Oscar Is No Sucker In BARNUM

When The Producers opened on Broadway, I had the ultimate pleasure to be there for the opening weekend in New York City.  And I experienced it with the original cast including the subject of this interview, Brad Oscar, who played Franz Liebkind.  For this performance, Oscar received a Tony award nomination.  It was a performance I will never forget.  When he took over for Nathan Lane as Bialystock, I had the opportunity to interview him for another publication.  It was certainly pleasure to be able to catch up with him about his newest project, Barnum, now playing at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre in Jupiter, Florida through Sunday, January 25^th.

Oscar, as I had aforementioned, received a 2001 Tony Award nomination for The Producers as Best Featured Actor in a Musical and  went on to play the role of Max Bialystock over 1,200 times on Broadway, on tour, in London and in the Las Vegas production. His other Broadway and New York credits include Spamalot, the original casts of Jekyll & Hyde and Aspects of Love, Gerard Alessandrini's Forbidden Broadway, the Encores! Do Re Mi, as well as Santa in The Radio City Christmas Spectacular in Los Angeles and Branson. At Washington, DC's Arena Stage,  he recently starred in The Mystery of Irma Vep, Cabaret and Damn Yankees.

So I caught up with Oscar last week before the official opening and talked Barnum with him.

TJ:  Hi Brad. It's been a while since I last saw you. How is Barnum going?

OSCAR:  It's going great! It's a very fun role. We just finished putting it back up here in Jupiter. It's a co-production between Asolo Repertory in Sarasota and the Maltz Jupiter Theatre. We finished the first part of our run in Sarasota, then had a week off for the holiday and then made the necessary adaptations and changes for Jupiter, technically and physically, because it is a different space. I think we're finally done rehearsing it and started previews last night. We open up officially tomorrow night.

It is a lot of fun and I am having a great time! It's such a fun show. I had seen it originally on Broadway a couple of times. What is nice about it is that I think a lot of people are not familiar with the show because it doesn't seem to be done that much, by nature of the requirements of the show...with the circus stuff and all that.  So, its fun to do the show, especially for the audiences down here and enjoy the traditional kind of musical theatre thing. Audiences have been loving it, which is wonderful.

TJ:  When you were in Sarasota, did you visit the Ringling Museum?

OSCAR:  Yes. The theatre is right there. It's tied in with FSU. It's right there at the museum and the mansion. It was so exciting to do it there being the sort of unofficial home of the circus. To be able to do some of the research...to be able to go into the museum and see a lot of that stuff was cool.

TJ:  I was going to say, how did that help you get into understanding the character and discovering who Barnum was?

OSCAR:  You take everything you can, right? You just try to be a sponge like that. I guess what I found most interesting about the process was we all think about Barnum and the circus. But, ironically, the circus came very late in his life, when he joined up with Bailey...actually, about 10 years before he died. There was so much else he did and so many other things that he sort of pioneered. In so many ways, he is the father of advertising, which I didn't realize until I stated to investigate this a little more and read stuff. There's a great A&E biography...they always come in handy. It was very interesting to see what he did over the course of his life before he even joined the circus, if you will.  That's what makes the show entertaining and educational, although it's hardly educational.  You know what I mean.  People can find out who this guy was and what led him to that...what brought him to the point that was a natural extension of what he had done throughout his life with his sideshow attractions, with his menageries...which at that point in we're really just displays of animals. 

Then of course, with his advertising...he way he would promote things, the way he would tap into the public consciousness or find a way to intrigue, mystify and excite.  Several times in the play, he would say, "I want to give people a glimpse of the miracle." I think the miracle being that state of wonder and disbelief and the joy it brings when we can't necessarily wrap our mind around something because it's so fantastical.  And he had a passion to do that...not to swindle, not to cheat, not to hoodwink these people...although he was accused of doing so throughout his life.  I think, because of the research I have done on this man, how he treated Tom Thumb and Joyce Heff and these actual people who were his sideshow attractions...he treated them with such respect and such and professionalism.  Most of these kinds of people that ended up making a living off that...these freaks, as they were most often referred to...were often treated horribly by their promoters or whoever held their contracts. Barnum had a great respect for these people.

Certainly for our purposes and the way we tell the story, the way the show tells the story, he was a pretty extraordinary man.

TJ:  Is it true that 'There's A Sucker Born Every Minute' ?

OSCAR:  You know, he never said that, which is hilarious.  And of course, it's the opening song in the show.  For all purposes, by that he means there's a part of us that finds that gullibility, to find that part of us that wants to believe or take that trip, if you will.

TJ:  In the original Broadway production, I believe Barnum did a little tightrope walking, if I'm not mistaken.  Will you be following in those footsteps?

OSCAR:  Jim Dale did lots of stuff.  I will not be doing that.  When Gordon Greenberg, the director, approached me about doing the show, my first reaction was, "Really?" In my mind, having seen the Broadway production, Barnum walks a tightrope and jumps on a trampoline up to the box.  Barnum juggles.  Barnum does all this very physical stuff. Jim Dale was extraordinary in the role, he was great!  Needless to say, that's not something that I can necessarily do without months of training prior to performing, which is something that I did not have.  Gordon's whole concept was not to play it that way.  We have, with our ensemble, as we tell the story, a dream Barnum and a dream Charity. 

