Ellen's Mandy Patinkin Page |
SHOW MUSIC Winter 2001 |
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Center Stage Mandy Patinkin |
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I've always been someone who some people like and some people don't like," says Mandy Patinkin, "and I take that as a compliment. I'm not a safe player. Gray is a color I don't seem to be able to find very well." Of course, gray is a neutral and Patinkin is a performer who paints with primary colors and broad strokes. In concert, he's intense. Between numbers, he mops his brow with a towel and takes swigs of bottled water. Perspiring profusely, his sweatshirt becomes saturated. One imagines that if he were on stage a half-hour longer, there would be just a microphone next to a pool of water - still boiling. Patinkin's current concert tour (in which he plays 37 cities over five months) began with a one-night Broadway engagement at the Neil Simon Theatre on Monday evening, September 10. The New York Times review stated, "Mandy Patinkin keeps slipping off to appear in films and television shows. But if lovers of musical theater had their way they would keep Mr. Patinkin on Broadway, where his astonishing gifts as a singer and actor have found ideal outlets." His encore was a plea for peace, in which he unfurled miniature Israeli and Palestinian flags and sang the Israeli National Anthem. That segued into a blistering account The morning after the first concert was when the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon occurred. Two weeks later, Patinkin calls to do this interview, and the first thing he asks is, "Are your people okay?" Just back from a concert in San Diego, he explains that his encore has changed. "I've taken away the flags and the screaming and the red lights. I've had 'You've Got to Be Taught' rearranged as a lullaby, and it very quietly goes into 'Children Will Listen.' "When the [American] flag came out for 'God Bless America,' which I sing in Yiddish, the entire audience leapt up and shouted the song with me in English. "I'm very glad to be in New York. [He lives on Manhattan's Upper West Side with his wife, actress-writer Kathryn Grody, and their sons, Isaac, 19, and Gideon, 15.] You can go up to a fireman and a policeman and thank them [for their courageous efforts]. My older son's away in college, but the younger one collected food and clothing and brought it to the Salvation Army. The morning it happened, we went out -like the rest of New York - and gave blood, and just tried to help." During the weekend after the tragedy, Patinkin performed "a healing concert" at Manhattan's Riverside Church, and entertained youngsters at the Children's Museum. On Rosh Hashanah, he sang in his synagogue. "They asked me to sing 'God Bless America' in Yiddish. Just then, the children came in from their service. I wanted them to have fun, so I led the congregation in 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow.' "Initially, we [himself, accompanist Paul Ford and three technicians] were just going on tour. Now, we feel like we can really do something for people. I feel very, very blessed that I have [the concert] to do."
His concert career began in 1989 with Mandy Patinkin in Concert: Dress Casual, which started at off-Broadway's Public Theatre and transferred to Broadway for 62 performances. The actor's portrayal of Che Guevara, opposite Patti LuPone's Evita, won him a Tony Award, and he has since received Tony nominations for his portrait of Georges Seurat in Sunday in the Park with George, and for playing the brooding Burrs in The Wild Party. However, it's as himself, center stage in frequent concerts (in the U.S., Canada and London), that finds this unique entertainer interpreting his most complex role. Born Mandel Bruce Patinkin in Chicago on November 30, 1952, he's the son of Lester As a bar mitzvah present, Mandy's father brought him to New York to see his first Broadway musicals. "We saw Angela Lansbury in Mame, and Walking Happy, with Norman Wisdom. I think it was the seedling of something that I love." Deciding not to go into the family "junk business," Patinkin attended the University of Kansas (1970-72) and then came to New York to study acting at Juilliard (1972-74). “After six hours, I knew that I didn't want to be there. But I also knew that I wanted to get a hold of some tools, in terms of being an actor, so I stuck it out for two-and-a-half years. "I heard about this guy named Jerry Freedman, who was supposed to be a great teacher, but I heard you didn't get him 'till second or third year. Finally, near the end of my second year, he got our class, and was going to be doing a play called The Duchess of Malti. William Hurt was in my class. [Freedman] cast Bill Hurt and me, and we sat next to Jerry at the table for three weeks. He taught me what I wanted to know - and I've used it ever since. “Recently, Jerry called me up. He's now Dean of the North Carolina School of the Arts, and he asked if I'd give a commencement address. I went last June and gave it, and they gave me a doctorate. I'm now a Doctor [Laughs].” After leaving Juilliard, Patinkin “went across country and then got my Equity card doing children's theatre at Baltimore Center Stage.” Returning east, he made his New York stage debut as Durant Laxart in a church production of Maxwell