PATTI LuPONE
For the first time since they took Broadway by storm in the original New York production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Evita, Tony winners Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin are sharing a Broadway stage in An Evening With Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, which officially opened Nov. 21 to rave reviews at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. And, not since Mary Martin and Ethel Merman famously plopped themselves down on two chairs for a 1953 TV special and dove into a 13-minute duet featuring the songs that made them famous have two musical theatre stars so radically reinterpreted what a concert evening could be — and what two artists could do with two chairs (witness their charming, humorous Act One finale).
Both LuPone and Patinkin are in terrific voice. In a two-act, two-hour show that flies by on a cloud of music, both artists reconfirm their places as two of the most exciting musical theatre stars of their generation. To watch either of these two performers interpret a song is a thrill, but seeing them together on stage three decades after their Tony-winning work in Evita adds another layer of emotional poignancy.
"It's a history of a friendship," Olivier Award winner LuPone told me the morning of her latest Broadway opening. "When I watch him do 'Oh What a Circus,' I'm not nostalgic for Evita in the respect that I would love to play it again, but when I watch him do 'Oh What a Circus' on Broadway, I wish I could go back just one more time, in that production, with that company, and that orchestra, on that stage, in those costumes and lights, and that set, and do it one more time."
photo by Joan Marcus |
LuPone says the only time she ever appeared in a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical was when she played "Nellie Forbush in South Pacific with the Powdered Wigs Society when I was like 17-years-old at Northport High School." She is currently relishing her chance to wrap her voice around some of the composing giants' material on a Broadway stage. "Are you kidding? I love it!" LuPone exclaims. "I grew up on Rodgers & Hammerstein and Jule Styne and Meredith Willson. I grew up on those musicals. ... Maybe The Enquirer was in business, but there were no rags at the checkout counter at the A&P in East Northport. There were albums, 'Ed Sullivan Presents,' and it was sometimes the original cast members, and sometimes other performers, and you could — for a buck — buy Kiss Me, Kate or Roberta or South Pacific. I don't even know where those albums are anymore. We had stacks of them. ... My mother loved opera and, obviously, musical theatre. My dad listened to jazz, so that played in the house all the time. And, I listened to rock 'n' roll. I wanted to be a rocker, but I would put those [show recordings] on. I had inside chores — I had to dust and vacuum — and I would stage ' Soliloquy' [and] imagine the scenes. I would do the entire 'Fugue for Tinhorns' from Guys and Dolls or 'Ya Got Trouble' from Music Man. I would do all of those things instead of working, and I knew I had a Broadway voice. I knew I didn't have a rocker voice; I just knew that the quality of my voice was a Broadway voice. Probably I knew that because I listened to all of those albums. I went, 'Oh, yeah. Okay. That's what a Broadway voice sounds like, and that's what I'm going to do.' I knew I had a voice, but I did want to be a rocker," LuPone laughs. "I wanted to be a rock 'n' roller!"
photo by Martha Swope |
When asked why the role of the Argentine girl who rose from the slums of Argentina to become First Lady of the country became easier during her post-Broadway run in Australia, LuPone answers, "I'm not sure. I think just the repetitiveness of doing the part, and I had time off. I had three months off, and so I had time to reflect. It was vocal. It was never acting. It was vocal. There was also goo going down backstage in that I had a very bad set of stage management. What a star of a musical wants, or the leading lady or the leading man of a musical wants, is support backstage. You have to expect [that support] if you [are to] go out and give 100 percent, and I did not have that backstage. It was difficult. It was one of those experiences that I was glad when it was over for a lot of reasons. The fact that I still have my voice is a miracle because I willed my voice in that production. I willed it. Every afternoon when I vocalized...I thought it was gone. The chords must have been swollen every single night, but that was my fault. I didn't have technique, and I didn't have a singing teacher that would be able to handle it. [Co-star] David Vosburgh did finally teach me how to sing the score, but it still was a struggle."
photo by Martha Swope |
"I have to say that I think it's Andrew and Tim's best work," LuPone observes. "I really think it's Andrew and Tim's best work, but I think it's [director] Hal [Prince's] production. I think it was so arresting — so visually arresting — and then the other elements of [why the musical created a new generation of theatregoers] is Evita Peron herself. 'Get them while they're young, Evita, get them while they're young.' That's a line in the play, and she sure did. She hooked kids by seeing that play."
Will LuPone catch the upcoming Broadway revival of Evita? "I definitely will go see [it]. I wouldn't if it was Hal's production, I don't think. I'd be a little scared to, but this isn't Hal's production, and Mandy feels the same way. We'll definitely go see it — not necessarily together, but…"
photo by Brigitte Lacombe |
In a rarity for Broadway actors, LuPone already knows what her next Main Stem gig will be: starring opposite Emmy Award winner Laurie Metcalf in the new David Mamet play The Anarchist, which is scheduled to arrive on Broadway in fall 2012. "I can just say that I'm onstage at the Barrymore and I'm thinking about it," says LuPone, who previously dazzled Broadway audiences in Mamet's 1997 drama, The Old Neighborhood. "I wanted to write David and say, 'I'm onstage at the Barrymore and I'm thinking about it!' Laurie and I met up in L.A. and we got halfway through it and I saw David. Laurie and I are challenged beyond belief and extremely excited about it. David has written two extremely powerful parts for women, and I've always said that David writes unbelievably complex, emotional women, and there is total proof of that — there has been, as far as I'm concerned, in every play he's written that's had a woman in it. This is further proof. Laurie and I will be challenged, and are thrilled to be doing it. I can't tell you how excited I am. It's a play that hopefully we'll be able to realize and communicate to an audience. It's a hard one."
photo by Joan Marcus |
So, why only 63 performances of An Evening With Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin? "Darling, we're booked in Kansas," LuPone says with a big laugh. "Got to move on! We had a booking in Kansas at the Kauffman Performing Arts Center before we were coming to Broadway and we're playing a week there. We gotta go! Got to honor those contracts!" Take note, theatregoers, LuPone and Patinkin's enchanted Evening only runs through Jan. 13, 2012.
[Ticket prices range from $71.50 to $136.50 (20 $25 rush tickets — plus $1.50 facility fee — are available for purchase on the day of each performance when the box office opens. The Barrymore Theatre is located at 243 West 47th Street.] Well, that's all for now. Happy diva-watching! E-mail questions or comments to [email protected].
Playbill Talks to Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, Two of a Kind: