by Patti Lupone
From there I moved on to the ill-fated Working, another short-lived Broadway experience. The most wonderful thing to come out of Working was meeting author Studs Terkel. He was so enthusiastic and bright-eyed and always generous with the actors. It was a joy when he unexpectedly showed up. What a pity it wasn’t a smash because Studs’s book is great. When Working closed after disastrous reviews, running only two weeks, I continued my work with David at the Public, where he directed a reading of The Blue Hour.
David taught me that when you “act” upon the words in any play, you make more work for yourself and ultimately defeat the playwright. Under David’s tutelage, I also learned why I had a tendency to rush through the performance—I was not trusting the playwright. I learned that I didn’t write the words and my sole responsibility was to deliver the playwright’s words without comment, without acting upon them, which is hard to do if you don’t trust yourself to start off with.
Working with David reinforced what I learned at Juilliard but had failed to fully realize: Remain open. David’s lessons were a tremendous help to me, especially the one about “letting the script do the work”—just speak. That, for me, was a real breakthrough. The easier I played it, the more I comprehended the material. I think it was the ability to trust—my mind, my choices, and truly, my being on the stage to begin with. I also learned to trust the script’s silences and pauses. For me they are as intense and as much fun, if not more so, than a Mamet word volley. It was the perfect illustration of “dare to live in the area where you do not know what is going on.” That is a hard lesson to grasp but one that ultimately is the most liberating.
In October 1982, I went to the opening of Edmond at the Provincetown Playhouse on MacDougal Street and was blown away. I sat there and thought, I wish I was in this. Not much later, David and director Gregory Mosher called me on the phone and asked me to replace Linda Kimbrough, who was returning to Chicago. I said yes immediately. My agent berated me for agreeing to replace Linda because it was an off-Broadway contract and if I worked for less money than I commanded on Broadway, it would affect my negotiating status. I told him that everyone who knew me knew I worked with David, but Edmond came along not long after my first success on Broadway, Evita, and apparently I was supposed to sit and wait for the next great part. How many years later did that happen? If I had heeded the agent’s advice, I would’ve missed an opportunity to be in another scary, wonderfully complex, dark Mamet environment. Colin Stinton headed the cast and I played the smallest female role, his wife. I didn’t care. I was working with
great actors in one of David’s best plays. This cast became my family for as long as we worked together. We had several late nights in my apartment. And it was the “stoned” company. The boys would get high in their dressing room before the show and the smoke wafted into the girls’ dressing room. It all worked for the play.
The cast and playwright (top row, far right) of Edmond, 1982.
Edmond is about the disintegration of an average white male as he leaves the comfort of his wife and home and slides inadvertently into the depths of New York’s underbelly, commits murder, and comes face-to-face with his prejudice in prison. Colin was brilliant as Edmond, as was Laura Innes as Glenda (and every other part she’s ever played). David brings out the best in actors, I swear.
It would be fifteen years—a total of thirteen plays and musicals and one four-year television series—before I worked with David again. But we came together once more on The Old Neighborhood in 1997. I played Jolly opposite Peter Riegert’s Bobby. Our scene felt like one sentence in thirty minutes of playing time. David wrote a sonata for two instruments and Peter and I played it with joy every night. We rehearsed in Boston, where David was living with his wife, Rebecca Pidgeon, who was also in the play. It was here that David and I broke the silence concerning my lack of courage in talking to him about my choice of Evita over The Woods (see “Evita, Part 1,” this page). David simply said to me, “I heard you thought I was mad at you. I’m not, never was.” He said this as we walked to an antique store on a lunch break.
Boston is also where I had a huge fight with Peter Riegert during rehearsal, stormed out of the room, got to the elevator, then turned around and walked back into the room. Peter was still yelling at me, “Don’t leave the room!” I replied, “I’m back,” which was a big step for me. Peter and I calmed down, then left rehearsal with the director standing there in a total stupor. We spent the night bonding as friends and finding the brother and sister of the play that allowed us to sing the second act of The Old Neighborhood for our entire Broadway run. I couldn’t wait to get onstage with him or Jack Willis, my husband in the scene with Peter, a rock of an actor, a great one, and a dear friend who was my Herbie in Gypsy at the Ravinia Festival. It is always a blessing when the actors you play opposite become your friends. They become lifelong friends.
David now lives in L.A. with the beautiful and generous Rebecca and their two children. I rarely see them, but I’m waiting for the next play that shakes me to my core and lifts me to another level in heart, soul, mind, and craft. I can’t imagine the rest of my career without David in it.
7
Evita, Part 1
AUDITION AND OUT OF TOWN, 1979
“Rainbow High.”
© MARTHA SWOPE/ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
It made me a star. It was the most difficult role I had been given to play. It also gave me a reputation and a shadow of controversy that has followed me to this day and took its toll on every aspect of my life. Nothing has ever come easy for me. What many believe must have been a glorious ascent into heady stardom was, for me, a trial by fire, with the constant threat of being burned at the stake. But I did it. I accomplished this part and I wouldn’t change any of it. Okay, that’s not entirely true—there’s a shitload I would’ve changed. But ultimately it was worth it. Why? Because of the lessons, the lessons, the lessons.
