STAGE TO SCREENS: Merkerson, McDonagh, Stritch, Balaban, LaVoy
By Michael Buckley
14 Jan 2008
"Two's Company" co-starring Donald Sinden, was one of three British sitcoms that Stritch made during the years she lived in England. It was recently released (in its entirety, 1975-79) on DVD. "I wrote all my own stuff," notes Stritch. "They'd give me a script, and I'd rewrite it — Americanize it." She's not especially fond of the At Liberty DVD: "It could have been a lot better. We made it in London, and the producing people were a pain in the ass."
She describes her music director-accompanist, Rob Bowman, as "brilliant!" Continues Stritch, "The other night, I went up on a name in 'I'm Still Here.' I sang, 'I've been through...' You be me, and I'll tell you what Rob did." Following instructions, I say, "I've been through..."
Stritch as Bowman sings, "Brenda Frazier," and as herself sings, "And I'm here." She says, "The audience cracked up. Rob's right there for me, all the time. But I rarely forget a line."
Prior to At Liberty winning a Tony Award, Stritch was nominated four times: William Inge's Bus Stop (her 1956 dramatic debut), Noel Coward's Sail Away (1962), Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's Company (1971), and Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance (1996).
Next up for Stritch is a BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) production of Samuel Beckett's Endgame. "It's a small part," says Stritch, "but I wanted to do a little bit of Beckett. They asked me to do [Beckett's] Happy Days, but I didn't want to go through that [where she'd be buried up to her neck in sand]. I'd rather be in a different venue of sand. Like the Hamptons."
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HBO's "Bernard and Doris" (Feb. 9, 8 PM ET/PT) was directed by Bob Balaban who says that the film's budget "was more than I've ever spent — for lunch."
The "labor of love" required called-in favors, loaned-out jewelry, and borrowed clothing. "We ended up with a three-week [shooting] schedule, two very large stars, and a teeny-tiny budget."
Hugh Costello wrote the screenplay, which is an imagined take on the real-life relationship between alcoholic Irish butler Bernard Lafferty (Ralph Fiennes) and billionaire tobacco heiress Doris Duke (Susan Sarandon).
Were there any challenges for Balaban? "The same as with any movie. How do you make sure that there's something living and breathing on the screen? Two great actors who loved working together made that job very, very easy, and brought something to the screenplay that was magical. My job was to not get in the way. And, if Susan and Ralph needed anything, to help."
Chicago-born Balaban made his Off-Broadway debut as Linus in 1967's You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. He left the musical to make his Broadway debut (playing two roles) in Neil Simon's trio of one-act plays, Plaza Suite, starring George C. Scott and Maureen Stapleton, "one of the best people in the world." On the first day of rehearsals, director Mike Nichols offered Balaban a role in his next film, "Catch-22." Balaban's movie debut, however, was in 1969's Oscar-winning Best Picture "Midnight Cowboy," which he filmed during the run of the Simon comedy.
As a panicky gay student, he encounters the hustler portrayed by Jon Voight ("wonderful to work with") at a seedy Times Square movie house. Balaban claims that, even though "the sexual experience [scene] happened completely off-screen," it earned the film its X-rating. "It's very tame compared to what happens in movies now." The only X-rated film to receive an Academy Award, the rating was reduced to an R (with no deletions) after winning.
Nichols had envisioned Balaban in the role of Milo Minderbender in "Catch-22," but following a reading, he decided that the actor was better suited to play the crash-happy Captain Orr. (Jon Voight was cast as Milo.)
Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" cast Balaban as a cartographer who serves as scientist Francois Truffaut's translator. His account of the filming was published in 1978, and in an updated 2003 version, "Spielberg, Truffaut & Me: An Actor's Diary."
After appearing in Sidney Lumet's "Prince of the City" (1981), Balaban apprenticed himself to the director for a behind-the-camera course, as Lumet filmed "Deathtrap" (1982). "It was one of the most interesting things I've ever done. [Lumet's] a great teacher!"
Among Balaban's many directorial credits is "The Exonerated" (Court-TV, 2005). He had also "directed and produced [and for a time appeared in] the Off-Broadway stage version, on tour, and in London."
TV fans fondly remember him as Russell Dalrymple, the fictitious NBC president, on five "Seinfeld" episodes (1992-93), and as the real network head, Warren Littlefield, in the 1996 cable movie "The Late Shift" (based on the battle between Jay Leno and David Letterman, as to who would be Johnny Carson's late-night TV successor).
