Danny Scheie

More than a match for Lavatch (annotated)

By James Magruder

Left, Danny Scheie with Rami Margron and Drea Bernadi in Amy Freed's Restoration Comedy, helmed by Sharon Ott at Cal Shakes, 2006; right, Ron Campbell with Scheie in Marivaux's The Triumph of Love, adapted and directed by Lillian Groag at San Jose Rep in 2007 (photos by Kevin Berne)

On Sunday, June 13, 2010, Peter Filichia, a theatre critic of the New Jersey Star-Ledger, awarded San Francisco Bay Area acting favorite Danny Scheie the first unofficial "New Jersey Tony" for best featured actor in a play. The role was Nick Bottom in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at Two River Theater Company in Red Bank (a co-production with California Shakespeare Theater).

The readiness is all. On Tuesday, June 15, Dr. Scheie made the following (fictional) call from his apartment in San Francisco to his (actual) agent, Victoria Morris at Kazarian/Spencer, in Los Angeles. Chattering in the background are Rocky and Donna, Scheie's beloved Pacific Parrotlets. Capital letters illustrate instances of the actor's "Volume Tourette's," a syndrome peculiar to him, but useful for Shakespeare out-of-doors. Footnotes will assist the reader in clarifying the vernacular and identifying collaborators.

"Hi Lindsay, it's Danny, can you get Victoria? You heard? Right. My big Jersey Bottom found ultimate favor. You saw it at Cal Shakes.(1) Aaron Posner(2) directed. Laugh-riot, both coasts, huzzahs. Aaron said I'm attractive beyond all reasonable measure, in the fullest sense of that word. One simply must watch me. And Red Bank understood.

Victoria, how are you? Well of course I'm pleased. Who doesn't want a Filichia on his mantel? Daric(3) and I had packed gowns and I'd already written an acceptance speech before I realized that Radio City wasn't to be booked for my coronation. I thanked you big-time, because you really get this theatre thing I needs must do.

So plans and provisions, Victoria. Time to parlay my prized Bottom into a next phase of the moon, a Dr. Scheie crosses the Hudson River for a long-overdue waxing. One can only remain a Bayvrite(4) for so long before custom withers. Ask Rita Moreno(5). Or Olympia Dukakis(6). Every LORT audience on this coast has seen my way with bauble and merkin(7). I've drained my last tankard of regional scrumpy(8). It's time to move on.

So here's a thought. If Pacino gets raves in the park next week, they'll move his Shylock to Broadway(9) before you can say Carole Shorenstein Hays(10). I've done Gobbo before(11)—it's too bad that Miss Jesse Tyler Ferguson(12) won't be able to stay with it, because he has THAT LUCRATIVE ABC NETWORK SITUATION COMEDY(13) THAT I WOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT FOR. I'll go on tape for Al, noblesse oblige.

How about the Taymor(14) people? I could play the guano out of that cockatoo. If Geoff Hoyle(15) did eight Zazus a week, so can I, and audition during the day. I'm in shape, Victoria—mugging for the back row in all weathers keeps me very fit. For Feste at Cal Shakes, I learned to roller skate—ON A WET RAKED STAGE PLAYING UKULELE AND TROMBONE—I got a U.C.(16) grant for my skates and lessons. Mark Rucker(17) will tell you I never sang better in my life.

So what has come in? (silence) You're kidding. A View from the Bridge. ALFIERI?(18) This is what a Filichia is worth? An Arthur Miller mouthpiece? We've been through this—the only Miller I'm right for is one of those Crucible witchlets. "I saw Goody(19) Putnam dancing with the devil!" No, it's not that. I can play a BEAT. I can BE REAL AND TRUTHFUL IF THAT'S YOUR SORT OF THING, but vita brevis(20), Victoria. I prefer playwrights who wrote before there were microphones and cameras. Tell that moose lodge of American realists that Goody Scheie declines.

What else? (silence) No. No directing for now. It takes me off the acting market. No. Let them find another ho mo sex u al for that skit.

What else? (long silence. Rocky and Donna chirp away. Daric enters to make coffee.) Have I just been Punk'd?(21) Harlequin, Feste, Gobbo, Dogberry—Red Bank's Bottom—then...LAVATCH. In ALASKA? Not even PAROLLES? Doesn't that sound a bit sub-basement to you, Victoria? Lavatch is the Countess Roussillon's fool in All's Well that Ends Well, and unless it's Dame Dench(22) herself winched into the farthingale(23), they cut Lavatch. He doesn't even make callbacks in my dissertation. U.C. Berkeley 1992: "Sexual Darkness in Shakespeare's Comedy." Subtitle, "Faggot(24) Shakespeare." Fox still holds the option.

