Chicago Sun Times - Great Article on Roger Bart

[SamIAm]

Posted: 8/29/04 at 12:23pm

Roger Bart jumps in with both feet

August 29, 2004

BY MICHAEL KUCHWARA

NEW YORK -- It was a beautiful summer day on Martha's Vineyard and Roger Bart was on his way to Edgartown beach with his 3-year-old daughter when he received a cryptic phone message from director-choreographer Susan Stroman.

What was he up to this summer and would he like to see 'The Frogs'?

'I thought something was up -- Stroman [who was then shepherding the Stephen Sondheim-Nathan Lane musical through preview performances at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in Lincoln Center] doesn't call me every weekend to see how I am doing,' the actor says with laugh.

The reason for Stroman's call? Comedian Chris Kattan was being replaced as Lane's sidekick in the musical and the director and star wanted Bart to step into Kattan's role in this topical, freewheeling adaptation of Aristophanes' comedy.

Not only step in, but learn the part in less than a week and be ready to face the critics after only five performances.

'I knew it would be hard to say 'no' to her and to Nathan,' Bart recalls, sitting in an empty Beaumont lobby and looking remarkably calm and cheerful, considering the intensive theatrical workout he has been through.

The day after Stroman's call, Bart returned to New York, saw 'The Frogs' at the Saturday matinee and was in rehearsals Sunday, blocking the whole show and memorizing music and lyrics. 'I went home that night and pretty much learned the first act,' the actor says.

'Part of 'The Frogs' is about language,' Stroman says in recalling her decision to put Bart in the show. 'Roger is not only an accomplished clown and has perfect diction, he has a command of language. I needed that kind of speaking voice. Roger is very quick and he is fearless, and I love working with people who are fearless.'

The musical tells the story of Dionysos (Lane) and his slave Xanthias (Bart) who journey to the Underworld to bring back a playwright to save mankind.

Bart rehearsed with Stroman, her dance captains and Stroman's associate director-choreographer Tara Young.

'When I got home at night, I would call friends and bug them to come over and run lines with me until I couldn't see anymore,' he says. 'I cut everything out of my life for three days. The thing that panicked me the most was the pattern sections of the song that I do.'

No one gave Bart advice on how to play the role, although he did ask Sondheim about why the relationship between Dionysos and Xanthias hadn't been working in early previews.

'I wondered if the problems that existed were inherent in the writing or were they a problem with the performer,' Bart explains. 'And Sondheim said, 'It's [Bob] Hope and [Bing] Crosby. Don't think about it too much.' And you know, that was a solid piece of direction.'

Bart, of course, worked with Lane before, playing the flamboyant Carmen Ghia in the original cast of 'The Producers' and later moving up to the role of milquetoast accountant Leo Bloom.

'If there is anybody you can forget a line with on stage, it's Nathan, the greatest improviser I have ever been on stage with,' Bart says. 'He will make you look like a hero. In 'The Frogs,' my lines are often in response to Nathan's lines, so in them, there are cues. Sometimes I would have terrible paraphrasing though,' he says with a smile.

Bart and Lane appreciate the same kind of humor, an old style of performing that not many people do anymore -- one that probably grew out of them both watching Warner Bros. cartoons and old Bowery Boys movies when they were children, Bart says.

''The Producers' had it all over the place -- riding that line between messing with the audience a little bit and being really in the show,' he explains.

Richard Everhart, Bart's acting teacher in high school back in Bernardsville, N.J., taught him about the fun of being on stage, but he wasn't always cast as a comedian on stage.

'I have gone through different periods,' says the 41-year-old Bart. 'When I was my mid-20s, I was playing a lot of brooding, complex Englishmen. I guess I was right for playing complicated young men who deal with the world in a funny way.'

Going on the road in such roles as Bud Frump in 'How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying' helped develop his comic abilities.

'When you tour in these 3,000-seat houses all across America and one of your jobs is to play the comic relief in a show, you learn real fast,' he says. 'My clowning skills got honed because often you couldn't rely on your voice or your facial expressions in a room that big. You would have to communicate with your entire body.'

Primed for clown roles, he appeared in the underappreciated Broadway musical 'Triumph of Love' as -- what else -- a sassy servant and finally scored a breakout with the 1999 revival of 'You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.' Bart won a Tony Award for portraying that hedonistic hound Snoopy.

In 2001 came 'The Producers,' which raised his visibility even more. It got him to television in the short-lived CBS sitcom 'Bram and Alice,' which was filmed before a live audience. And he played part of a gay couple in the remake of 'The Stepford Wives' earlier this year.

Now, here he is again in a wild comic ride, riffing each night with Lane.

'It's wonderful for me to see an actor rise to the occasion,' Stroman says. 'He and Nathan have an extraordinary chemistry. In comedy, you feed off the breath of the people in the audience. Roger and Nathan know how to surf that audience. They can ride the crest of an audience's laughter.'

AP

[Mamie]

Posted: 8/29/04 at 1:43pm

Great interview. (God I wish I could see this show again!)

Anybody know what Roger's plans are post-Frogs?