London Calling with 'Champaign Charlie' September 18th 2008.

I’m off to see a special preview of Riflemind tonight. Everyone is asking how and why Phillip Seymour Hoffman is still directing a show that critics treated so harshly. How far can the firepower of his stars take him?

Either way – we wish them well!

As you know Champaign Charlie is most definitely NOT a critic!

I’d never be presumptuous or arrogant enough to judge what you dear readers would like and wouldn’t…just as I wouldn’t be able to tell if you took your coffee with one sugar or two.
As for me – I’m strictly decaffeinated!

Ruth Gemmell
‘Riflemind’

When the company manager finally got hold of Rifleman’s leading lady, Ms Gemmell seemed torn.
Of course she HAD to speak to Broadway world. But with 80 minutes to go before she stepped onstage for her 1st preview she great great charm and openness did little to hide her true nerves.

And who could blame her…

Polite and kind ‘beyond requirement’ she happily opened up and let loose what every actor feels with a house full of customers and critics waiting for well, something!

‘I love the character I’m playing’ she told me’ I love her strength and believe me NO ONE writes strong parts for women anymore’

Going on then to reveal the back-story to the play you could see she so related to her part on all levels…

‘This show reminds me of being just like Christmas when frailties and dysfunction come up and families with hidden agendas and frictions crop up’

Only this time it’s a rock band that can’t live with each and they certainly can’t live with each other either who are ‘the family’.

They are set to reunite or not and Cindy is the glue as band member groupie / girlfriend that has kept them together reveals. ‘It seems the band although called Riflemind could be called the Rolling Stones or more likely Nirvana in terms of influence, status and internal friction.’ She added.

As with every hit part, getting it was not easy. ‘We’ve been in rehearsals with Phil (Seymour Hoffman) for 5 weeks and I got handed the script the day before we started.

I knew I could relate to it as I read through.’ Within a day of being cast she joined Four Wedding and a Funeral’ star John Hannah to start on the play.

He plays lead singer John who had 20 years earlier walked off stage for good.

But as with most bands today over 5 years old and 2 sing-along hits today do who disappear due to the pressures of ‘success’ - Riflemind are set to get together again. For John (John Hannah), a reunion might very well turn out to be his second chance. Sadly though for his wife Lynn (Susan Prior), it could be the end of the world as she knows it.

In the role of ‘Cindy’ we see that secrets are revealed and insecurities exposed as the drama unfold.

The scene is set in a country manor with as the band descends for one last weekend and a chance to reunite or not.

Reviews in Sydney were mixed but London audiences are traditionally less harsh and as one of the most advertised shows in the city – audiences here await it’s opening as eagerly as Ms Gemmell.

Michael Feinstein
‘What keeps me going is the fact that I feel so so lucky that I’m doing something I really love and I’m getting paid for it…Now that’s being blessed’ remarked Michael just hours before his opening residence at the Shaw Theatre in the West End.
His Sinatra song show and national UK tour compliment recent visits and a Royal Variety performance with what lucky New Yorkers have been spoilt with for years...a top flight performer of show tunes and more.

Sat by his Steinway on an empty stage he reminisced about always searching for something new to be done to the classics.’ I was lucky enough to find new lyrics by Ira Gershwin and able to add them to classic Gershwin tunes. But the joy for me is finding that little extra, that twist …perhaps it’s the discovery of a new arrangement or tune. Or giving audiences a rarely played gem. Currently I’d love to do ‘Will you?’ from ‘Grey Gardens’ acknowledging the show and the song’s status and a true show tune in the classic mould.

‘I’ve never sung it but it’s something that I could see myself doing’ he added.

‘Frankly though we have ENOUGH songs…Cole Porter wrote 1500, Gershwin 1200 and so on….’ To this day he fondly remembered those years when Ira had hired him to catalogue his extensive collection of phonograph records. The assignment led to a six-year musical excavation of Gershwin's home on Beverly Hills’ Roxbury Drive, preserving the legacy of not just Ira but his composer brother George who of course had died four decades earlier, as well.

‘The journey from there to where I am here has been amazing but all shows and careers have unique journeys.’ He pondered knowing that applies so much to him and his life. ‘I’m very excited about my latest project where I’m co producing a film with Marc Platt on the life of George Gershwin. Marc is currently here after coming off ‘Hairspray’ to work on ‘Nine’ with Daniel Day Lewis. This is a real challenge for me but I’m working with Doug Wright as screen writer who already has a Pulitzer Prize and so that is really getting me going…it’s so different.’

Frankly I think the best show that really is unpretentious and delivers what it promises so well is ‘Xanadu’. It doesn’t stretch, it’s not lofty…. and of course ‘Spamalot’

With a show like ‘Spring Awakening’ there so so much melodrama, it’s so predictable…I know why its young audience likes it, why it fulfils a need in them. But for me….the plot, the characters…well you knew what was going to happen to this character or that one….second act by the middle of the first’.

Now with every battered rocker reviving ‘the great American songbook’ it’s easy to see why and how he holds the torch up the classics. One can only wait with anticipation and a fair degree of curiosity about the final ‘product’ with the name of ‘Mr. Michael Feinstein’ by it.
Meantime he reminds me, Broadway World reader as well as himself of the knocks some of his heroes have suffered in bringing their work to life.

‘I always remember about Barry Manilow’s ‘Harmony’, trying to open in Philadelphia and the money disappearing. That’s how close the line is between succeeding or not’.
 

Tim Sheader
‘Imagine This’

With not so much as a production still to show you, we managed to drag director Tim Sheader out of rehearsals in preparation for the winters most anticipated openings.
‘Imagine this’ is a real change of direction for the director who wowed summer crowds at one of the UK’s most popular open air theatre festivals with hit revivals of ‘Gigi’ with Millicent Martin and Topol.

‘This whole journey started four yours ago…and what a journey it’s been!’ he told me pausing for breadth after a particularly exhausting rehearsal session.

‘I really didn’t know what to expect but there I was flown over to the New York by the producers. The show was then called ‘Masada’. They had a rolodex series of cards outlining the plot. Fair enough I thought…and then came the first song ‘Masada’ and more of the plot. After a few moments I BELIEVED in this show. It had such an amazing story that I was gripped from the start.’ He told me.

‘It tells of people in the very depth of despair in the Warsaw ghetto with no idea what awaits them at Treblinka where they are about to be shipped off to. Right in that hell they decide that the only way to feel human is to stage a show. It’s a show that will try and save all of them, it does for some but not for others…there is from the opening number onwards a real drama...but it needed work, a lot of work’ he added

‘I got hired at that point and then things started moving…..the full plot, the casting new songs all bringing things into a head for an opening in Chigago.Of course at the last moment – the money fell through!’

Fast forward to 2007 and the Theatre Royal Plymouth!
‘By this time we have a co production going with the Theatre Royal Plymouth, a US producer and other backers and after a work shop run we know we had a strong show and one that could really travel. Of course at the time we could get no theatre in London and had all types of shows ahead of us to start their run. Finally we now have a theatre, a great show and something that we think will really travel. Of course this is theatre and all sorts of things could happen but the cast we have are first rate.

Peter Polycarpou will play ‘Daniel Warshowsky’, the head of a family of actors who has had success as the lead in “The Phantom of the Opera” and as the role of John, which he created in the world premiere of “Miss Saigon” as well as being an original cast member of “Les Misérables.
With its London premiere on November 19th Broadway World fans will know soon enough how it will play. Having heard a couple of the tunes this will certainly surprise if nothing else!

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