Anderson's Joan of Lorraine. “Alan Arkin directed. My friend, Ted Chapin, who was my college roommate and now runs the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, worked for Alan Arkin at the time. They had a problem with some actor, who was about 45. I replaced him, in a part that I was 20-something years too young for.” Following that, Patinkin began a long association with the New York Shakespeare Festival, the highlights of which, he says, “were playing Hamlet and having a great, great The head of the Festival was Joseph Papp, whom Patinkin considered “my New York dad. When my own father died [in 1972], I didn't know how to deal with it. Many years later, when Joe died [in 1991], I was stunned. He was a deep, deep part of my life, my children's lives and always will be.” Patinkin portrays Papp in the upcoming film Pinero. “lt's a small part, but I wanted to make sure I did justice to Joe. I hope I did.” Benjamin Bratt has the title role of poet-playwright Miguel Pinero, who gained fame by writing Short Eyes. Michael Cristofer's The Shadow Box marked Patinkin's Broadway debut in 1976. Cast member Geraldine Fitzgerald heard him vocalizing backstage and gave Patinkin the gift of a singing lesson with Andy Thomas Anselmo. "I went once and I liked him, but I didn't want to spend the money. A while after that, I got the part in Evita. I realized that this guy [Che] sings for two hours and doesn't shut up, or leave the stage. I remembered Andy Anselmo, called him up, and said, 'Could you make me strong, and teach me not to hurt myself?' And he did.” In a 1978 off-Broadway play, Michael Weller's The Split, Patinkin met his future wife, Kathryn Grody. During his current concert, Patinkin says that he proposed on their first date. They were married June 15, 1980. “It was basically my marriage and my children that made me realize that either I was going to have to change and grow up a little bit, or I'd end up an 80-year-old man with nothing - sitting in a rocking chair, talking to a wall.”
His breakthrough role occurred in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Evita, and Patinkin hoped to reprise the part on screen. In 1989, when Oliver Stone was scheduled to direct the movie version, it was announced that Patinkin would play Che, with Meryl Streep in the title role. When Alan Parker directed the film in 1996, Antonio Banderas and Madonna were cast.
A movie role he did get was the male lead, opposite Barbra Streisand, in Yentl (1983). However, he sang nary a note. "I'll always be frustrated about that," admits Patinkin. “Even before I got into the picture, the songs were conceived [by Streisand, who also directed, produced, and co-authored the screenplay] as being her thought processes. We did talk about my singing, but it never came to fruition. As a friend of mine later said, 'You don't think?'" After not singing in the film with Barbra came Sunday in the Park with George. The song "Beautiful" in the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical evolved from a conversation that Patinkin had with the composer/lyricist. "No one had ever taken something I'd said and turned it into a poem, let alone one with music."
His preparation for the role of Georges Seurat (1859-91) - called George, not Georges, in the show - included several trips to Chicago's Art Institute to study the artist's "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." "It was through the Sunday experience that I really learned to develop a piece of work," recalls Patinkin. "I'd be impatient during the workshop, because my part wasn't [fully] written yet. [Sondheim] taught me that he'd write this song or that song when he's ready to write it. He wasn't able to do things until he was able to do them. I learned that lesson for myself. Paul Ford and I work at our own pace. We do things when they're ready." In Follies in Concert, Patinkin performed an electrifying "Buddy's Blues." The two-night, all-star event was recorded by RCA (on 2 CDs), and highlights were taped for PBS-TV, and released as a video. The role of Buddy led to Patinkin's singing Lieutenant Cable's songs ("That might have been helped by Ted Chapin, who by then was at Rodgers and Hammerstein") on a studio recording of South Pacific. Next came the offer to record his first solo CD. "I wanted to do that more than anything else in the world," recalls Patinkin, "but I was chicken. I was afraid if I make it and it fails, my dream won't come true. So I thought it would be better to put it off - forever. "But I didn't. I got together with [music director] Paul Gemignani and Paul Ford, and about a year later, I sang for about 50 people. Then, I said, 'Let's record it.' [Writer-DJ] Jonathan Schwartz was in the audience, and he said, 'This is going to be your life.' He became my friend and one of my mentors. That's how it all got going. "I didn't want a theme [for the first album]. We chose songs that we liked. I can't read music. The songs were divided into three piles: those that were easy to learn and stuck with me; ones that were too hard to learn - so, forget about them; and those I learned, but didn't like. "The problem then was, what were we going to do? I'd only done book shows. Everyone was telling me, if you're going to do it on Broadway, you need a big orchestra. That was overwhelming. I was freaking out.