His other Broadway acting credits include Gogol's The Inspector General, for which he earned a 1979 Tony nomination, and David Mamet's three-character 1988 play Speed the Plow, in which he and Felicity Huffman succeeded Ron Silver and Madonna. Most recently, Balaban appeared Off-Broadway in Mamet's 2005 Romance.
Married 30 years to writer Lynn Grossman, they have two daughters, Mariah ("a real-estate broker") and Hazel ("a sophomore at Barnard").
Besides acting, directing, writing, and producing, Balaban found time to pen six children's books about a bionic dog named McGrowl. Upcoming is an April HBO movie, "Recount," which is "about the 2000 election and the Florida recount. I play Leo Ginsberg, lead consul to Bush-Cheney."
Vanity Fair's (February issue) coverage of "Bernard and Doris" states: "Sarandon delivers a virtuoso performance...Fiennes is heartbreaking in his portrayal," and New York Post TV-critic Linda Stasi observed (Dec. 26, 2007) that the movie is "so good that it's too bad you have to wait until February to see [it]."
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January LaVoy alternates between stage — at this time last year, she was Off-Broadway in August Wilson's Two Trains Running ("second to none, so far in my career") — and TV, where presently she plays Noelle on the ABC weekday soap opera "One Life to Live" (2 PM ET).
LaVoy says that "75 percent of my scenes are with Erika Slezak [whose father, Walter Slezak, won a Tony Award for Fanny]. She's been on the show 37 years [in March]. I've never met anyone quite like her. She's so professional, so talented, so generous. It's rare to work with someone who's all three."
"We do the equivalent of a one-hour episode a day," she explains. "Primetime shows take 12 or 13 days to shoot an hour episode. Unless things go wrong, they use the first take. In that way, it's very much like live theatre."
Among LaVoy's TV credits are all three "Law & Order" series, and her stage roles include Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire, Grace in The Piano Lesson, Portia in The Merchant of Venice, the Player Queen in Hamlet, and Roxane in Cyrano de Bergerac.
Born in Connecticut, she was named for the character January Wayne in Jacqueline Susann's novel "Once Is Not Enough." A December baby, she once asked her mother, "If you didn't want me to be an actress, why did you name me 'January'?"
A graduate of Fairfield University, LaVoy won a full scholarship to the three-year graduate program at Denver's National Theater Conservatory.
"One Life to Live" shoots in Manhattan, a month in advance. "My parents, who have moved to Maine, are thrilled that they get to see me a few times a week [on TV]. My mother calls and says, 'Your hair looked so nice today.' I say, 'Thank you, but that was my hair a month ago.' Right now, I'm in a very good place. I'm in my favorite city — and working."
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VARIOUS AND SUNDRY
The Jan. 13 scheduled ceremony for "The Golden Globes", my favorite reality-TV show, has been cancelled, because actors refused to cross the writers' picket lines. In its place, NBC will televise a press conference, on which winners will be announced. Let's hope that this doesn't start a trend, with press conferences naming the SAG and Oscar winners, and people holding up sketches of gowns that actresses would have worn.
Several of the TV shows in the running for Golden Globes feature Tony winners: "Pushing Daisies" (Jim Dale, Swoosie Kurtz), "Damages" (Glenn Close, Philip Bosco), "30 Rock" (Jane Krakowski), "House" (Robert Sean Leonard), and "Mad Men" (Robert Morse)...Film versions of two Broadway musicals ("Hairspray", "Sweeney Todd") are in competition for Best Musical.
I'll write about the new "A Raisin in the Sun" movie in my next column. But the film bows Jan. 23 at the Sundance Film Festival, the first network production ever to play there. It stars the 2004 Broadway cast: Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad, and Audra McDonald.
Portraying the mother of Denzel Washington in Golden Globe-nominated "American Gangster" is gifted veteran stage and screen actress Ruby Dee, and convincingly playing a Federal agent in one scene is Broadway's Young Frankenstein, Roger Bart
My favorite imaginary double feature that I'd love to see in lights on a marquee somewhere? "Sweeney Todd" and "There Will Be Blood."
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Stage to Screens is Playbill.com's monthly column that connects the dots between artists who cross freely between theatre, film and television. Michael Buckley has written this column since 2002. He may be contacted at stagetoscreens@aol.com.
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