Do you have my list handy? NO? Why isn't it NAILED to Lindsay's forehead? (He sighs, counts on his fingers) Lear's Fool. Juliet's Nurse. Lady Bracknell. PAROLLES. Touchstone. Autolycus. Puck. Man in Chair in Drowsy Chaperone. Aguecheek. Cloten. Sister George(25)—but only with Rucker directing. (pause) Hamlet. Okay, I know I'm a little past it; I seem to have gone from freckle-faced altar boy to old Irish priest in one season; hookers call me "Shorty" until they hear the voice; my point is I can find JOKES UNDREAMT OF IN JUDE LAW'S PHILOSOPHY! Oh, and Iago and Thersites—Lillian Groag(26) thinks I should do them.

Seriously, Victoria, are the Inuit and the Palins going to get me? Are they up on Dame Maggie and June Havoc and Bette and Lucy and Carol?(27) (pause) Thanks. Buster Keaton is nice too, instead of the usual Capote or Liberace.(28) Alaska and her peoples are enormous, but are they ready for ENORMOUS COMEDY? OF MY PARTICULAR BRAVE AND SHAMELESS STAMP? Tony Taccone(29) thinks I combine the impish innocence of a child with the subversive intentions of an astute agitator. Jonathan Moscone(30) says I'm high and low all in one feisty little package—the modern-day William Kempe(31). Moscone and I start Much Ado in August. My objective for Dogberry is to not have them throw things. He comes in so late.

Who's directing All's Well? Oh Jesus. Did the beast ask for me specifically? Is there a concept? Don't tell me trailer park and don't tell me Weimar(32)—I've worn enough wedgies(33) and leather to last—(listens) Oh no. No. That is so deliciously, horribly wrong. It's almost tempting. Sometimes I think I love being trapped in oh-so-wrong REGISSEURKONZEPTSINSZENIERUNGEN(34); they inspire my creativity. Do you think they'd let me sing?

(An inspiration) I've got it, Victoria! I'll do Lavatch if Julie Andrews plays the Countess. And Lavatch will need a commissioned interlude between each of Shakespeare's five acts. No—NOW! Get Jodie to call Julie's people. (looks at watch) They can't be at luncheon yet.

What are the dates? Can they push it back to March? I've got Valere in La Bête for Michael Edwards(35) at Asolo, which I have desperately wanted to play since it was first written(36). You know I'd do anything for Michael; he is absolutely responsible for my SOI-DISANT "CAREER" AS THALIA'S(37) CHANGELING BOY and he says he's been dying to unleash me on Florida. All the years of Shakespeare and Molière have trained me for Valere's 25-minute spiel. But the overlooked intellectual terrain of the piece excites me even more—what it says about genius, about what makes us laugh, about artistic pretension on all sides of our art form. Is Paul Lynde(38) less of a genius than Merce Cunningham(39)? I think one could argue he was actually more subversive. I love love love La Bête and just hope I won't need to take drinks of water mid-sentence after the first page, like Liza Minnelli(40) in concert.

We wrap that up, I go to Arena Stage for a couple of weeks with Amy, then Lavatch with Mary Poppins, then I will only mildly poison Mark Rylance and step into the Broadway Bête(41) right before the Tony deadline. (pause) Amy Freed(42). You've met her at openings—I'm her muse, remember? She says not only am I the best comic actor she's ever seen, but I am particularly gifted in the illumination of men of Abnormal Psychology, and in making the audience—wrongly—adore them. We're going to take another look at her Lord Foppington and Nero(43). And she's got a new play in mind about an American Catholic bishop with his own TV show in the 1950s. Although not a papist, I think I may have some rather specific life experiences that intersect with those of the priesthood.

What's that? What did Jacole say? Well, if All's Well is a co-pro with Bay Street Theatre(44), then Miss Andrews is technically available. Have her put herself on tape and FedEx it here. I'm not carrying her. Love you too.

(He hangs up the phone, then shakes a plastic tub of Lafeber Nutri-Berries Parrot Food(45). Rocky and Donna chirp with excitement.)

That's right, darlings. Breakfast. (He begins to sing) "Just a spoonful of scrumpy helps the medicine go down...."

James Magruder, whose debut novel Sugarless was short-listed for a Lambda Literary Award and the 2010 William Saroyan International Writing Prize, would kill to work with Dr. Scheie again(46).