"One night, Joe [Papp] came over for dinner. He wanted me to play Leontes in The Winter's Tale [at the Public Theatre]. I told him I wanted to do something with this music. He said, 'Do it on Monday nights [when Winter's Tale would not be playing].' I said, 'I want to work with just my piano player, Paul Ford. Everyone says I can't do that.' He said, 'You didn't ask me. I'm telling you it will work fine.' I did it for six Monday nights - and it changed my life." For the first concert, Papp sent Patinkin flowers. "I put them in two tins and brought them on stage. Ever since, I have always brought flowers with me when I walk out [for his entrance]. It's my tradition of bringing Joe with me."
Journeying to London, Patinkin starred in Born Again, the short-lived musical version of Rhinoceros, directed by Peter Hall. Back on Broadway, he found himself in a British setting for the Marsha Norman/Lucy Simon musical, The Secret Garden. Playing Archibald Craven, he says; "was one of the most enriching things I've ever done. I was only supposed to stay through the opening, and I ended up staying over six months. I adored singing to the little girl [Daisy Eagan in her Tony-winning role] at the end, when she came running into my arms. To learn about the garden and about how you live through children is a complete parallel to my own life. It sounds corny, but it's all so damn true."
He next appeared on Broadway in 1993, when he succeeded Michael Rupert as Marvin in the William Finn/James Lapine musical Falsettos. "I loved it. I was very much moved by it, and what it expresses, in terms of how one struggles to be close with people one loves: children, friends, family. And what that costs an individual, what an individual has to learn, in order to go to others. [Marvin] was frighteningly similar to my own personal journey, in terms of selfishness and self-absorption - things like that." Patinkin's most recent Broadway musical was Michael John LaChiusa's The Wild Party, which ran 68 performances in the spring of 2000. It was not a pleasant experience. "Sometimes, trying to make a work of art can be very difficult and very painful. You set out to do something that you believe in, and sometimes the train gets derailed. Everyone's working harder than ever to make it what you hoped it would be.
"The Wild Party was something we all had the highest hopes for. Things didn't work out. It was an uphill struggle. The Tony nomination [he received] did not heal the difficulties. We wanted it to come to fruition, and it didn't. But that happens. Sometimes, if you walk the wire, you're gonna fall off." During the run, one tabloid columnist attacked Patinkin on an almost daily basis. "I'd heard about that," he says. "They're not there. They don't know what the truth is. They're just mean-spirited, and find ways for people to give them garbage. That's what it is. It's garbage! Those kinds of things are just to be ignored. "There are certainly things in the press that I've read, in terms of criticism, that can be helpful. At times, I will ask other people, 'Do you agree with this?' And I'll make a change in what I'm doing. Like anything, there's the good, the bad and the ugly."
Among Patinkin's movies are Ragtime (as Tateh), Daniel, Maxie, Alien Nation, The Princess Bride, Dick Tracy (as Madonna's piano player, 88 Keys), Impromptu, The Doctor, and The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland.
He won a 1995 Emmy Award as Best Actor for Chicago Hope, the CBS medical drama on which he played Dr. Jeffrey Geiger (1994-95 and 1999-2000). Other television work includes a cable movie, The Hunchback (as Quasimodo), and a PBS film of Arthur Miller's Broken Glass.
