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by Michael Portantiere
THE LADY IS A CHAMP
For the better part of two decades, Charles Busch was one of the leading lights of Off-Broadway as the author and drag star of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, The Lady in Question, Red Scare on Sunset, and a clutch of other fabulous entertainments. More recently, he conquered Broadway as the author of the comedy hit The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, and he wrote the book for the underrated musical Taboo. His latest stage work, Our Leading Lady, had a run at Manhattan Theatre Club last season. Two of his plays, Psycho Beach Party and Die Mommie Die, were made into films that have become minor cult classics.
Just last week, it was announced that the stage version of Die Mommie Die will have a limited run at New World Stages this fall, with Busch starring. And, as we speak, the indefatigable artiste is headlining a revival of The Lady in Question at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, directed by Christopher Ashley. Bush is once again cavorting with Julie Halston, his longtime partner in comic mayhem; the cast also includes the mega-talented Candy Buckley, Barrett Foa, Larry Keith, Richard Kind, Matt McGrath, Perry Ojeda, and Ana Reeder.
Described as a free-wheeling satire of 1940s espionage flicks, The Lady in Question tells the tale of Gertrude Garnet, a glamorous, egotistical, self-centered concert pianist who becomes a true heroine when a handsome American professor enlists her help in rescuing his mother from a Nazi prison. Busch, Halston, and company spoke about the show, which runs August 14-September 2 at Bay Street, during the final stages of rehearsal.
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Charles Busch: I've always wanted to work with everyone in this cast. I'm a little obsessed with Matt McGrath. I remember seeing him in 1989 in Amulets of the Dragon Forces, this incredible Paul Zindel play, when he was just a kid. He gave one of the great performances; it was like Julie Harris in The Member of the Wedding. Richard Kind, of course, took over in The Tale of the Allergist's Wife and breathed new life into that play, so I thought it would be fun to act with him. I think we make a very good team.
Richard Kind: I'd never seen any of Charles' shows Off-Broadway, but I had friends in the company, and I would always hear them talk about The Lady in Question in particular. A lot of people think it's his best work. Charles recently directed me in the radio version of Allergist's Wife. The thought that I might be playing opposite him romantically in this play just killed me -- not to mention the fact that I'd be playing a Nazi. I was very nervous about taking the part. I still think Charles has made a huge mistake.
Julie Halston: It's not a mistake at all!
Busch: I love it when people play against type. Richard is one of those actors with a very strong comic persona, but he can't rely on that in this role. He's doing a whole different kind of characterization, and I think that's really cool. [To Kind:] The only thing I'm concerned about is that you keep cracking up every time you look at Matt. What's gonna happen when you see him with blonde braids and a dirndl?
Matt McGrath: I've seen Charles perform in benefits, and I was in a reading of Red Scare on Sunset. That didn't go forward to a production for one reason or another, but it was an honor to work with Charles and the rest of the cast. I think his whole canon should be revisited.
Halston: That would be fine with me! I already know all my lines from all the plays. They're so well written. When we went back to look at our parts [in The Lady in Question], it came back so easily.
Barrett Foa: The documentary about Charles and his company [Charles Busch is The Lady in Question] is so useful for those of us who didn't know the history.
Halston: You can read about our company in the Yale Drama Review and a lot of other theater quarterlies and journals. They all mention Charles' work as seminal. It was crazy, nutty, and so much fun doing those shows at the Limbo Lounge. We'll never see that kind of theater again. When I've done shows like Hairspray and Gypsy on Broadway, I've found that all the young gay boys are very worshipful of Charles. My door was always open, and they would come in and say, "Tell me about the '80s!"
Foa: I went to see the movie Die Mommie Die the day it came out, and I immediately became a huge fan of Charles.
Busch: It's interesting when people get to know your work at different stages in your career. There are a lot of young people who know me only from the two cult movies, and that's great. Allergist's Wife is done pretty often by stock and amateur groups. Vampire Lesbians and Psycho Beach Party are also done a lot, but The Lady in Question not so much. I think it's daunting because it can be an expensive show to produce; it needs a lot of costumes, a double-decker set with a staircase. It used to bug me that some critics described the show as a hilarious spoof of B movies. That's not true at all! This would have been a deluxe star vehicle, something that Joan Crawford or Norma Shearer would have starred in at MGM.
