AMERICAN THEATRE | Mr. Abbott Meets the Kid: The Care and Feeding of the Revival

The following is an excerpt from Jack within the Box: Or, How to Goddamn Direct, a brand new e book by Jack O’Brien. Michael Bloom’s evaluation of the e book is right here.

If I’m not fully mistaken, I consider I might need been the final particular person to work professionally with the legendary George Abbott. Well, “work with” could also be considerably deceptive, as we will see, however after we first met he was 105 years outdated, and he died two years later at 107, and I really consider these further two years had been just about fueled by fury at me. He referred to me as “the kid.” I used to be, let’s face it, nicely into my sixties, however to him, why not? “The kid smiles and agrees with you, and then he goes on and does what he goddamn likes!” When I heard that he’d mentioned that about our collaboration, I have to confess I felt sort of proud.

The event was the Broadway revival of his triumph of the fifties, Damn Yankees, which was to start on the Globe earlier than transferring on to Broadway for over a full yr’s run, with a wholesome nationwide tour to comply with. I used to be unaware of the truth that in his one hundredth yr, he’d directed a revival of the musical himself for the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, with Orson Bean in the important thing function of the satan, Applegate, believing the present to be foolproof and one thing of an annuity for him. But for varied causes, the manufacturing didn’t come collectively, and moderately than transferring it on to Broadway, it closed, an enormous disappointment in addition to considerably complicated for a person who had bestridden Broadway like a veritable colossus from roughly 1913 till 1995. Had the enterprise modified that a lot? he questioned. It had all the time labored earlier than . . . Why not now?

Sitting in enterprise class on the primary flight east from San Diego to New York one morning in 1993, I used to be rapidly discovering out why not. Out of absolutely the blue, the Globe had obtained a name from a producer, Mitchell Maxwell, who needed to know if (a) we needed to supply the revival with him previous to Broadway, and (b) I’d think about directing it. The kicker was, nonetheless, that I had solely the opening of the subsequent twenty-four hours to reply…which means studying the script, flying to New York to fulfill with Maxwell and Richard Adler, the one surviving authentic creator, who was summering someplace in or close to the Hamptons, as an alternative of his companion, the late composer Jerry Ross, or Mr. Abbott, who was at present dwelling in Florida. Tall order, all of that, however time was of the essence, and the chance had the supposed shelf lifetime of a tsetse fly.

My personal information of the piece was restricted…I will need to have been sixteen or seventeen years outdated after I first encountered Damn Yankees, carried out on the Clio Musical Tent in Michigan, a efficiency indelible in my reminiscence throughout which an actor named Lester Rawlins, taking part in Applegate, carried out his large quantity “Those Were the Good Old Days” with such panache that I assumed the ovation for that requisite encore was brought on by the brilliance of his efficiency, versus a efficiency that had been fastidiously calibrated, thought-about, and solidly rehearsed. If I’m not mistaken, it was this explicit virus that bit me on the spot and was by no means going to let me go. I can recall virtually each element of the night vividly.

But within the rushing cabin of my American Airlines flight, some thirty or so years later, the romance was clearly gone. Although I might recall each notice of that scrumptious rating, Mr. Abbott’s e book, based mostly on Douglass Wallop’s The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant and written in collaboration with Mr. Wallop, is a captivating baseball riff on the Faust legend, through which the remodeled older man lastly finds himself within the arms of the satan’s handmaiden, on this case, initially personified onstage by the unforgettable Gwen Verdon. In retrospect, nonetheless, all of it appeared each labored and dated, and, worse, now deeply offensive to ladies: At the tip of the musical, when outdated Joe returns residence to his spouse, Meg, she greets him with “Don’t tell me where you were…I don’t ever want to know.” I visibly cringed as I learn this, and my coronary heart sank. I used to be on my solution to confront one of many authentic authors, and in right this moment’s market how might I presumably assist this?

