Meeting Mother

So it turns out that Brenda Blethyn and Edie Falco--who start performances next Friday as mom and daughter in 'night, Mother--hadn't even laid eyes on each other before agreeing to team up for the drama. "We just met not that long ago at a dinner," Falco said at a press event last Thursday. "Well, we spoke on the phone once," Blyten chimed in before turning to me to add: "You know, everyone I know who'd worked with her always would say, 'Edie Falco--she's fabulous.' The name never came without the 'She's fabulous!'"

Of course, Falco, who blushed at her new onstage mama's praise, is fabulous. She also happens to be on a career roll, with two Golden Globes and three Emmys on her mantle for her work in The Sopranos not to mention critical hosannas for Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (which she starred in opposite her ex Stanley Tucci). But Blethyn's no stranger to award shows herself, after earning Oscar nominations for both Secret and Lies and Little Voice. Still, 'night, Mother marks the British stage vet's Broadway debut, a pressure that she's not taking lightly: "I hope I don't disappoint. I'm working very hard. I'm not blasé about it in any way. There are a lot of the best actors here, and I'm just thrilled to have the chance to be here."

Blethyn didn't know Marsha Norman's Pulitizer Prize-winning script--about a troubled daughter who tells her mother that she intends to kill herself before morning--before it was sent to her by director Michael Mayer. But she immediately felt the emotional power of the piece, something that Falco remembered from seeing the original Broadway production starring Kathy Bates and Anne Pitoniak. "More than actually remembering specifics about it," Falco said "It was the feeling I remembered, being so moved. And the idea that a story and just two actresses could create this feeling." On a more practical level, Falco also wanted to take on the role of epileptic Jessie (after Frankie and Johnny, her second Bates part) because of its size. "This is gonna sound terrible," she said. "But I have friends who work on Broadway and they say, 'I'm in two minutes in the first act and then I come in at the end of the third.' If I'm going to make this kind of time and energy commitment, I want to be out there the whole time! I want to do a lot and really sink my teeth in."

The always-working Mayer revealed that he never saw the original 1983 production because he was a poor student at New York University at the time. "I only second-acted shows," he said. "And this was a one-act, so I was out of luck! But I used to second-act whatever was playing next door, and I remember seeing audiences coming out of the theater from 'night, Mother like they'd really been through something tremendous." Norman, sitting to his right, said that ushers at the Golden Theatre would have to wait for audience members to move after the show's shattering conclusion. "People couldn't get out of their seats," she said. "It wasn't that they were devastated. They just need to sit and absorb it."

At the time best known for her off-Broadway sensation Getting Out, Norman was inspired to write the show after a handful of friends had killed themselves in the early '80s. "It was a very troublesome time for me," she said. "I wanted to know if I could have done something to stop them, if I could have made a difference." Norman had an amazing writing process for the play--as she wasn't a mother herself at the time, she would sit at her desk on the Upper West Side and write out Jessie's impossible-to-answer questions and then turn to the New York City's public transportation to find mother Thelma's answers. "The busses are filled with mamas," she said. "I would look at them and literally have silent conversations with them. I always say that it was not something I wrote, but something I received. I could feel what those women on the bus would say."

On a slightly unrelated tangent, you can never tell what a presidential candidate is going to say to appeal to the voters of the country. Which is why I had to ask Falco about the John Kerry's mention of Tony Soprano, her TV hubby, in the final presidential debate the night before. "I was watching it with friends," she said. "Literally, my jaw dropped when it happened. You know in the movies when the actors on TV are suddenly talking to you? It felt like that! And in my self-centered way, I thought, 'John Kerry knows who I am! If he knows Tony Soprano, he must know me!'"

"I felt the same thing," Blethyn laughed. "I said, he knows my girl!" Looks like a motherly instinct is settling in nicely!

GOODBYE TO BALTIMORE
It had to happen, ladies and gentlemen--Jackie Hoffman has left the building. The Neil Simon Theatre, that is, where the downtown staple has been injecting a taste of real John Waters spirit into Hairspray since the day it started. I spoke to Hoffman just hours before her final performance on October 14, at which point she was trying to process her thoughts. "I'm incredibly emotional," she offered. "But I'm emotional about groceries. Actually, I'm really mixed. It's like Yom Kippur; I just want it to be over." Although she's left Baltimore, Hoffman isn't heading to the unemployment line just yet--she'll be part of the company of The Downtown Plays, the centerpiece of the first-ever Tribeca Theater Festival. Running from October 19 to 31, Hoffman will star in a series of short plays--Warren Leight's Happy For You, Wendy Wasserstein's Psyche In Love and Paul Rudnick's Pride and Joy ("Basically a monologue and one of the funniest things I've ever read.") This holiday season, Hoffman will also be seen at Joe's Pub in Jackie Hoffman and Kristine Zbornik: Together Again for the First Time, teaming up with the Forbidden Broadway star for what is being described as "Carol and Julie in Carnegie Hall at Christmas, without Carol and Julie, Carnegie Hall or Christ." But does Hoffman see herself returning to Hairspray at any point? "Yeah, probably," she admitted. "[Producer] Margo Lion says I can come back whenever I want. Yeah, right. Like they're gonna cut off Julie Halston's contract! Like it's nothing! Like it's going back to a shoe sale!"

IN BOX
Dear Paul:
The recent report about your visit to California ("2 Scoundrels, 2 Audreys and 1 Musical Moses") has a patronizing tinge. If you had ventured beyond San Diego and L.A., you would have learned it has many years since we have been deprived of theater. Seattle has a vibrant theater scene. Seattle Rep just opened a production of Anna in the Tropics which one critic said was better than the one on Broadway. Also, the Intiman Theatre just opened it's production of Our Town. If you had traveled down I-5, you would have arrived in Ashland, Oregon, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, nearing the end of its 2004 season. Each season, the festival mounts 11 productions. This season patrons could see The Comedy of Errors, The Royal Family, Durrenmatt's The Visit, all three parts of Henry VI, King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, Humble Boy, Topdog/Underdog, Frank Galati's new play Oedipus Complex, and a stunning production of A Raisin in the Sun that didn't depend on stunt casting and has been SRO all season. Then if you had moved on to San Francisco, you would have discovered another city with a vibrant theater scene. The Opposite of Sex isn't the only show in town. Please keep in mind that not every production on this coast is trying out for a New York City run. I'll grant you that NYC has a vibrant theater scene, but it has been years since it was the center of the theatrical universe in this country. Come back often Mr. Wontorek, but next time, get out more and live a little. There is more to life than musicals.
----Robert A, Leff
----Corvallis, Oregon

Dear Robert:
Sorry if my column rubbed you the wrong way, and I'm glad that there are so many terrific theaters offering classic works to West Coasters. I was simply writing about what interested me and didn't intend to paint the theater scene as limited to the Broadway-bound shows that I mostly focused on. I thought I was getting out and living a little by taking my trip in the first place! Ah, well.

That's it for now. Talk to you next time. Please e-mail me any of your questions, comments or critiques!

Paul Wontorek
Editor-in-Chief

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