The height of anticipation over the Broadway production of Evita was pretty much the first of its kind for a musical. With Hal Prince directing, a score by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and lyrics by Tim Rice, it had received great notices when it opened in London. The hype stateside was unbelievable, and with good reason. Hal’s production was extraordinary. There’s no question that it was, and is, a benchmark in musical theatre.
The music had been around for a couple of years. In 1976, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber put out a concept album of Evita, with Julie Covington, David Essex, and Colm Wilkinson singing the leads. As I listened to it, all I could think was that this guy, Andrew Lloyd Webber, hated women. The high notes in the score, which the character of Evita sits on all night long, are placed in the passaggio, or the passage. The passaggio are the weakest notes to produce as the voice passes from chest to head.
Both Kevin Kline and Paul Gemignani, the legendary Broadway conductor, told me I had to audition for Evita. There was only one problem: Every actress in the country wanted this part—Barbra Streisand, Ann-Margret, Meryl Streep, Faye Dunaway, even Raquel Welch. Clearly, Patti LuPone, with one pre-Broadway disaster to her credit, was a dark horse. But what they were finding out was almost nobody could sing it. There are still probably only a handful of women who can sing Evita in the original keys.
Joanna Merlin was the casting director. She’d seen me onstage at Juilliard and with The Acting Company. She knew I could act, but at that point, nobody knew whether I could sing. After the preliminary audition, Joanna asked me to keep myself free for the final callback. Okay, I thought, maybe the dark horse is actually in the race.
Meanwhile, in October of 1978, I was doing Catchpenny Twist by Stewart Parker at the Hartford Stage when I got an audition for Steven Spielberg’s film 1941. I read the script and thought, Ooh yeah, I want this part, but Nancy Allen was already cast in the role. Steven, however, liked my audition so much that he created a small part for me so I could be in the movie. Even though I had to fly myself out to L.A. and put myself up, I was willing to do it because I wanted to work with
Steven. Who could blame me? A Steven Spielberg film was a guaranteed blockbuster, right? Yeah, up until 1941.
I flew out to California a couple of weeks before I was scheduled to shoot. There was nothing to keep me in New York. Kevin and I were no longer together, my run in Catchpenny was over, and I was sitting in my apartment waiting, which is what most actors do when they’re not acting.
I went to Universal Studios looking for the set of 1941. I walked a bit, then came around the corner just as they turned on the arc lights. They were so bright that my eyes went into negative. I was looking at the biggest set I’d ever seen, in negative vision. That was my first impression of moviemaking. This is Hollywood, I thought. I was dumbstruck and thrilled beyond description at the enormity of Hollywood movies.
To save money, I was staying at my best friend Jeffrey’s house. The house itself was lovely, but there was no stove, no shower (just a tub with one of those hoses used to bathe dogs), and one bed, which we shared. It didn’t matter. I was with my best friend in sunny California, making a Hollywood movie directed by Steven Spielberg at Universal Studios. I was on my way.
Steven Spielberg at work.
Steven was very nice to me from the minute I arrived. We used to have lunch together. I was quite shy around him, partly because I was in awe of him and partly because I had a crush on him. My part was tiny; I worked in the USO scene with Penny Marshall and Joe Flaherty. For some reason I had billing, and a picture in the end credits. I had one line: “Say, you devil … How’s about a deviled egg?” I didn’t care. I was working on a Steven Spielberg movie. It couldn’t miss, right?
With Penny Marshall on the set of 1941.
It was a great group of people, both cast and crew. Janet Healy was Steven’s assistant; Sally Dennison was the casting director; Mary Ellen Trainor, who at the time was engaged to Bob Zemeckis, was associate to the producer, Buzz Feitshans. All three were wonderful, generous women and I became good friends with each of them. To this day I don’t know why, but I was introduced to all of the people at the top on this movie. I was kind of dumbfounded, and I thought, What a very nice place this Hollywood is. This is where I want to stay. I want be a movie star and hang out with nice people and be in big hit movies like 1941.
That first night I visited the set, I watched Dan Aykroyd work. I knew him from Saturday Night Live, but that night, I remember being so taken by his intensity and acting ability. Dan and I became friends on this movie, and I was lucky to work with him again on Driving Miss Daisy. Dan is a brilliant actor.
Then finally: the reason I’m here! They scheduled the USO scene. What fun it was getting a call sheet with my call time, showing up at the crack of dawn to get made up for the day’s work, and then working fourteen hours. What else did I have to do? I was young. I was in heaven.
A couple of weeks into the shoot, Treat Williams, one of the leads, was not called to the set, so he left town. Then Steven changed the shooting schedule for that day and needed Treat, but Treat was nowhere to be found. Buzz Feitshans and Steven were furious because the day was now wasted due to his absence. As a result, nobody in the cast was allowed to leave Los Angeles for the rest of the filming. Naturally, I then got the call to return to New York for the Evita final callback. Oh shit.