So we have two actors who sort of mirror us at many times during the show.  So they do a lot of the manifestation of the physical. Charity was never involved in that in the original show.  We wanted to focus on who this man was and his relationship with Charity, who he spent most of his life with and who was, in very many ways, the polar opposite of Barnum.  She was much more grounded, much more realistic.  So, being able to have these two actors manifest physically a lot of the other stuff that's going on is a great approach to the piece.  It works very well.  And yes, it prevents me from having to walk a tightrope, which I am for. [Laughs]

TJ: Come on, Brad! We know you want to walk that line!!

OSCAR: Believe me, you spend that time in rehearsal thinking, "Am I just a real coward here or should I really do it?" And I did give it a whirl because I had done a little bit of circus stuff in college at Boston University.  We actually had a whole semester on this. One of our movement teachers was a former circus guy. So I actually had a bit of that kind of training, although that was like, oh my god, 26 years ago!

We had all the circus training in Sarasota, so I did give it a whirl because I didn't want to rule it out right away.  And as I said, the reality was in a three week rehearsal process or four weeks, I believe it was, for me to have focused on trying to master that while at the same time trying to do everything else I had to do...I never leave the stage except for like 5 minutes throughout the course of the entire play...  It would have been too much for me to put on my plate.  And again, it wasn't the intent from the beginning.  I don't think most people know that Jim Dale walked the tightrope, unless you know the show.  So, I hope I am not disappointing people.

TJ:  I'm sure that they will not be disappointed!  Any thoughts about Barnum possibly coming back to Broadway as a revival?

OSCAR:  With the way of the world right now, the only way that would happen is if Hugh Jackman says that he wants to do it, or something like that.  It's certainly a star driven vehicle.  There's no question.  And I think in this day and age, needless to say, you would need someone of that great magnitude that you know would bring ticket sales to the box office, merely based on their name.  Again, I think it's a great show and I certainly would love to see it revived with all the bells and whistles.  As a matter of fact, there's talk of a London West End revival and it was very successful over there in its initial production after Broadway which starred Michael Crawford.  It's actually on DVD as well.  There's been some buzz about that.  But I think realistically, especially right now, because it wouldn't be a cheap production...if you're going to do this, you have to put the money into it because the show demands it.

To do it regionally here outside of the city, I think we have a real nice production of the show.  There's a group of about 16 of us.  This is a fine way to show the piece off right now.

TJ:  Speaking of Broadway, there are so many shows that seemed to be closing now.  What's your take on this?

OSCAR:  You know, I've been doing this long enough to know that things are cyclical in that way.  I do believe that this is different though...this is a different time now because where is this money going to come from.  There's millions of dollars that go into putting on Broadway musical. The theatre has never been the soundest investment to begin with, so I certainly think we're all a little anxious right now.  But I also feel again like how many times we've said 'Oh! Broadway's in such bad shape' or 'Oh no! This is the end of it all' or 'It's only going to be this type of entertainment to that type of entertainment.'

The irony is look at the second half of the season now...we have six or seven plays coming in, some new, some revivals.  So yeah, we don't have the $15,000,000 splash musicals maybe, although we do have a couple opening.  But perhaps smaller productions, perhaps more plays...  I still think hopefully stuff is going to be happening, just maybe a little different than we're used to.  And maybe it's time to step back from these huge $1,000,000 adaptations of animated features or whatever...I don't know!  Everything has its place in the sense and I think, hopefully, in the big picture, we'll all get through this.  Certainly, as an actor, I think most actors work outside of New York...we all want to work at home...I would love nothing more to walk out my door and walk up five blocks and be at work.  That would be lovely.  But the fact is, there is so much work elsewhere and in a case like this, I'm getting to do a role that I most likely would not have been able to do in New York and that's a wonderful opportunity to have.  You know, I'm working at some lovely places.  Right now, I am talking to you and I'm looking out my hotel window and looking at the Atlantic Ocean, so it doesn't suck. [laughing] In that respect, if that's the tradeoff, I'll take it! You know!! Again, the joy of going to work elsewhere in new cities and new theaters and slightly different climates...

TJ:  Ah yes. As opposed to looking out the window, like I am now, and seeing the snow and the sleet. I would trade places with you in an instant!

OSCAR:  Please!! I'll be back soon enough!!

As always, it was great speaking with Brad and hearing all about Barnum. The show is being directed by Gordon Greenberg (Jacques Brel, The Baker's Wife) with choreography by Joshua Rhodes and music direction by Helen Gregory. So, if you happen to be in the warm climate, as I wish I was right now, and want to see some great theatre, catch Oscar and his castmates in Barnum For tickets to Barnum, priced $30-$49, call (561) 575-2223, or visit JupiterTheatre.org for more information. As for me, I am going to that happy warm place by the radiator and say to you 'Ciao! And remember, theatre is my life!'

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