Backstage Pass To Broadway

by Susan L. Schulman

  In preparation for rehearsals, the chronically overweight Mostel went on a strict liquid diet under medical supervision and lost 100 pounds. He passed the physical required for the show’s insurance and a slimmer Zero Mostel began learning his lines. In addition to Mostel as Shylock, Sir John Clements was cast as the Merchant Antonio, Roberta Maxwell as Portia, Marian Seldes in the newly invented role of Shylock’s sister Rivka and Sam Levene as Tubal. John Dexter’s longtime companion, Riggs O’Hara, would play the small role of Graziano. Several of the actors in THE MERCHANT had also appeared in Dexter’s production of EQUUS, which had recently closed.

  Our challenge, as press agents, was to represent the production in a way that created the right expectations for both the critics and the audience. If they expected Shakespeare and got Wesker, no matter how great the Wesker play might be, no one would be happy. We had no idea just how great a challenge it would become.

  Dexter had a reputation as a difficult and often cruel director. During rehearsals for A COCKTAIL PARTY in London, he had so humiliated Rachel Kempson (matriarch of the Redgrave acting dynasty) that producer Eddie Kulukundis paid for her to spend a restorative weekend in the country. EMMY Award-winning English actress Susan Hampshire, who is dyslexic, auditioned for Dexter early in her career with a monologue she had written herself rather than trying to read (haltingly) from the script. Dexter made her perform her audition speech over and over, giving no direction or suggestions. He just sat in the darkened theatre, laughing and mocking her efforts.

  Rehearsals for THE MERCHANT began with Dexter deliberately pitting the actors against each other. Instead of listing the individual actors or their characters to be called for rehearsal each day, the stage managers were told to post the daily rehearsal schedule as: The JEWS 1 PM; The CHRISTIANS 2 PM. In his staging, The Jews were always placed stage right and The Christians were always stage left. Everyone quickly learned his or her place — literally.

  A beautiful black actress, Gloria Gifford, was cast as Portia’s servant, Nerissa. Only nine years after Martin Luther King’s assassination, this was non-traditional casting before it had a name. Mostel, who had refused to work in segregated theatres in Washington, DC earlier in his career, appreciated Dexter’s gesture, although Arnold Wesker questioned the authenticity of a black maid to a noblewoman in 16th Century Venice.

  During a meet-and-greet rehearsal for the press, I pulled Gloria into a line-up of the stars for the media covering the rehearsal. Later that day, a CBS-TV news producer called to get Gloria’s name which he included in the broadcast. Bill Cosby was watching the news and liked what he saw. He contacted Gloria’s agent to bring her in to audition for a new TV series he was producing. Gloria met with co-producer Sheldon Leonard who offered her a job but she refused, telling him, “My dream is to be in a straight play on Broadway.” After Mostel died and THE MERCHANT closed, Bill Cosby called her personally and said, “Now are you available?”

  She was, and Cosby cast Gloria in her first film, California Suite, co-starring opposite Richard Pryor. Gloria told me, “The only reason Herbert Ross saw me for California Suite was because Bill Cosby told him I had been in THE MERCHANT. I didn’t even have my Screen Actors Guild card. Herbert said, “I will meet with anyone who worked with John Dexter.” He knew Dexter was demanding and thought if you could get into one of his productions you had to have something.

  Dexter singled out Julie Garfield, the young actress playing Shylock’s daughter Jessica, as his favorite scapegoat. Julie, whose father was the late blacklisted actor John Garfield, had been personally cast by Dexter. Garfield family friend Zero Mostel had seconded Dexter’s choice of Julie for the role. She had not been foisted on him so there was no explanation for Dexter’s antagonistic stance towards her.

  Despite Julie’s Actors Studio training and obvious acting ability, she lacked confidence and Dexter recognized her frailty and insecurity. He constantly criticized and humiliated her in front of the entire company. He would mock her line reading or wonder aloud whether talent was an inherited trait. He once came within inches of striking her because he disliked the boots she wore to rehearsal. Julie was constantly in tears.

