BWW INTERVIEWS: GEORGE BATAILLE'S BATHROBE Star Bill Weeden

Bill Weeden, the veteran songwriter-comedian whose tunes were the basis for 2006's long-running musical revue Into the Weeds, closes this weekend in the American premiere of Richard Foreman's George Bataille's Bathrobe at The Brick, the Williamsburg theater known for its adventurousness and edge. The production was much-praised and so was Weeden's performance in the leading role.  BWW caught up with Bill this week via e-mail to ask him about Foreman, the production, and his career.

Q. The current production of George Bataille's Bathrobe has been called "a unique cacophony of sound, color, and visuals." Tell us a little about how you got into it.

A. It's one of those wonderful chains of love (or at least support) which you can find among actors. I was appearing in As You Like It outdoors in the East Village in 2002 in the dual roles of Adam and Corin. After the performance one night a fiNe Young actor named Walter Brandes (whom I had very much admired on stage but whom I had never met) came up to me, praised my work, and got me cast in a production of The Three Sisters.

Q. Straight from Shakespeare to Chekhov, eh?

A. Not quite. I had to bail out of that production in order to play Santa Claus in Atlantic City opposite Mickey Rooney. But Walter and I stayed in touch, and last year he introduced me to the amazingly gifted director Ian W. Hill, the lighting director at The Brick and a frequent director there. With his talented assistant and fiancée Berit Johnson, Ian was putting together a stage production of the uncut Orson Welles screenplay of The Magnificent Ambersons and cast me as Major Amberson, the family patriarch. It was a small but juicy part, and I guess Ian was impressed because he invited me to play Frank Norris, the leading character in George Bataille's Bathrobe. And what a challenge that has been.

Q. Foreman is a darling of the avant-garde, but his plays are notably abstract.

A. And then some. Think Beckett mixed with Ionesco and Pinter in a Cuisinart. The script is 90 percent non sequiturs and 10 percent pregnant pauses. But what a play it is! And what a great part.

Q. You received your first New York Times review for a show that opened on your 69th birthday. How does that make you feel?

A: Like the Grandma Moses of the acting profession. But seriously, it wasn't my first Times review. Just my first as a bona fide "actor." I've been getting reviewed in the Times since the 1960s, when my long-time writing/performing partner David Finkle and I appeared on a Channel 13 program called "New Voices" where we showcased our musical Better Love Next Time. The Times critic noted that in the realm of small intimate musicals we were no competition for The Fantasticks. 

Q. Interesting that The Fantasticks was evoked, since 35 years later you wound up as The Boy's Father in the final cast of that record-setting production at the Sullivan Street Playhouse. What was that like?

A. Indescribably thrilling-not only being in the show, which I had seen many times over the course of 30-some-odd years, but actually closing it, with all the excitement that involved. Just the idea of doing 600 performances of the same show is something so few actors ever get the chance to do. But 600 performances was nothing in the larger scheme of things. My scene partner, Bill Tost, had been doing The Girl's Father for almost 20 years off and on when I joined the cast. Next to Tost I was a piker.

Q. Does the Fantasticks connection make you feel like a real piece of theatrical history?

A. Not just theatrical. Every January 13, the anniversary of the show's closing after 42 years, NY1 television shows a clip of the final cast as part of "This Day in New York History." I usually get a couple of phone calls from people saying, "Saw you on the tube."

Q. You're also available on DVD as the villain in the Troma Entertainment schlock epic Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. Quite a ways from Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Foreman. How did that weirdness come about? 

A. In 1989 my first marriage had just broken up. I was floating from apartment to apartment through the largesse of my network of friends. I felt adrift and needed something to give me a lift. I'd always wanted to be an "actor," not just a writer-performer, so I started buying BackStage and Show Business and sifting through the casting notices. Saw something that sounded like Troma, a guilty pleasure of mine. Answered the ad, got the part. Lloyd Kaufman, the hilarious and gutsy guy who co-owns Troma, says he cast me partly for my resemblance to his nemesis Jack Valenti. Whatever the reason, being in that movie saved my sanity, which I still more or less retain.

Q. Speaking of marriage, you've been happily remarried for 14 years. How does your acting affect your relationship?

A. I have one of the most supportive wives on record. Dolores McDougal (that was her professional name) was a promising young actress in the 1960s when she left the business to raise her son, the filmmaker-actor Eric Schaeffer. Years later he and I became friends and he introduced me to his mom. At our wedding in 1995 he gave her away and my daughter Amanda Weeden (who appeared with me in Into the Weeds) gave me away. The whole thing screams support in the most wonderful way.

Q. So what's up next post-Bathrobe? 

A. Very exciting stuff. Starting in October I'll be shooting an internet series called Code Name Pike Mission, in which I play Sen. David Jefferson Hearst, who retires from the Senate to create a counter-espionage unit to fight the evil Ridley Empire, a completely homegrown espionage network with no foreign directives. It sounds like Mission: Impossible meets The Mod Squad meets Charlie's Angels, with me as Charlie-but, unlike Charlie, I appear on screen. There's already a website for my character, www.senatordavidjeffersonhearst.com.  It should be a blast and I can't wait to get started. Then there are a couple of scripts I'm being asked to read, with parts that have been created for me. Pretty good for an old coot, wouldn't you say? Or is it geezer? Can't keep those terms straight.

George Bataille's Bathrobe by Richard Foreman plays two more performances at the Brick Theatre on August 28th & 29th at 8.00 pm. For tickets visit www.bricktheatre.com.

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