During the early 1990s, Patinkin discovered that he was losing his sight, due to a degenerative eye disease called keratoconus. "I was assured by doctors that I would never go blind, because there would be the option of corneal transplants when the disease progressed to a certain point - and indeed, it did. I had the transplants [in 1997 and '98] and I see better than I saw when I was a kid. I'm blessed. "Thank God, knock on wood, I'm fine. I have a 13-yearold girl's eye, and a 14-year-old boy's eye. I've been given the gift of sight by people who decided to donate their organs. I try to do a lot of organ-donor work" Patinkin's studio recordings include Man of La Mancha and Kismet. He can be heard on the CD of Leonard Bernstein's New York, which was also a PBS-TV special. His solo CDs include Dress Casual, Experiment, Oscar & Steve, Mamaloshen, and Kidults. The title of his latest (and sixth solo) CD comes "from a movie review that Vincent Canby did of Die Hard [1988]. He said it was 'a movie for kidults.' I loved the word." Designed to appeal to "the child in all of us," the CD is an eclectic mix that includes two Sondheim songs ("Everybody Says Don't" and "Not While I'm Around"), three Frank Loesser numbers from Hans Christian Andersen, and such rarely heard treats as "Rhode Island Is Famous for You" and "April in Fairbanks." Asked if the selections have special meanings for him, such as the first one, "If I Only Had a Brain," Patinkin quickly replies, "Yes, I wish I had a brain [Laughs]. God knows, it's a favorite of everyone's, [from] The Wizard of Oz. We hit upon the idea of my doing all three characters [he sings as the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion]. Their sentiments spoke to me in different ways. I'm not saying that the songs don't speak to me, but the album isn't very cerebral. It's a party, a celebration, a break - for me, and I hope for my listeners." Following the release of his first CD, Mandy Patinkin, Gerard Alessandrini spoofed the rendition of "Over the Rainbow" with a Forbidden Broadway parody called "Somewhat Overindulgent." The satirist later added (to the tune of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious") "Super-Frantic, Hyper-Active, Self-Indulgent Mandy." Claims Patinkin, "I will be offended when they do not spoof me."
Stephen Sondheim has called Patinkin's voice "brilliant - a gift from God." Sidney Lumet, who directed Patinkin in Daniel, described the actor as "a bolt of lightning!" Joseph Papp was quoted that Patinkin was "worse than a perfectionist. A perfectionist reaches some degree of satisfaction..." As Patinkin acknowledges, there is no middle ground on how people react to his performances. While the Times review of his current concert noted, "Anger and aggressiveness lurk below the surface of his singing," others have accused him of He tours "every year, or every other year. I love it; I really do. People are so grateful when you come visit them out there in the country. They just give you so much, and it makes you want to give so much back. "I try to be at home when necessary, which is always. But I can't be here always. A tour is family-friendly. You can work out your own schedule. I never have to be more than two weeks without coming home. It's my favorite way to go."
In the latest program, he mixes several songs from his recently released solo CD, Kidults, with a number of Stephen Sondheim selections. He sings "In Buddy's Eyes" as "In Someone's Eyes," which, says Patinkin, "is how it was originally written." His songs are interpreted so dramatically that they often seem like musical monologues. When he sings "Triplets," using two handpuppets as his siblings, it becomes so manic that it borders on being a therapy session with music. Part Al Jolson, part Danny Kaye, and part improvisational force, the sum of Patinkin is a totally distinct talent. While on tour, Patinkin is also working on his next project, an all-Sondheim show that's presently called Finishing the Hat. "It will be a cycle of songs that tell a story. [Sondheim] let us into his files. I spent 10 weeks going through everything with Paul Ford. In February, we'll break it in at the Prince Theatre in Philadelphia. Then, we're going to do it at the Kennedy Center during the Sondheim Festival in June. We're going to record it. "I'm trying to put together - maybe for Broadway - all my concerts in repertory. One night would be Mamaloshen [an all-Yiddish program, which he did on Broadway for 28 performances]. The second night would be the current concert, and the next would be the Sondheim piece. You could see three different concerts - if you really wanted to get sick of me [Laughs]. "That's what I'm after. I want to keep these things alive. I have to wait until things calm down. Right now [so soon after the terrorist tragedy] is not the time to figure out anything." Thus far, he's asked, what has brought him the most satisfaction? Mandy Patinkin immediately answers, "My family!" By Michael Buckley |
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