1 California Shakespeare Theater, an outdoor venue in the hills between Berkeley and Orinda
2 playwright and recently departed artistic director of Two River Theater Company
3 Daric Wolkenhauer, Dr. Scheie's husband in Canada and California
4 neologism of uncertain origin meaning "Bay Area Favorite"
5 Oscar-winning actress who is an "artist under commission" at Berkeley Repertory Theatre
6 Oscar-winning actress who often appears at the American Conservatory Theater
7 a pubic wig
8 a rough dry cider, quaffed in scenes of enforced Shakespearean roister on the American stage
9 The Merchant of Venice, which indeed got great reviews in the park and will open at the Broadhurst Theatre on Oct. 19, for a strictly limited engagement.
10 San Francisco theatre owner and Broadway producer
11 at California Shakespeare Theater, 2006
12 Openly gay red-headed American actor
13 "Modern Family," American mockumentary comedy series, currently injecting new life into sad, insignificant ABC-TV
14 Julie Taymor, director of The Lion King, currently trapped in a $50-million web of her own devising
15 Bayvrite clown who originated the role of Zazu the Red-billed Hornbill in The Lion King in 1997
16 the University of California system, cash-strapped, but canny enough to have granted Dr. Scheie tenure at its Santa Cruz campus
17 associate artistic director of American Conservatory Theater and Scheie's BFF
18 semi-protatic windbag character in Arthur Miller's "Italians Go Greek" play
19 the Puritan abbreviation of "Goodwife" or "Goodwoman"
20 ars longa, vita brevis is an aphorism of Hippocrates meaning "life is too short to be in (or to watch) Arthur Miller plays uncut"
21 a hidden-camera practical-joke television series produced and hosted by Ashton Kutcher
22 Dame Judith Olivia Dench (1934-), a British actress interested in horse racing; played Countess Roussillon in the West End in 2004
23 a late-Renaissance hoop skirt and the bane of costume shops
24 an archaic English unit of measure applied to various-sized collections of sticks
25 the eponymous heroine of a Tony-winning drama from the '60s that the Roundabout Theatre has, curiously, not seen fit to revive (yet)
26 stage and opera director, and playwright of the undervalued Midons and Menocchio
27 these you should know already. Go look them up.
28 poker-faced comic genius of the silent screen; pint-sized drunken barracuda of American letters; piano player and closet case from Milwaukee
29 artistic director of Berkeley Repertory Theatre
30 artistic director of California Shakespeare Theater
31 the original Dogberry, also famous for his jigs
32 the Weimar Republic (1919-33) is a period in German history marked by hyperinflation and Brecht's better plays; its decadent "look" and "feel" are catnip to unimaginative and/or lazy stage directors
33 in this instance, a wedge-soled woman's shoe (not the act of wedging a person's undergarments between the buttocks)
34 German enjambment meaning "Director Concept Productions"
35 artistic director of Asolo Repertory Theatre, who first worked with Scheie in 1984 in Santa Cruz, casting him as Rosencrantz in Shakespeare and Stoppard, the Dauphin in Henry V, Mozart in Amadeus and Pompey in Measure for Measure; he prizes Scheie for his astonishing ability to uncover the thinking that informs the most difficult text and make it clear, available and always just a little subversive
36 1991
37 the Greek Muse of comedy and idyllic poetry
38 the Oscar Wilde of "Hollywood Squares"
39 for Dance: 10, for Looks: 3
40 if you need a footnote for Liza, you stopped reading this article ages ago
41 the Broadway revival of La Bête, directed by Matthew Warchus, starring Mark Rylance as Valere, began previews at the Music Box Theatre on Sept. 23
42 comic playwright and Bayvrite
43 characters Dr. Scheie assayed in Freed's Restoration Comedy and You, Nero; of the latter, no less a pundit than Charles Isherwood wrote, upon seeing it in a reading, "You, Nero makes lively sport of contemporary American culture, as Ms. Freed imagines the mincing Nero (a magnificent Danny Scheie—but Nathan Lane might want to call his agent now) commissioning an image-primping pageant from a down-on-his-luck dramatist"
44 one of the co-founders of Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, Long Island, is Emma Walton Hamilton, daughter of Julie Andrews and stage designer Tony Walton
45 made with savory peanuts, hulled canary seed, cracked corn and other tempting ingredients; they're colorful, richly textured and invitingly shaped; your bird will thrive on the stimulation and beak exercise it provides
46 Scheie and Magruder and Rucker collaborated on a new version of Molière's The Imaginary Invalid for Yale Repertory Theatre in 1999; Dr. Scheie was magnificent, and loud, in five different roles

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