BWW Interviews: George Hearn: Family and Friendship

His career in musical theater goes back decades, but this weekend, two-time Tony winner George Hearn is finally making his Encores! debut. Fanny, a 1954 musical that solidified David Merrick as a producer, is the kind of musical Encores! was created to celebrate: largely under-appreciated by modern audiences, but certainly not forgotten. Indeed, considering its familial storyline and dramatic tone, Encores! may well be the only chance New York audiences get to see this classic show--and to see Hearn's triumphant return to the city after several years away.

Hearn calls Fanny "a sentimental favorite," but says he was largely attracted to the production by its pedigree. "I'm in semi-retirement and I can resist everything but temptation," he quips. "And when they said this one, I said yes. I've always wanted to do Encores! I lived in New York for 45 years and never did an Encores! For some reason, I missed it."

In the show, Hearn plays Cesar, the father of a young man determined to go out to sea. When the boy returns two years later, he discovers that his sweetheart has gotten married--to his father's best friend. "It's about a whole lot of things," Hearn says of the show. "It's about family and friendship--the friendship between these two grumpy old men." Of course, every show is about its time and place, and Fanny's setting on the French Riviera adds to the romance. "It has a wonderful French flavor to it...And I think it's a gorgeous story." 

"The love between the father and son is just remarkable," he continues. "And the conflict in the boy between wanting to go out and see the world, and being in love with a woman and wanting to have a family and all that. That tension between those two [is] resolved in a strange and wonderful way. It's quite an interesting story. It's an old-fashioned musical in a way, it's structured the way they used to write them and the kind of music that I like."

"People who come to Encores! are people with a sensitivity to, a love of the history of the musical theater and touched by these shows," Hearn says. "It's not dated; it just speaks with a different kind of music--it's not rock music; the story is told with traditional music that is available to, I think, more people. That's my taste in music, with lyrics that can be understood heard and loved...And the people who will come are the people who obviously love Encores! and love this historical sense of what a musical used to be like."

And he would know. Hearn's career spans numerous genres of plays and musicals. He credits his
willingness to try many roles to a conversation he had with legendary actress Colleen Dewhurst. "I said, 'You chose your parts very well.' She said, 'I took every part that was ever offered to me! You won't get offered something that doesn't suit you somewhat because they'll hire somebody else.' So, in general, when I was offered a part, it was something that people thought I could do, maybe. So that's half of that equation, inasmuch as...I turned down very little." His willingness to experiment paid off, and he found himself cast in everything from Shakespeare to Arthur Miller to Jerry Herman and Stephen Sondheim. "People offered me parts that had some substance because they required an actor, I think. I hope I've fulfilled them, but I've really been blessed with great parts." Of course, he acknowledges, being versatile and believable in a variety of roles can have its drawbacks. "There were times that I felt foolish in La Cage Aux Folles, being a drag queen," he acknowledges. "People would say, 'Is that what you like to do?' I would say, 'No, I don't like slitting throats, either, but nobody ever asks me that with Sweeney Todd!'"

"I'm dead either way with La Cage," he continues, laughing. "If I don't do it well, they say he's a terrible actor. If I do it well, they say 'My, my, doesn't he do that well?!' You just have to give yourself to that." Still, he acknowledges, being able to play so many roles has been very rewarding. "It's a character actor's dream to be able to do many different kinds of parts. Particularly in a musical [written by] Steve Sondheim, Richard Rodgers and so forth, Jule Styne--I've worked with all of those people and God, what a blessing, what a time in the history of musical theater I was allowed to live through! And great leading ladies like our Angela Lansbury, Colleen Dewhurst, Liv Ullman and so forth- better not start mentioning them, I wouldn't want to leave any out!" he adds quickly, laughing again. "I'm kind of a senior citizen, and there still is a lot [to do]. You know, it's a wonderful thing for an actor, as you get older--there are some pretty swell older parts, like King Lear, Prospero, and these two parts which are for men of sixty or so. And that's the fun of the theater, I think."

