Marc Kudisch: The Many Meanings of Temptation

The Apple Tree is a fascinating look at how people deal with temptation. The third part in particular, "Passionella," could be a case study in the old saying "Be careful what you wish for." Jules Feiffer wrote the original story as an ode to how Norma Jean Baker became Marilyn Monroe—the kind of transformation Kristin Chenoweth can certainly relate to as a small-town girl who found great success on stage and screen. But the wonderful changes that come with success also include temptations. As actors, we constantly have to ask ourselves, "Will this make me happy?"

That's the big question: What makes someone happy in life? I remember when I was playing Gaston in Beauty and the Beast and was cast as Conrad Birdie in the TV movie of Bye Bye Birdie. As the film was coming out, I got an offer to do Beauty and the Beast in Los Angeles. Everyone expected me to go. But that was never really what I wanted to do—I wanted to be in New York, working on Broadway. If I had made another choice, would I be more famous now? Maybe. Would I have been happier? No.

Film and TV represents success in our business. But why? I've had a very successful career as a stage actor after having been told that a career in the theater isn't really possible anymore. These days, as we all know, there's the constant temptation of fame, of celebrity, of "celeb reality." But is it happiness to have your picture plastered in junk magazines week after week? I don't judge anyone whose goal is to become famous. But you have to take responsibility for your ambition; you have to own up to it. And if you find out that the pursuit of fame doesn't work for you, it doesn't make you a failure.

I'm often asked about the uncertainty of building a career in the theater. My answer is that I go into every job knowing that there is no security. It's sort of like a squirrel hoarding nuts for the winter: I invest myself creatively on as many interesting projects as I can, and I get "outs" in my contract so I can pursue a variety of things. In Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, for example, I had a out to work on See What I Wanna See. In this show, I negotiated a contract with the understanding that I had already been offered the lead in The Pirates of Penzance at City Opera in March. It's not that I don't value the job at hand; I've simply learned that it makes sense not to place all your eggs in one basket. I know actors who think they are ruined when a Broadway show doesn't go the way they dreamed. It's one job, not your whole life; not your whole career. One job does not define you. Hopefully, you will get the chance to define the job. When a show closes, I don't say, "Dammit, I deserved better! Why couldn't people see how great this show was, or how great I was?" Life is not about one moment; it's about many of them.

An evening at the theater is the same: The mind attaches itself to moments, which is one reason the size of a role is immaterial to me. A lot of people would read my parts in The Apple Tree and say, "Oh, that's thankless." I don't think so, because my job is to drive the story forward and bridge the scenes and the moments. Look at the Snake in "The Diary of Adam and Eve." Yes, he's in only one scene, but his impact shifts the entire play. The same thing is true of the Proprietor in Assassins. Originally, that character did the opening number and then became a chorus part. But with the permission of composer Stephen Sondheim, book writer John Weidman and director Joe Mantello, I created a throughline for the character that continued throughout the show.

The bottom line is that I love what we do in the theater. I love being in front of an audience. I love communicating. Every night, we're performing for a group of people who have never been together before and will never be together in the same room again. There's a unique energy that we share with them and they, in turn, share with us. And I have never, ever been tempted to give that up.