance of anything. But I had my question all ready to throw at her from the barricades anyway: "What is the answer, Barbra?" All for naught. She was probably too tuckered for all the strenuous self-promotion. Her new album, "Love Is the Answer," came out a few hours earlier, so she gave the show a pass.
Now that the cops are in place at the Schoenfeld, can the donuts be far behind? In point of fact, no. Come Oct. 1, Terry Letts' Superior Donuts opens for business at the Music Box, directly across the street from A Steady Rain.
It, too, is a Chicago transfer, and it's beginning to make West 45th look like State Street.