How rapidly, in our pendulum-swinging universe, values can change, typically seemingly in a single day. What as soon as was witty repartee can sound like insensitive insults, and what as soon as handed for normal byplay between the sexes in addition to the races is rendered just about insupportable by a society now pressured to relisten with newly enlightened ears. We stare typically with unbelieving eyes at what a portion of the populace as soon as recurrently celebrated as sheer leisure, and search regularly for methods to mitigate, to reform, to revoice themes deeply rooted in racism, misogyny, and home violence. It all operates as a sort of recurring blindness so offensive to many for therefore lengthy that we have now to retrain ourselves on virtually a day by day foundation. Like many of the remainder of the 20 th century’s self-satisfied, intrinsically white society, George Abbott pursued his myriad artistic pursuits with no social consciousness that any of it was, in any approach, offensive; he was a person who started working within the theatre as an actor in 1913, and who was nonetheless related and collaborating professionally on the time of his dying within the mid-nineties, just about a whole century later. He had seen, he had participated, he had been energetic longer than anybody else most likely on the planet, on the very top of his artistic powers, wearing a swimsuit and tie and carrying a fedora whereas rehearsing, as practically everybody did through the thirties. He was the gold customary. Period. Today, residents don’t placed on a coat and tie, even to go to church, not to mention a hat to work within the theatre. Mr. Abbott noticed all of it, did all of it, and just about led the parade. I really feel the necessity to make allowances whereas being cautious to not seem to guage him too harshly in right this moment’s mild. If, by right this moment’s requirements, some or a lot of the work seems sexist, it was, and it has taken all of us this lengthy to start to atone.

What he was, in actual fact, was a consummate entertainer, and as such, he used no matter was useful to make the purpose, button the scene, and ship the products. And my God! Did he ship them! He was, presumably, the unique “play doctor,” a shrewd and skilled authority known as in for a really excessive worth to “save” or repair any present that was out of city and in bother. He had extra tips up his sleeve than anybody earlier than or since. Surveying a bit of stage enterprise the place a tray of martinis was to be lifted by a visitor for his personal private consumption, when it repeatedly bought not a lot as a giggle from the viewers, he merely mentioned to the prop grasp, “Make them all Manhattans,” realizing that clear liquid wouldn’t learn from the stage in a Broadway home, however darker liquid would. And the joke labored! It is claimed that historically, early on, if any of his musicals had been in deep trouble within the second act, he would make use of an obese, baby-voiced comic named Thelma Pelish, put the poor pricey on curler skates, and simply push her throughout the stage. The home would come down! I hasten so as to add that I by no means noticed this, and blush to document it, probably not with the ability to substantiate it, however, unhappy however true, it sounds identical to one thing George Abbott might need give you.

So, naturally from his viewpoint, the tip of his e book for Damn Yankees might hardly be thought-about in any approach offensive, and but, with the information that in right this moment’s market, the best proportion of theatre tickets are bought by ladies, how might I presumably have a look at that a part of the script and never understand we had been trembling on the cusp of some sort of sociological catastrophe?

2.

But fairly instantly, there I’m—there all of us are—Mitchell Maxwell and his sister, Victoria, and Dan Markley, the very seekers of the rights, sitting with me within the beautiful Miami Beach lounge the place Mr. Abbott and his effusive third spouse, Joy, are actually completely dwelling. We’ve supposedly come for a dialogue in regards to the musical, the e book, and, on the prompting of my producers, to share “my take” on what ought to occur and the way that is likely to be achieved.

Mr. Abbott, born in 1887, is now totally 105 years of age. All the present footage one has ever seen of him reveal him to be tall, athletically straight, slim, in exquisitely tailor-made fits, and with a robust, no-nonsense expression on his very leading-man face, these eyes—even rendered in black-and-white images—astonishing of their readability and energy. But right here, lastly in his retirement, he’s however a figment of that picture, confined to a wheelchair, bent over, and collapsed, as if an inflated ball had been punctured, and between the slender shoulders, the face glares out, burning, impenetrable. And unimaginable to learn. Because at this stage, the muscle tissues within the face have relaxed, have ceased to carry up or to have the ability to replicate any emotion or expression he is likely to be feeling. The face turns resolutely down on the corners of the mouth, extensive, with the lips ceaselessly transferring in an inside monologue he both can’t share or refuses to. The impact, lastly, is of a everlasting grimace, as if he had been soured by some unimaginable disappointment, with solely these exceptional eyes carrying something evocative of life. The relaxation is a masks, like that of the traditional picture of tragedy…every part turns down, it doesn’t matter what he is likely to be making an attempt to specific.

