Rosemary Harris: My Royal Family Reunion
About the author:
Where to begin describing the career of Rosemary Harris? In 60 years (!) as an actress, she’s taken the stage opposite Laurence Olivier, Rex Harrison, Peter O’Toole, Richard Burton, Michael Redgrave, Charlton Heston, Paul Scofield, John Gielgud, Jack Lemmon and George Grizzard, to name but 10 leading men. The British-born Harris has made her mark onscreen as well, with a Golden Globe for Holocaust, an Oscar nomination for Tom and Viv and pop culture immortality as Aunt May in the Spider-Man films. Fortunately for Broadway audiences, the 82-year-old star is back onstage playing matriarch Fanny Cavendish in Manhattan Theatre Club’s revival of The Royal Family. It’s a play she knows well, having starred as diva Julie Cavendish in a celebrated 1976 Broadway production directed by her ex-husband, Ellis Rabb. (Happily, that revival was captured on a still-available “Great Performances” video.) Given Harris’ history with the Cavendish clan (based on the Barrymores), we figured she could share plenty of insight into Kaufman and Ferber’s classic comedy—and we were right!
Returning to The Royal Family after more than 30 years feels as comfortable as putting on a warm sock on a cold winter morning. Frankly, I think the play is a masterpiece. The more we perform it, the more we realize how beautifully written and intricate it is. There’s so much coming and going, with doorbells ringing and doors slamming, I find myself standing in the wings trying to remember who’s there, even though I’m so familiar with the text!
I have such fond memories of the production we did on Broadway in 1976. It was originally intended to be done only at the Kennedy Center as part of the bicentennial celebration. Because we were a success, BAM offered us a port, and then we sailed into the Helen Hayes Theatre—the one that was later pulled down to build the Marriott Marquis Hotel. Ellis [Rabb, Harris’ ex-husband] was a brilliant director and assembled an outstanding cast, just as Doug Hughes has done for this production. Ellis always brought out the love in a play, and I think Doug, who is the son of actors [Helen Stenborg and the late Barnard Hughes], understands the heart of the play just as Ellis did.
In playing Fanny Cavendish, I think of myself as Eva Le Gallienne’s understudy. All I’m trying to do is reproduce what she did in 1976. We’re not really alike, but she was extraordinary in the part, and wonderfully warm and generous to me. It’s been fascinating to watch Jan Maxwell play Julie, the role I had in 1976 with Le Gallienne as my mother. Jan looks more like a Broadway star than I ever did. When she comes onstage in her red dress, she’s simply ravishing, and she plays the part beautifully.
The 1976 production was preserved on a video that was filmed a bit later, so some of the cast had changed. George Grizzard, for example, had to leave soon after the Broadway opening, and Ellis stepped in, saying, “Oh well, now’s my chance to play Tony Cavendish.” Jan Maxwell told me that she decided she wanted to play Julie after seeing that video, which was delightful to hear. I haven’t watched it for several years, but a few cast members have said that they’d like to watch it after our production ends.
So many things in this play ring true today, particularly the way the women characters find themselves torn between work and their families. Fanny’s line, “Marriage isn’t a career. It’s an incident!” must have gotten shocked laughter in 1927 from all those society ladies, because marriage was a career to them. In 2009, the same line gets understanding laughter. I remember so distinctly when I was doing Hay Fever on Broadway and my daughter [actress Jennifer Ehle], who was about 13, wanted to take a taxi uptown alone to see a movie with friends. I said, “Jennifer, darling, please don’t! I won’t be able to go on the stage, I’ll be so worried.” Now Jan is doing the same kind of juggling with her 11-year-old son, Will, and Ana Gasteyer has two little ones. When you’re an actor and a parent, there’s always that pull.
The depiction of actors in The Royal Family is so appealing to audiences. When Fanny’s granddaughter Gwen says, “Acting isn’t anything,” she replies, “It’s everything. It’s work and play and meat and drink. They’ll tell you it isn’t—your fancy friends—but it’s a lie! And they know it’s a lie! They’d give their ears to be in your place.” The truth is, I do think a lot of people have a secret fantasy about being in show business.
It’s no surprise that actors love this play. Doug Hughes is always impressing on us the importance of “passing the baton” to one another during the performance, either to feed a line so that someone else can get a laugh or time a speech to make every moment count. We’re all interconnected or symbiotic or whatever the new word is. Fortunately, some of the parts in The Royal Family are very close to the actors who are playing them—or so they say! And everyone is wonderful.