  Mostel silently watched Dexter humiliate her day after day, never offering a word of support or comfort to the distraught young actress he had known since her childhood, nor did he try to deflect Dexter’s wrath. I don’t know which was worse — watching Dexter publicly torment Julie or the fact that Mostel allowed it to continue when he had the power to make it stop. They both seemed like sadists to me.

  Dexter didn’t limit his contempt to those on stage. When I’d ask him a question during rehearsals, he often reduced me to tears with his cutting sarcasm. Instead of responding to my request, he would ridicule the way I had asked it. We were all fodder for his black humor. I sympathized and identified with Julie, who was near my age, and tried to steer some publicity her way to make up for his cruelty. It didn’t make me feel better to see that Dexter treated everyone badly. He felt everyone, from the Shuberts to the stagehands, was beneath him. He even insulted Marion Seldes, a popular and successful actress, who had appeared in several of his productions including EQUUS. He mocked what he considered her exaggerated gestures and criticized her “Jewish hands.” Demoralized, the cast’s egos began to sag. Dexter barred everyone he considered non-essential from rehearsals, including the producers and the press agents. I began skulking around during rehearsal breaks, avoiding Dexter while trying to get bios approved for the program or scheduling press interviews for the actors.

  Like Al Capp’s cartoon character Joe Btfsplk in Li’l Abner, THE MERCHANT came with its own little black cloud. Whatever could go wrong, did.

  The show was to rehearse in New York for five weeks and then play two out-of-town engagements before coming to Broadway: two weeks at The Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia, followed by five weeks at the elegant Eisenhower Theatre at The John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

  During pre-production, Broadway’s top graphic designer Frank Verlizzo, known professionally as ‘Fraver,’ created a red-tinted image of a biblical-looking, hook-nosed Jew as the logo for the show. He said, “I found an etching at the New York Public Library while doing research for the play. I felt this detail captured the spirit of the play’s main character. I put the etching through the Xerox machine many times to get it to disintegrate a bit. I chose red simply because it’s the most theatrical color. The font is Helvetica Heavy.” So was the show.

  Everyone from Dexter and Wesker to the Shuberts and, of course, the press agents, checked and approved the poster design which included copy about the play’s various pre-Broadway engagements, performance dates, theatre names and addresses. Unfortunately, the dates printed on all THE MERCHANT window cards and large three-sheet posters were wrong — the printed date, Thursday, September 2, instead of the correct date, Friday, September 2, did not exist. Everyone had looked at it, and no one had caught the mistake. We had wasted valuable time and money. Our little black cloud was hovering.

  When I asked Dexter to edit his lengthy bio to conform to the space limitations of Playbill Magazine, I received the following letter, dated October 21, 1977, and typed on Metropolitan Opera stationery (where Dexter was Artistic Director at the time):

  Dear Miss Schulman:

  I will cut as little as I possibly can, but I can see no reason why my bio should be no longer than the stars, and who exactly do you consider the stars to be?

  I can see no earthly reason why my bio should be shorter than that of Mr. Berlind, the Shuberts and Mr. Stevens*.

  Yours sincerely,

  John Dexter

  (*referring to co-producers Roger Berlind, Gerald Schoenfeld and Bernard Jacobs of the Shubert Organization and Roger Stevens, head of The Kennedy Center.)

  His bio remained un-cut.

  We had a full production photo call during rehearsals on the stage of the Imperial Theatre in New York City to get publicity photographs to promote the show out of town an
d, eventually, on Broadway. Using those photos, I designed the photo display for the front of Philadelphia’s Forrest Theatre with specific instructions as to which photo would be used in which window box outside the theatre. The stars should be represented photographically in direct proportion to their billing and prominence in the production. I needed lots of Mostel, slightly less of Sir John Clements and Sam Levene and even less of Roberta Maxwell and Marian Seldes, plus, of course, the famous full stage courtroom scene with the entire cast.

  When the photos were blown up and mounted outside the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia, the full stage shot was accidentally ‘flipped’ so that the Jews and the Christians were on the wrong sides of the stage picture that Dexter had so artfully created. He saw the photo display and began screaming at me as the cast arrived at the theatre. The display people soon rushed to the theatre to replace the large photo but clearly our black cloud had traveled with us to Philadelphia.