Joy retains up an almost continuous roulade of cheery feedback, fluttering round to get drinks, regulate Mr. Abbott’s chair, by no means actually settling, not nervous, precisely, however as if keen the night to have some bodily exercise to it. A former nurse, she has been, as nicely, a extremely aggressive golfer, and till solely lately, when Mr. Abbott might not will himself round in a golf cart, they performed as a lot golf as humanly attainable, her maintaining with him, moderately than the opposite approach round. One recollects the reported legend of George Abbott, deep into his eighties, making weekly appearances at Roseland in Manhattan, often accompanied by not one however two Latina beauties, and dancing for hours alternately with the 2 women, who really wanted a spare to return alongside to take care of the punishing tempo of those conventional Friday-night exploits. He adored dancing, and, ramrod straight, tall, and lithe, he was spectacular on the dance ground.

Now he glares at me throughout the room, or does he? The fastened, masklike expression and the wispy, virtually ghostly sound of his voice are each devoid of any colour, any selection, any trace of how one ought to interpret what’s being mentioned. And what is being mentioned? My three producers, as shocked and awed as I’m to be within the Presence lastly of the Great Man in his personal lair, have subsided to monosyllabic grunts, and with the concentrate on me, and with an inclusive and cautious eye on Joy, I attempt to categorical my issues.

However, as I slowly start this considerably damped-down evaluation of facets of Damn Yankees that is likely to be lower than welcome in right this moment’s market, his eyes by no means go away my face; that basilisk stare is one in every of everlasting condemnation. Not simple to cheerily promote to that! I’ve seen actually superb alternatives for revisions to his e book that shouldn’t make all that a lot distinction within the dramatic arc and that may soften the extra jagged edges of mores that are actually remarkably far behind us. I point out the opportunity of shedding Meg’s sister as being lower than very important, the increase of the Applegate function extra applicable now for a star of Victor Garber’s sophistication and clout. No responses. No indication of sure, no, or perhaps. Still I plunge on, attending to the extra severe crux of the difficulty, the final scene, when Meg, the deserted spouse with no clue, merely sweeps all her husband’s transgressions below the rug whereas Lola, the satan’s handmaiden, who has apparently lately slept with Meg’s husband, for retribution has had her everlasting youth lifted with the intention to be labeled “the ugliest woman in Providence, Rhode Island.” It could but be a humorous flip of phrase, except, after all, you’re a girl and are available from Providence, Rhode Island, however the fats’s within the hearth now, and regardless of the underscoring of little yips and tender objections with which Joy has punctured my recitation alongside the way in which, there was no sound from the writer himself. The dialog stops, with futile assist from my colleagues, however after they’ve sputtered their demurrers like so many farts of vintage Fords, the room is quiet.

We sip our cocktails and wait. One or two of my pathetic remarks attempt to buoy up what’s left of his define as I evaluation what nonetheless stays of his glossy writing, his celebrated deft financial system. Nothing. I’m positive we’re useless within the water, and surprise how lengthy we are able to go on like this earlier than I, at the very least, should rise and provides my thanks, if not apologies for having ruined his night, and start my humiliating exit, when there may be instantly a rumble from Mr. Abbott’s throat, and all of us flip to him expectantly. The ghostly voice speaks: “I know how to fix the problem with the wife,” he presents, and you may really feel the ceiling rise above us, like God respiration gently to broaden the room. Perhaps there might be collaboration of a form, in any case. “How?” I ask, and the response is so fast, you understand he’s been ready for the chance: “Hire a fat woman!” comes the moment reply.

Everyone goes clean, even Joy. “Excuse me?” I provide, however Mr. Abbott has no intention of relinquishing the ground. “Hire a fat woman,” he repeats. “Fat women are just grateful to be married; they don’t give a damn what else happens.”

No one can give you something to say, however in reality, with all colour eliminated, all inflection, all spoken nuance bleached from his voice, we surprise: Is this a joke? Can he be teasing? Or is he presumably talking his fact? If it’s the previous, it’s a grotesque slap within the face to all our reasoning. If it’s the latter—oh,
if it’s the latter…!

Shortly after, we’ve made our abrupt goodbyes and withdrawn. It has been steered by Mitchell Maxwell that I “try” with, say, the primary scene, to write down another model of what I imply for Mr. Abbott to react to…No use working within the summary; we’ll give him eighteen or twenty pages of my model of the primary scene between Joe Hardy and Applegate, and he can reply and provides me notes. How about that? I’m despondent. This is kind of my worst nightmare. The nice George Abbott both doesn’t get my objections or received’t get my objections, and but I’m by some means alleged to submit another model of his work with the…what?…hope that he’ll fall in love with it? It received’t occur, I insist, however Maxwell claims by some means that regardless of the scene we’ve simply shared, he actually believes that I’m going to get at the very least 80 p.c of my revisions. He’s even keen to guess on it.