Kind [to Busch]: Do you mind it when people use the words "parody" or "spoof" to describe your plays?
Busch: I think of them more as hommages. We do send up the conventions of 1940s films, but I like to think that this play works on several levels; it makes you laugh, but you can also get into the suspense and root for the heroine to escape. That's my metier as a performer, to play a female character with as much psychological insight as I can but also to comment on the star acting conventions of the past. It's a tightrope I'm walking, and everybody has to walk it with me.
Halston: Some very skilled, very talented actors just cannot do that. When you find people who can, like this cast, you realize it's a special talent.
Busch: I'd love to do The Lady in Question as a movie, to open it up and film it in black and white.
Halston: There was a TV commercial for the show when we did it the first time, and it was fantastic.
Busch: Yes. It was directed by Paris Barclay, who went on to become a famous TV director. It was in black and white, and we had all these set-ups. I think we had to close the show because we spent so much money on the commercial, but it was very stylish.
Halston: The commercial is in the documentary. I can't tell you how emotional it was to see that movie. I've been stopped on the street and I've gotten emails from people all over the country, telling me how moved they were by what I said about the '80s and the AIDS crisis. Charles and I went to promote the documentary in San Francisco; we went to every screening at the Castro Theater. The audiences were terrific. Now, we're excited because it looks like The Lady in Question is going to be the best-selling play of the Bay Street season. It's an amazing experience for us to be doing it again.
Posted by Michael Portantiere on Tuesday, August 14, 2007 | Item Link
Michael Portantiere comes to BroadwayStars after seven years as Editor in Chief of TheaterMania.com, having previously worked as an editor and writer for InTheater magazine and Back Stage. He has contributed articles to Playbill and Stagebill, and has written notes for several major cast albums. Michael is also a professional photographer.
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2007-08
Broadway Season
June 28 - Old Acquaintance (AA)
July 10 - Xanadu (Hayes) [Robert Ahrens, Dan Vickery, Tara Smith/B. Swibel and Sarah Murchison/Dale Smith]
Aug 19 - Grease (Atkinson)
Oct 4 - Mauritius (Biltmore) [MTC]
Oct 11 - The Ritz (54)
Oct 18 - Pygmalion (AA)
Oct 25 - A Bronx Tale (Kerr)
Nov 1 - Cyrano de Bergerac (Rodgers)
Nov 4 - Rock 'N' Roll (Jacobs)
Nov 8 - Young Frankenstein (Hilton)
Nov 9 - Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (St. James)
Nov 10: Local One Strike Begins
Nov 28: Local One Strike Ends
Dec 2 - Cymbeline (Beaumont)
Dec 3 - The Farnsworth Invention (Music Box) [Dodger Properties with Steven Spielberg, Dan Cap Productions, Fred Zollo, Latitude Link and the Pelican Group]
Dec 4 - August: Osage County (Imperial) [Jeffrey Richards, Jean Doumanian, Steve Traxler, Jerry Frankel, Steppenwolf]
Dec 6 - The Seafarer (Booth)
Dec 9 - Is He Dead? (Lyceum)
Dec 16 - The Homecoming (Cort) [Richards, Frankel]
Jan 10 - The Little Mermaid (Lunt)
Jan 15 - The 39 Steps (AA)
Jan 17 - November (Barrymore)
Jan 24 - Come Back, Little Sheba (Biltmore)
