What's so special about theater?

Originally, O'Hare was slated to give a speech addressing the question "Will live theater still be relevant in the years ahead?" that would end at 7:15 p.m.—allowing him just enough time to dash the few blocks from the Time-Life Building, where the Northwestern event was held, to Studio 54 in time for Assassins' 8 o'clock curtain. But a few days before the event, the producers of Assassins decided to move up showtime to 7 p.m. for a few weeks. Not wanting to disappoint his fellow alumni, O'Hare made a short film on the topic. As a result, the Northwestern crowd got to hear not only from Tony winner O'Hare but also from his Assassins costars, who all chipped in their thoughts about the importance of theater in a 500-channel/TiVo/Internet/DVD/multiplex universe.

O'Hare did speak for a few minutes before his video was shown, apologetically telling the Northwestern audience that he realized using "the medium of film to defend live theater" seemed like some sort of "performance art joke." He had to leave just as the screening began around 6:30, though in the final minutes of his 35-minute film, O'Hare—speaking to his own camera—said what he probably had intended to say in the speech. Theater is "a marketplace of ideas," the actor proclaimed. "The reciprocal nature of theater doesn't exist in film." To illustrate this dynamism that only live theater can provide, O'Hare shared two anecdotes, one stemming from the performance of Golda's Balcony he attended. When Tovah Feldshuh (as Golda Meir) read the names of the Nazi concentration camps, someone in the audience—a Holocaust survivor or the relative of a victim, O'Hare surmised—groaned. "The air was charged," O'Hare said. The theatergoer's reaction made the horror of the camps "that much more real."

His other story related to how audiences were affected by 9/11. At the time O'Hare was appearing in Roundabout Theatre's Major Barbara, Shaw's play about an arms dealer that, in O'Hare's words, posits that "we cannot choose who has the moral authority to use weapons." The comedy was getting laughs prior to September 11th, but afterward the audience reacted to it as "a deadly serious polemic," he said. The experience convinced O'Hare that while theater seemed trivial compared to Ground Zero rescue work, "we were filling an incredibly vital need: to entertain, discuss and educate."

Interviewed in the film by O'Hare, Assassins cast member Neil Patrick Harris also mentioned specific performances that to him proved the unparalleled power of theater: James Earl Jones in Fences and Liam Neeson in The Crucible. "There's something more visceral to watching something live," Harris said.

Mary Catherine Garrison, who plays Squeaky Fromme in Assassins, said "the sense of anything can happen" separates theater from television and the movies. Jeffrey "Giuseppe Zangara" Kuhn commented: "Theater is a designer's medium, it's a writer's medium, it's an actor's medium, it's a director's medium. I have a choice of what to connect with." When watching a movie, on the other hand, "my eye is always guided by the director," Kuhn said.

Assassins musical director Paul Gemignani recalled a performance of Cabaret when an audience member stood up and tried to stop the show when it came to "the Nazi song" (a.k.a. "Tomorrow Belongs to Me"). Improper theater decorum, perhaps, but you don't get such passionate interplay at the movies! Becky Ann Baker, who's Sara Jane Moore in Assassins, compared the communal, interactive qualities of theater to storytelling around the campfire. She explained its uniqueness: "It's temporal art. It exists in time. You can't go back and look at it again."

O'Hare's movie also included interviews with patrons of the TKTS booth in Times Square. Two of O'Hare's Assassins castmates, Marc Kudisch and Michael Cerveris, accompanied him when he took his video camera to the booth to ask ticket buyers "Why is live theater important?" Their responses ranged from the curtly self-evident ("Because it's live") to the unequivocally enthusiastic ("It's the perfect form of entertainment") to the factually dubious (stressing theater's long tradition as a crucial part of society, a woman said that in ancient Greece "ladies gave birth while watching plays"). One theatergoer, who made O'Hare and Co. wait for an answer while he finished his pizza, admitted he just wanted to see stars (that particular night it was going to be Ray Liotta in Match).

Back in their dressing rooms, Kudisch and Cerveris offered their own insights on-camera. "We'll always have community," Kudish said, "and [theater is] a form of expression for a community." Cerveris said that hearing from the TKTS customers reassured him that "maybe what we do isn't utterly trivial—it does have an effect." He continued: "Even if they're not coming to the theater for the 'enlightened' reasons we'd like, they're coming for reasons that are important to them. It's humbling, and heartening at the same time."

Kudisch, however, expressed dismay that some people didn't have a better answer to why they were going to the theater than "that's what you do in New York." In the video, a tourist from Utah said she was going to the theater because the first thing people back home ask those who've been to New York is if they saw a show.

O'Hare told me off-camera that he too "was a little surprised that people were in line without having any real idea what they might want to see. I would have thought that they were motivated by a particular desire to see a particular play or person, but many of them were just up to see a show, any show." He also told me that only one person recognized him and his costars (despite their combined three Tony nominations and 13 other Broadway shows), which both "pleased and horrified" them. "I don't think many of them were in line for us," O'Hare remarked.

But there were eloquent testimonials to theater's vitality from the interviewees at TKTS. One person in the movie said, "You are there and these people are there for you." Another: "It changes people's lives. It enriches your life. You're part of the experience, this one-time-only event that never happens the same way again."

James Barbour and Alexander Gemignani, who also portray title characters in Assassins, appeared in O'Hare's film as well. So did castmate Mario Cantone, though he preferred to impersonate Judy Garland instead of respond seriously. The last shot of the film was Cantone singing "I'll Get By" a la Judy.

Denis O'Hare in Assassins photo by Joan Marcus.