Weeks later, I submit eighteen pages of recent dialogue between Joe Hardy and a chic, vibrant Applegate, as I think about Victor Garber would possibly sound within the function, like a recent William Powell. I prefer it. The producers prefer it. Even Victor Garber likes it. But Mr. Abbott? No response, and from that, we take braveness that I’m meant to go on.

He didn’t say sure, precisely, however he didn’t say no, both, and I’m changing into increasingly enthralled by this new enterprise in addition to by my enjoyment of toying with it. I take liberties. I minimize Meg’s caustic, labored sister, and with the encouragement of the late James Raitt, our musical director, I flip the duet “Near to You,” initially sung in a park by younger Joe to Meg, right into a sleepless nightmare of Meg’s, whereas she is tossing and turning sleeplessly in mattress, and the place, via a scrim wall, she begins to intuit the mix of her husband with this new, scorching ballplayer, so what was initially conceived as a duet turns into a contemporary and exquisite trio for 3 principals. I take additional possibilities. Never feeling snug with “Two Lost Souls” as a duet for Lola and younger Joe, a sign that they’re headed for a torrid affair, I substitute Applegate, feeling that Lola and Applegate ought to cement their partnership and let the outdated man return to his comfortable suburban residence, whereas my two stars, Victor Garber and Bebe Neuwirth, may give the viewers a very sensational last “eleven o’clock” quantity, the time-honored excellent late spot to show the ultimate, full vary of the celebrities, replete with jets of fireside taking pictures out of the stage. Still no actual objections out of Miami Beach, and after I stub my metaphorical toe on the eroding ending of the second act, none apart from the visiting Tom Stoppard, peering over my shoulder in curiosity at what I’m at present doing, jogs my memory to “put a clock on the show,” as in Cinderella, which is able to compel the motion ahead. This, nonetheless, places nonetheless extra emphasis on the weak gadget of a weak trial scene, which is supposed to additional condemn our younger stalwart ballplayer, and after I name Mr. Abbott on the telephone for his recommendation and help, he rasps again his resolution…“Cut it! It never worked in the first place!”

Although I’m relieved that he’s keen to play as quick and unfastened along with his personal work as I’ve been doing, I remind him that this dippy courtroom scene is the one complication left earlier than we run out of story into the finale, and, lastly left alone by my collaborator fully silent, I stagger towards concocting a end by myself.

Finally, the day of reckoning arrives. Mr. Abbott and Joy are of their summer season residence, a beautiful cottage up within the Berkshires, and we three—Mitchell Maxwell, Dan Markley, and I—are summoned for a last evaluation. Like dutiful schoolboys, our faces vibrant and scrubbed, we present as much as this actually lovely cottage, which has been Mr. Abbott’s personal escape for most likely half a century, to be greeted by the indefatigable Joy and Himself, screwed into his wheelchair and, as all the time, trying imply as a snake. We group ourselves across the eating room desk, whereas outdoors, the unimaginable background of a few of the most beguiling surroundings on the Eastern Seaboard mocks our grim encounter. It’s simply previous ten within the morning after we start, and we don’t end till about 4 within the afternoon. Every single phrase, each scene, each phrase is scoured, sanded, argued, and debated by this relic of a person on the age of 105. Across the desk from me, these sensible, dazzling blue eyes in a principally useless face burn into mine, ferocious and fixed. Not a second is spared, not a single phrase is allowed to go by with no lash again by the unique writer. “Why not? What’s that? How can you do that?” Over and again and again for practically 5 hours with out even a rest room break. I defend, I feint, I protest, and eventually, after we are toe-to-toe over the issue of Applegate and never younger Joe singing “Two Lost Souls,” I’m drained of each purpose and endurance, and I say as forcefully as something I’ve but exhibited, “I can’t! I just can’t do that,” which means returning to his authentic resolution of Lola and younger Joe. “I just don’t believe it!”

Mr. Abbott’s arms go up previous his ears, and, reducing them, he manages to push the wheelchair again from the desk in disgust. “Well, that’s that!” he says with a sort of finality that wants no additional interpretation.

Silence. No one strikes. We’re useless. He received’t permit it, clearly, and we have now labored all this time in useless. I’ve gone too far. Even Joy appears to sense it. Gently, feebly, she presents, “Well, George, maybe there’s a way…,” to which he solutions with a fervor that’s now unmistakable, “No! That’s it! If he doesn’t believe it, he can’t make it work!”

