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Drooling on the Pillow

Friday, February 25, 2005

What We Do For Art 

I normally don't have the shuffle mode turned on when I listen to my iPod, but I did last night on my way home and it coughed up "My Name" a tune from Oliver!, which brought back some memories.

Sometime in the early '80s I was cast as Bill Sykes, the psychopathic felon, in a production of Oliver! at Queensborough Community College under a Guest Artist contract. Most of the cast were students and community members, professionals were hired for Bill and Nancy, Fagin, Bumble and, I think, Oliver. It wasn't my most memorable role.

The director was a friend of mine and thought he was doing me a favor by casting me. Truly, a paycheck is always appreciated, but this was a casting decision akin to having Adam Sandler in the title role of "The Henry Kissinger Story." I'm not a scary guy. Or a big guy. And I'm a tenor.

But I am an actor and a lot can be done with makeup and costume. I probably wasn't as bad as I thought I was, but I know nobody went home whistling "My Name".

The major reason I took the part was that Bob, the director, told me that E.G. Marshall was going to play Fagin. That would be interesting, I thought, but when I showed up for the first reading Bob took me aside and told me Mr. Marshall had backed out and Fagin was going to be played by Ray Heatherton. Also interesting, I thought, but not in the same way.

Ray was a musical star in the '30s, later a vocalist with Paul Whitman and other big bands and later, for many years, the host of a very popular Long Island radio show. And, yes, Joey's father.

He wasn't bad. Not bad at all. But he was very old. And very cranky. I got the feeling he was embarrassed to be appearing at QCC and dealt with it by complaining about everything and trying to direct everyone behind Bob's back. It didn't make for a happy cast.

Anyway, Bob was a believer in special effects and big, complicated sets. He liked spectacle. This set was fantastic, really. It was huge, and loaded with secret doors and passageways and it was designed with the climax in mind.

At the end of the play the angry Londoners are chasing Bill Sykes through the alleys and warrens of London and finally corner him. I am standing at the top of this pyramidal set on a pipe railing, about 25 feet off the stage with one hand holding a street lamp and the other hand grabbing Oliver's collar. I make like I'm going to fling him over the rail and into the Thames and say something like "Let me go or I'll kill the boy." A pin spot lights a man down left who raises a pistol and shoots. I'm supposed to clutch my chest and fall backwards off the set 25 feet into a pole vault pit.

Heights don't bother me. I was nervous, though, about throwing myself backwards into the dark from that height and uncomfortable with the fact that we didn't get to do any of this until dress rehearsal. When the moment came the lad playing Oliver (bless his heart) bobbed and twisted away. I'm sure he was just 'acting', but I knew that if he slipped off the back of the platform he wasn't going to hit the pit and I jerked down to get a better grip on him. My feet slipped off the pipe and I went straight down, catching my arm on the pipe as I went past. I landed half on the pit with, miraculously, the only injury a dislocated shoulder.

Well, the good part is, it was the end of the show so we got almost all the dress rehearsal in. The bad part is it took two hours to reduce the dislocation and I headed into opening night with a head full of pain killers.

Obviously, my standing-on-the-railing-hurling-vengeance-upon-the-crowd days were over so the next afternoon we worked out a deal where at some point in the final chase I would duck into one of the hidey-holes on the set and change costumes with a member of the chorus who was chosen because he could fit into the costume. He would do the final charge to the top of the set and the dive off the back.

It worked out well because my replacement was, or had been, I swear to God, an Israeli paratrooper and he loved doing the dive. He was great. He had a kind of heavy accent, though, so I had to stand behind the set and do the final line while he covered his face with his arm, Snidely Whiplash-style. We bumped the lights down a couple clicks and no one who knew me and saw the show ever noticed the difference.
Posted by: Sluggo / 10:35 AM
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