Feb 21 - Sunday In The Park With George (54)
Feb 28 - Passing Strange (Belasco)
Mar 6 - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Broadhurst) [Stephen C. Byrd]
Mar 9 - In The Heights (Rodgers)
Mar 27 - Gypsy (St. James)
Mar 29 - Macbeth (Lyceum)
Apr 3 - South Pacific (Beaumont)
Apr 17 - A Catered Affair (Kerr) [Jujamcyn Theaters, Jordan Roth, Harvey Entertainment / Ron Fierstein, Richie Jackson and Daryl Roth]
Apr 24 - Cry Baby (Marquis)
Apr 27 - The Country Girl (Jacobs)
Apr 30 - Thurgood (Booth)
May 1 - Les Liaisons Dangereuses (AA)
May 4 - Boeing-Boeing (Longacre)
May 7 - Top Girls (Biltmore)
TBA - Godspell
2008-09
Broadway Season
Oct 16 - Billy Elliot (Imperial)
Nov 08 - Dividing the Estate (a Shubert theater)
Dec 14 - Shrek: The Musical (Broadway) [DreamWorks]
Talked About
Not Scheduled Yet
TBA - 50 Words
TBA - Addams Family (Elephant Eye)
TBA - American Buffalo
TBA - An American Vaudeville [Farrell, Perloff]
TBA - The Beard of Avon [NYTW]
TBA - Being There [Permut]
TBA - Benny & Joon [MGM]
TBA - Billy Elliot
TBA - Brave New World [Rachunow]
TBA - Breath of Life [Fox]
TBA - Busker Alley [Margot Astrachan, Robert Blume, Kristine Lewis, Jamie Fox, Joanna Kerry & Heather Duke]
TBA - Broomhilda
TBA - Bye Bye Birdie [Niko]
TBA - Camille Claudel [Wildhorn]
TBA - Camelot
TBA - Carmen [Robin DeLevita and The Firm]
TBA - Catch Me If You Can
TBA - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon [Bob and Harvey Weinstein]
TBA - Cry Baby [Grazer, Gordon, McAllister, Epstein]
TBA - Designing Women [Alexis]
TBA - Don Juan DeMarco [New Line]
TBA - Dreamgirls [Creative Battery]
TBA - Duet
TBA - Equus
TBA - Ever After [Adam Epstein]
TBA - Fallen Angels (Shubert) [Kenwright]
TBA - Farragut North [Richards]
TBA - Father of the Bride
TBA - The Female Of The Species (TBA)
TBA - Fool For Love (AA) [Roundabout]
TBA - Girl Group Time Travelers
TBA - Golden Boy
TBA - Harmony [Guiles, Karslake, Smith, Fishman]
TBA - Hitchcock Blonde
TBA - The Importance Of Being Earnest
TBA - Jerry Springer: The Opera! [Thoday, McKeown]
TBA - Jesus Hopped The 'A' Train (Circle)
TBA - Josephine [Waissman]
TBA - Leap of Faith
TBA - A Little Princess [Ettinger, Dodger]
TBA - Midnight Cowboy [MGM]
TBA - The Minstrel Show - Kander and Ebb and Stroman
TBA - Moonstruck [Pittelman, Azenberg]
TBA - Mourning Becomes Electra [Haber, Boyett]
TBA - Monsoon Wedding
TBA - The Night of the Hunter
TBA - The Opposite of Sex [Namco]
TBA - Orphans
TBA - Pal Joey [Platt]
TBA - Paper Doll
TBA - The Paris Letter
TBA - The Philadelphia Story
TBA - Peter Pan
TBA - Porgy and Bess [Frankel, Viertel, Baruch, Routh, Panter, Tulchin/Bartner]
TBA - The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert
TBA - The Princess Bride
TBA - Princesses [Lane, Comley]
TBA - Poe the Musical
TBA - Rain Man [MGM]
TBA - Robin Hood
TBA - Secondhand Lions
TBA - South Pacific
TBA - Speed-the-Plow
TBA - Stalag 17
TBA - Starry Messenger
TBA - Syncopation
TBA - A Tale Of Two Cities
TBA - Torch Song Trilogy
TBA - Turn of the Century
TBA - West Side Story
TBA - The Wall [Weinstein, Mottola, Waters]
TBA - Will Rogers Follies [Cossette]
TBA - The Wiz [Dodger]
TBA - Zanna [Dalgleish]
This list is compiled from various sources. If you have corrections to the Broadway Season, please contact us.
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