What? What have I simply heard? He goes on, remarkably. “If you don’t believe in the material, you can’t direct it. That’s all there is to say.” There speaks a director, not a author. The author in him figures that he can all the time give you another resolution, supposedly, however the director is caught with solely the fabric at hand, and should completely consider in it, or he can’t anticipate his actors to consider as nicely. We have marched to the very fringe of the abyss in lockstep, and earlier than plunging over the sting, George Abbott has defended his personal cardinal rule, despite the fact that it could erase most of his personal writing. He successfully throws within the towel.

I’m exhausted, shocked, disbelieving what I’ve simply heard, and greater than that, I discover myself powerfully and emotionally moved on the integrity, the vitality, the sheer pressure of this man, very practically twice my age, and nonetheless in a position to battle me to a digital standstill. As we put together to go away, I provide a sort of weird compromise. “Mr. Abbott,” I say, “what about this? We know your version works. It always has. We have an opportunity to do this version in San Diego for you to see, and if we do it and you come out to see it and object, we’ll just scrap it and do the original.” I see Mitchell Maxwell going useless white behind the wheelchair, however he says nothing. Neither does Mr. Abbott. Does he consider me? Do I consider me? Is such a factor even attainable? But he graciously appears to simply accept it for what it’s—a gesture, maybe—and we take our go away.

Months later, Damn Yankees opened on the Old Globe theatre starring Victor Garber and Bebe Neuwirth, with humorous, contemporary choreography by Rob Marshall, and a e book intrinsically rewritten by me, however for the half dozen silver-plated jokes Mr. Abbott had initially crafted for the unique Applegate, Ray Walston, and which had been nonetheless actually humorous—“Who are you?” “Not a soul!”—and, versus what some witnesses insist, Mr. Abbott didn’t stride down the aisle below his personal steam, however was carried, like a delicate bag of autumn leaves, between my enterprise companion, Tom Hall, and our manufacturing supervisor, Ken Denison, to be deposited in an aisle seat, however historical past is true to report that there was, certainly, an instantaneous standing ovation by your entire viewers. They knew a legend after they noticed one.

And the subsequent morning, once more the dutiful schoolboy, I introduced myself on the lodge the place he and Joy had been staying, as she wheeled him right into a convention room the place I sat with pen and paper to “take my notes.” Again he glared throughout the huge desk at me—an area far too large, too extensive, for the bitter little packet of what was supposed to transpire between us. I lifted my pen and opened the pad, however Mr. Abbott waved a skinny hand my approach. “What does it matter what I say?” he mentioned. “They stood, didn’t they?”

And that was that. There spoke a sensible theatre skilled, the person who’d practically invented the career itself. He was something however sentimental. His Paper Mill Playhouse model hadn’t fired the way in which he believed it might. This one had. Big-time. So this was the model he needed. After all, he was nonetheless making a dwelling.

My identify was by no means to seem alongside his with any sense of authorship. The producers paid me pretty decently for my route, making an attempt to compensate for what I had contributed, which might now play for nicely over two years, however a director’s royalties don’t final remotely so long as an writer’s. Mr. Abbott knew that, and there was no approach, in any case I had executed to his authentic script, that he would invite me onto that web page. The consummate professional, he merely swept all of the chips off the desk. “Neuf à la banque!” His present. His rewards.

And what of the phantasm of anger? Was he, certainly, indignant at me, as I’ve presumed all these years later? I don’t assume so. Oh, he was indignant, all proper, however not finally at me. On some degree he had made his peace with me, and if he didn’t approve, there was a grudging respect in any case. “The kid smiles and agrees with you, and then he goes on and does what he goddamn likes!” But these eyes…the ability of a lifetime winnowed down to 2 blazing blue orbs in a encompass of failing flesh. He might by no means forgive the truth that he was not the one doing the work, giving the orders, making it “happen.” It most likely didn’t matter who else did it, as long as it labored. But the ultimate unforgivable insult was that it was not him. And that was all that was left smoking in that collapsed face.

Facing my mattress in my new Connecticut residence, mockingly sufficient, is a bust of George Abbott, an award that bears his identify given by our union, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, for distinguished work over a profession, and which was introduced to me plenty of years in the past. He watches me, I suppose, as I sleep. And these strains—neither his nor mine—float within the room between us: “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright / In the forests of the night, / What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

What a person.

Jack O’Brien was the creative of the Old Globe Theatre from 1981 to 2007, and has received three Tony Awards for his route.

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