Returning to the subject of La Cage, Hearn comments that the show had its own unique challenges. "Drag was hard for me," he says. "It was embarrassing, in a way. I would get in various moods about it, I knew it was a great actor's part. And Colleen Dewhurst said to me, 'Well, if you don't do it, someone else is gonna to do it and win a Tony. So you'd better put that dress on!' So I did, and I did love it, and I loved the humanity of that." The show also got him his wife, Leslie Simons, who was playing one of the Cagelles. "We got married during La Cage at the UN Chapel," he remembers. "Van Johnson was there and all the cast of thousands. And a group of the guys got dressed up in drag and came to the shower, the bridal shower. There was a lot of fun in La Cage. It was playful, and I loved the music, and I love Jerry Herman and Arthur Laurents and that group was just wonderful." After a while, however, he began to tire of the role and its inherent challenges. "At the end my wife said, 'Why are you so sad? You're sad, I think.' And I said, 'Well, yeah.' You know, men get into the theater wanting to be John Wayne and women get in wanting to be ElizaBeth Taylor and...I didn't get in wanting to be ElizaBeth Taylor!"

Getting serious again, he says he is pleased that La Cage is returning to Broadway for a third time. "It should always be playing. It's an important piece, I think, and it did a lot of good things at a time when it was needed," he says. "There were many, many beautiful stories that came out of it. It opened up life for a lot of people. 'I Am What I Am' became an anthem, not just for gay people but for lots of others, people in all sorts of programs that were being helped to give them some self-esteem and stand on their own. It's a wonderful piece, and the whole thing had a tremendous salutary effect on American culture. Not to overblow the point, but I was proud to be in it. And many other plays, the theater can do a wonderful thing. It can open up the world for lots of folk."

As an example of how theater can open up worlds, Hearn shares a story from the original run of La Cage. "I had a Republican, right-wing, brother-in-law who was a little homophobic but a loyal fan and a terrific guy. He and his wife came up from Orlando to see it. And he said, 'Good job, that was nice. That took a lot of nerve and you did it really well. We enjoyed it.' So six months passed, and my sister Anne said, 'Six months and he didn't even mention it!' And then at breakfast one morning, he said 'You know, Anne, if those two guys really loved each other-I guess it's none of my business.'...Now, you can't legislate that. You can't get a preacher to do that, you can't make that happen. But the theater can have that kind of power, that it touches people in a way, that it can inflect them a little toward another point of view." 

Another, somewhat less serious anecdote: While playing Sweeney Todd on tour, Hearn got to sing the National Anthem in Candlestick Park, for opening day of baseball season. "The cast did everything they could to mess me up with the lyrics," he remembers. "It's one of those songs you know you don't want to go up on! And there were 50,000 people there, Vida Blue and Joe Morgan on the other side. They were booing by the time I was through, and the PR man from San Francisco said, 'They're not booing you, George, really, people just want to get on with the game...Vida Blue is pitching and they're yelling "Blue, Blue, Blue!'" And BetSy Johnson, who was a friend in the cast, said, 'No, they're yelling 'Cariou, Cariou, Cariou!'-the original Sweeney Todd!"

For now, Hearn is enjoying his return to the New York stage, and to be in another musical that focuses on family conflicts--not unlike La Cage. "I think they are, in a funny way, connected," he says, in that the parents in both stories are struggling to accommodate and understand their children. "In this case, [the conflict is from] my son's natural yearning to explore the world and have experiences and at the same time being in love with his childhood sweetheart and wanting to have a family. That's a tension that's in probably in all men. And her tension is one that's in all women."

That universality, he believes, is what will make Fanny appeal to a new generation of theater-goers. "I'll hope they'll be deeply moved by the sense of community in this little pocket of France just outside of Marseilles, with the sense of family-what used to be the sense of family, probably still is in much of the world--a sense of friendship and family and community. And I think they'll be very touched by it. It touches all sorts: A child is born and a man dies at the end, naturally. It covers the span of life and friendships that endure and love that endures. And it's kind of tough. It's a strong-minded musical. When I say about emotions I don't mean that it's maudlin," he adds quickly. "It's just about something, the human heart, and I think-I hope people will be moved by it."

Fanny, the 50th Encores! musical produced by New York City Center since 1994 and the second Encores! production of the season, opens of February 4 and runs through February 7, 2010. Fanny has music and lyrics by Harold Rome and book by S.N. Behrman and Joshua Logan, and is based on Marcel Pagnol's trilogy Marius, Fanny and Cesar. Fanny will be directed by Marc Bruni and choreographed by Lorin Latarro with music direction by Rob Berman.

Tickets for the 2009-2010 Encores! season are available at the New York City Center Box Office (West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues), through CityTix® at 212-581-1212, or online at www.nycitycenter.org. Tickets for the Orchestra, Grand Tier and Mid-Mezzanine are $95; tickets for the Rear Mezzanine and Front Gallery are $50; tickets for the Rear Gallery are $25.