I went to Buzz and asked for special permission to go to New York. “No way,” he said. Then I went to Janet Healy, who went to Steven, who told Buzz to let me go. He didn’t want to do it. “If you’re not back on Tuesday morning,” Buzz threatened, “your career in Hollywood is over.” Really, people talk like that out there. But even that was thrilling to me—I had a career in Hollywood!
I flew to New York on the eighteenth of February 1978. I went home to my apartment, and on the morning of the nineteenth I woke up to a foot of snow on the ground. My heart sank, but I headed for the audition, anyway. When I got out of the subway, I was at the wrong end of Forty-second Street and had to trudge two long blocks to the Shubert Theater. I had my luggage with me because I had a flight back to L.A. when the audition was over. I was in California clothes (sneakers and jeans), and by the time I got to the theatre, I was soaked from the knees down.
I was pissed off because I knew in my heart I wasn’t getting out of JFK that night, which meant that I wouldn’t be on the set in Los Angeles the next day, which meant that when I finally did get back to Los Angeles, my career in Hollywood really would be over. When I got to the Shubert, my eyes were filled with blood.
I looked at the stage from the wings and I saw a white line across the floor. Oh, I thought, I guess we’re not supposed to cross it. What that white line was was the set for A Chorus Line.
When my name was called, I walked onstage and took a giant step in front of the white line, in defiance. I sang “Buenos Aires,” then “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina,” and then “Rainbow High.”
John Houseman used to tell me that I perform better when I’m mad. Well, I was mad that day, so mad that I started crying during “Argentina.” I barreled through the other two numbers. All I could think about was my dead career in Hollywood. They said they’d let me know in a few days. Yeah, who cares? I thought. I met up with my brother Billy at the audition and I said, “I’m not getting out of here tonight, am I?” I knew by the look on his face I was screwed.
I hailed the one cab driving around the city streets, then went to the airport to find that, yes, indeed, my flight was canceled. What could I do? I lay down and slept on the airport floor, with my hair in big rollers for my 1941 hairdo, wearing a sleep mask.
People would go by and laugh at me. Their laughter would wake me up. The humiliation was palpable. I had forgotten, or more likely didn’t know, to carry phone numbers for the film’s production office to tell them I was stranded. For some reason, I did have Mary Ellen’s number. I called her, cried, and begged for forgiveness. She was so cool. Everyone was alerted to my plight, and she kept in touch with me until I was finally able to board a plane the next day.
That almost didn’t happen. I found out the hard way that when your flight is canceled, the airline does not automatically put you on the next flight out. You have to rebook. In the morning I went to the counter expecting to get on the first flight out. “Sorry,” they told me, “you don’t have a seat. This flight is sold out.”
Suddenly I saw Christopher Reeve, who also went to Juilliard, and who had just become a big star in Superman. We said hello, then I instantly burst into tears. Chris tried to comfort me—maybe there was something he could do.
Opening night in Los Angeles with Robert Stigwood and Christopher Reeve.
The next thing I knew, they were announcing the boarding for the L.A.-bound flight, and I heard my name called over the loudspeaker. Chris had gotten me on his plane, in first class. He had come in and scooped me up like a real-life Lois Lane—in big rollers. The cabin was filled with actors and agents and Hollywood types grateful to be leaving the blizzard of ’78 behind. We had all been stranded, but nobody looked as bad as I did. I have a feeling some of them had a laugh over my ridiculous appearance. I didn’t care. I was on my way back to my career in Hollywood.
I made it to the set by eleven o’clock that morning, and when I arrived, I got a round of applause. Nobody had thought I was going to make it. Somebody asked how I got out, and I told them, “Superman.”
Two days later, I was having my lunch in the makeup room when I was called to the phone. “Congratulations!” my agent said. I started to cry.
They were not tears of joy. I was very ambivalent about this—even though my friend Jeffrey tells me that when I was rehearsing my audition in his no-stove, one-bed house in L.A. I said to him, quite calmly, “This is the next thing I’m supposed to do.” But I really didn’t like the music. I wanted to work with Hal Prince, but I did not want to do Evita.
I was crying because I wanted to continue working with David Mamet. The Woods was being revived at the Public, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it if David wasn’t directing. He said, “Yes, you do. Ulu G
rosbard is directing.”
Now I had to tell David that I couldn’t do The Woods because I had to do this musical. I knew how important playing Evita would be for my career. I knew it would be historical working with Hal. I knew the dizzying heights I would experience being the chosen leading lady of Evita after this much-hyped, Scarlett O’Hara–like search.
I never did call David, my friend and champion. I didn’t have the guts to. I ignored my responsibility to him, and then it was too late to call. This was another one of those times in my life when I didn’t have courage. Just like the time I was cast as Lady Teazle in The School for Scandal at Juilliard, and I wasn’t able to admit to the director that I didn’t know how to spell Restoration, let alone act it. I’ve never had the courage to speak up in the moment.