  During rehearsals, Zero Mostel reinforced his reputation as a self-centered, ego-maniac who toyed with people for his own amusement. Theatre scuttlebutt said that while starring on Broadway in A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM, he would turn upstage (away from the audience) and expose himself to the female dancers on stage just to see their response. Producers and writers had a love/hate relationship with Mostel. They loved his creative genius and they hated that he refused to honor their work and play the show as written. During FIDDLER, he would get bored and invent new stage business to amuse himself. Tevye’s hand would ‘accidentally’ fall into a pail of milk and he would spend the next three minutes wringing milk out of his tattered sleeve and other improvised antics. Funny — yes. In the script — no. When Mostel left the Broadway cast of FIDDLER after exactly one year, many heaved a sigh of relief.

  Zero Mostel, (known to his friends and colleagues as Z,) knew he held the power in any show in which he appeared, and THE MERCHANT was no exception. He could do whatever he wanted and get away with it. He was the reason most of us were employed and no one had the guts to cross him.

  Cue Magazine wanted to feature Mostel on its cover so, during rehearsals in New York, I set up the shoot and I brought him to their photo studio. At the end of the shoot, the photographer suggested taking a quick ‘thank you’ photo of Mostel surrounded by all the folks who had made the session possible . I knelt down next to Z. Just before the shutter clicked, he nonchalantly reached down and grabbed my right breast. I was shocked and horrified. I wanted to slug him and knock him off his stool. He continued to smile sweetly, innocently at the camera. I shoved his hand up and away with my arm, grinning nervously, as the shutter clicked. The others were oblivious to the unpleasant little scene going on in the corner.

  Zero Mostel (center) with dresser Howard Rodney (right) and Susan (lower right).

  (From the author’s photo collection)

  One day, during a rehearsal break, I approached Z about doing an interview. He dismissed me with a wave and told me to see him later in his dressing room. I found him sprawled there on a chaise lounge. Without looking up, he pointed to a spot on the floor next to him where I should kneel. He wanted me at eye level or lower so he didn’t have to sit up or even look up to talk with me. I knelt down and asked him to do a pre-opening interview with the well-respected theatre editor and critic of the Philadelphia Inquirer. He asked a lot of unnecessary questions to draw out my groveling as long as possible before grudgingly agreeing to the interview.

  When he finally met with the writer, Z was adorable, spinning silly stories and mugging for the newspaper’s photographer. If he didn’t feel like answering the reporter’s question, he would answer the question he thought he should have asked instead. He told Yiddish jokes and sang. I’m sure the writer came to believe Z asked, even begged, to do this interview. It was an impressive and entertaining performance for an audience of two, and the resulting Sunday feature sold some tickets to the show in Philly.

  But contrary to the Shuberts’ expectations, Zero Mostel’s name alone did not sell tickets to THE MERCHANT. Audiences loved him as the Jewish milkman in FIDDLER, or the conniving Roman slave in A FUNNY THING, but were not shelling out big bucks to see him play that calculating Jewish money lender Shylock, in a play that sounded heavy and dark. We needed all the favorable advance publicity we could get.

  Previews were to begin on Friday, September 2, 1977. My boss, Merle Debuskey, and I took the Metroliner train to Philadelphia. We planned to see the first two previews and return to New York late Saturday afternoon, following the matinée. That Friday night, the entire creative production team gathered in Philly for the very first public performance of THE MERCHANT. It lasted 4 hours and 20 minutes. And there were no laughs. Wesker’s complicated play, set in 16th Century Italy, was often interesting, somewhat confusing, occasionally moving and very, very long. The ornate sets by Jocelyn Herbert, beautifully lit by Andy Phillips, resembled Rembrandt paintings, dark, moody and elegant. Mostel, despite mumbling and missing lines, was commanding and sympathetic as Shylock. There were long painful pauses during the crucial courtroom scene while Sir John struggled to remember his lines. Roberta Maxwell was a frosty and elegant Portia; Marian Seldes was moving as Shylock’s sister Rivka, and Julie Garfield managed to make a good, if tentative impression as Jessica. Clearly the script needed major editing to be viable in New York. Any Broadway show that runs more than 3 hours incurs overtime charges (called ‘golden time’) from the stagehands’ unions, greatly adding to a production’s weekly running costs. Art is fine, but commerce rules Broadway.

