[music]
>I had an interesting experience with Cherry because The Night of the Iguana
was done in Chicago first and I was brought into the company when they came
into New York and almost everybody came from Chicago with the exception of me.
So, I learned a really painful lesson actually which was that my enthusiasm
for the play, the part, cherry, the director Bob Falls, and the rest of the
cast and the idea of doing that particular part was so exciting to me
that I didn't ask some really important questions which was what is the
directors interpretation of the character that I'm about to play.
>And in stepping into a production that's already that constructed. Right.
>And where people have decided certain basic relationships that are antithetical to
what I thought the play was about. There came this moment and I'm gonna
tell it on myself but there came this moment in the rehearsal where I stood
there for a moment and I turned to Bob Falls and I said "You just want me to
move around this stage to make your pretty pictures." And so he said "Yes." [laughter]
Looking back, I should have said "You know I'm not right for you," because the rest
of the experience was so not fulfilling for me because we had a very different
point of view about what the character was about and what the play was about in
relationship to the character. And then I had to then proceed to play out
the remainder of the run and everything. Very frustrating and it really was painful.
The people putting it together had an idea about what Evita should be
and how Che functioned in it, that every time I tried to do something and I'd
never done a major musical like this before every time I try to do something
they'd say "No, that's not right," and at one point I was told, "Go upstage and do this."
I said "Why?" "Well Mandy did that." [laughter]
>And it worked by God! >I said, "Okay what is he doing?"
"Well you're summoning the set." and I said "I"m summoning the set?"
And there was this flag that sort of came billowing down.
It was supposed to be triumphant and sometimes the flag would fall on the
floor and I'd go [laughter]. But I said to the to the team
I said "I'm not the man for you,
this is I don't understand this." Then Hal Prince came in because he was
working on Parade at the time and he said "Let him do what he wants."
And boom. The other time that that happened was going into
Cabaret, replacing in Cabaret, the production exists it is what it is you
can't do much inside of it, you think. Then someone like Sam Mendes will come
around and Sam actually gave me a note that said what you did last night
when I saw it, throw it away I loved it. Tomorrow, if you give the same
performance tomorrow that you gave tonight for me, you will have failed
yourself and your talent. I want you to walk out on that stage and break all the
rules that that they taught you when they ask you to replace him in this because
he kept saying you've been so inventive inside the confines of what the show is
I want you to go further. It was terrifying.
I walked out the next night
going "Go left, go right." but it doesn't mean that all my choices
the next night we're good but
when a director like that comes and says "No, you're not making pretty pictures for me,
I love you and what you've done."
You as an actor and as an interpreter of the
craft then understand intuitively or logically what space you have to grow in that.
So as to not divert this story, so as to not divert the style, and the form,
and then you can become a real participant and a good director will do
that because then you can take it further than he could imagine.
Consequently, if you have a number of artists doing that then the play is
something that nobody ever anticipated. The playwright didn't anticipate and it
can become a production that you know really thrills and invigorates an audience.