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Sweep means other shows will wither
Monday, June 04, 2001 By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Critic
NEW YORK -- With his first joke last night on the PBS segment of the 55th annual Tony Awards, Nathan Lane gave backhanded recognition to one of the truths of the day. Sipping tea with his co-host, Matthew Broderick, in parody of PBS-"Masterpiece Theatre" style, Lane condescendingly referred to the CBS segment still to come, "when we'll be voting people off the island." In their smoking jackets, he and Broderick then pretended not to know what that meant.
But Broadway does.
"Voting people off the island" is part of what Tony voters have done by giving "The Producers" every one of the record 12 Tonys for which it was nominated -- the small island of Manhattan doesn't have room for everyone. Broderick's comic routine at the start of the CBS show about being "king of the world" also served to hammer this home. For some shows, closing notices will not be long in waiting. For a few besides "The Producers" -- "Proof," "42nd Street" -- awards will lead to profitable tours into that larger world for which Broadway is the tryout.
To get an advance line on pre-Tony spirits, I had called from Pittsburgh on Thursday to get a prediction from Benjamin Mordecai, lead producer on August Wilson's "King Hedley II," nominated for best play. "We expect to win, of course," he said. But did he really? "I'd say we're a long shot," he admitted. As it turned out, "King Hedley" won only Viola Davis' award for best supporting actress. "Proof" (three awards) and "The Invention of Love" (two) did better.
But commercial calculations will have to wait for the cold light of the weekdays ahead. During the awards, the best moment of the community one expects from theater was the audience-participation excerpt from "Rocky Horror," where Gwyneth Paltrow and others were up dancing in response to Joan Jett and the other performers. I liked the way "Full Monty" tailored its number to Radio City, too -- after all, live theater is best when it's live and shows how that liveliness works.
I was keeping one eye on a TV monitor in the press room, as usual, which was a few blocks away at the Sheraton Hotel this year because of backstage renovations at Radio City. As a result, the winners were late coming to be interviewed, so I'll have more about that tomorrow.
Before the show, there was the usual giddy scene outside Radio City Music Hall as I took my assigned 10-inch space along the crimson-carpeted walkway, jammed in with the rest of the rabid press to ogle and query the presenters and nominees as they arrived.
"Are you still here?" I asked Polly Bergen, fatuously, perhaps, but in specific reference to her knock-'em-dead "I'm Still Here" number in "Follies," which she later did live on the show. "Absolutely!" she trumpeted back, flashing those famous (and of course well made-up) eyes.
Partly because the awards show featured female presenters, the array of feminine beauty on the walkway seemed higher octane than in recent years. Loveliest by far was Juliette Binoche, elegant in a loose, low-slung black suit look, complete with fedora -- much classier than at the Oscars. But who cares what she wears when she smiles that creamy, knowing smile?
Then Gwyneth and Sarah Jessica Parker and Jean Smart and Jane Krakowski and Bernadette Peters and Gina Gerson and Kate Levering (you'll hear more about her) and Cady Huffman (dress slit down to here, as you saw on TV) and a bunch of other beauties arrived all at once, and the hysteria increased.
As the bosoms heaved, Mike Wallace walked by unremarked. In fact, the young couple from Irish TV beside me didn't even notice the two Irish best-actor nominees, Conleth Hill and Sean Campion ("Stones in His Pockets"). "Which of you is which?" I asked. "I'm Conleth," said Conleth, "and he's Conleth, too."
Dick Cavett, who plays a very PBS-style narrator in "The Rocky Horror Show," was happy to talk. Asked why he wasn't a nominee for supporting actor, he said, "I'm not sure I'm acting, exactly." Then he posed fetchingly with the diminutive Kristin Chenoweth, perhaps the only one of the beauties parading past who was shorter than he.
The photo flacks clustered around me were so vociferous much of the time that all I could do was look and enjoy. CMU's Patrick Wilson arrived with Jennifer Love Hewitt, both looking cute and young, and amid the clamorous paparazzi a tired-looking Wilson could only wave and acknowledge my thumbs-up good-luck -- both of us knowing already that he had little chance against the juggernaut of the evening.
I asked the obvious question of Levering, who plays the chorus girl who becomes a star in "42nd Street": "Can you go back to the chorus after having been a star?" "I sure hope not!" she said, with all the perfume-and-steel determination in the world.
Marc Kudisch, handsome co-star with Faith Prince of "Bells Are Ringing," was serious: "Broadway has become Reaganomics," he said, "and trickle-down doesn't work" -- contradicting the usual hopeful theory that a super hit like "The Producers" sheds glamour and success on the shows around it. "No, it doesn't," he said: "just call the group sales offices and ask them."
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