  After the performance, the producers, cast, crew and creators met briefly on stage to congratulate each other. This public performance was the first time the cast and crew had run the entire play straight through without stopping. There had not been time for a full dress rehearsal before the first preview. The cast was relieved that they had survived this far, but everyone knew there was a long, rough road ahead if this play was going to succeed on Broadway.

  Later that evening, the Shuberts invited Merle and me to travel back to New York with them in their limo, rather than taking the train back to NYC on Saturday night. Deciding to skip the Saturday matinée, we left Philly around 2 AM, exhausted but happy to be going home in style.

  On Saturday, Z felt ill 15 minutes before the matinée was to begin and was admitted to a hospital across the street from the Forrest Theatre. All performances were cancelled while they ran tests on Z.

  At first the doctors thought he had a virus, then the flu. Maybe a mild heart attack? While Z rested, griped, held court and issued demands from his hospital bed, the show was in limbo.

  When the Shuberts visited him in the hospital, Z told them he’d been marking potential cuts in his script and had passed them along to Dexter.

  After a few days, when Z showed no sign of improvement, the producers decided to cancel the remaining performances in Philadelphia and hoped Z would be well enough to open in Washington as planned. The Shuberts strongly encouraged Dexter and Wesker to continue cutting the script while rehearsals continued without Mostel. The stressed out actors worried whether their favorite scenes would be cut or if they would have a job at the end of the week. Morale hit rock bottom. Rumors flew.

  On September 8th, Z was declared fit for work and was officially discharged from the hospital. Sam Levene was visiting and schmoozing with his old pal in the hospital room while they awaited the arrival of Z’s wife, Kate, to bring him back to New York. Sam had brought Z some girly magazines and they were admiring the models’ attributes when Z suddenly collapsed, fell out of bed and died.

  We were told later that his extreme weight loss prior to rehearsals had weakened Mostel’s heart. The official cause of death was a burst aorta. His low energy during rehearsal and inability to remember his lines may have been signs of impending disaster.

  Zero Mostel had given one very long performance as Shylock in THE MERCHANT. In his memoir Mr. Broadway, published posthumously, Shubert chief Gerald Schoenfeld wrote,
“Zero died from a ruptured aneurysm. There was no funeral service. He disappeared from the face of the earth. To this day, I don’t know if he was buried or cremated or simply vanished into thin air.”

  The cast was called together in Philadelphia and told of Z’s death. Back in New York, I was stunned to see it reported on the nightly TV news. No one thought to call me before it hit the wire services. Chaos reigned. Was THE MERCHANT dead too? Was the show permanently closed or could we possibly open as scheduled in Washington? What about Broadway?

  Meanwhile Merle and I received calls from journalists all over the world asking for information about the late, great Zero Mostel. Merle, a long-time friend of Kate and Zero Mostel, was far more upset about his death than I. Stars who had worked with him over the years issued statements saying he was a brilliant and gifted actor and a world class humanitarian. I wondered whom they were talking about. This late, saintly actor bore no resemblance to the unpleasant, unkempt guy in the dirty French beret I’d met only a few weeks earlier.

  I thought THE MERCHANT should fold its tent and quietly go away. This production had ‘if something can go wrong, it will’ stamped all over it. With all the drama and bitterness the production had already generated, it didn’t seem THAT extraordinary or even surprising to me that the star had actually died. We had unconsciously been waiting for the other shoe to drop and now it had.

  John Dexter called Jerry Schoenfeld, president of The Shubert Organization (and the lead producer of THE MERCHANT), and said, “What are you going to do about the fucking show? I can direct Eugene Onegin at The Metropolitan Opera or I can direct your fucking show.” Dexter swore he had Sir Laurence Olivier, Anthony Quinn, George C. Scott and Peter O’Toole “tucked in his back pocket,” ready, willing and able to replace Mostel.