eing an understudy places an actor in a difficult position. Heading the list of worries is the inevitable comparison between the understudy and the original. But when you're understudying the name above the title, that worry is magnified. Here's one actor's nightmare: "The fear that if I ever go on, I will have to hear the sound of a thousand seats hitting the backs of chairs as audience members file out of the theatre when the announcement is made that I'll be replacing Christopher Plummer," says Sherman Howard, Plummer's understudy in the current Broadway revival of Inherit the Wind.
It hasn't happened yet, as Plummer has made every performance. So have Brian Dennehy (Plummer's co-star) and Frank Langella (who plays Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon). Their understudies—Jeff Steitzer and Bob Ari—haven't gone on yet either. But when Mary Louise Wilson took some time off from Broadway's Grey Gardens, "I heard no audible groans," reports standby Dale Soules of her appearances. "Nor to my knowledge were any tickets returned."
Still, understudies are largely unsung, and in this award- giving season it seems only fair to acknowledge them, specifically those who bear the burden of backing up a star. By definition they're viewed as "second best," and while Howard, Steitzer, Ari, and Soules are the first to acknowledge they're not household names, there's nothing second best about them.
All are veteran performers with extensive credits, on Broadway and off, on big screens and small. Soules has been on Broadway in Hair, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, The Magic Show, and the 2002 revival of The Crucible. Ari starred in the Off-Broadway productions of Jolson & Company, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, and June Moon and appeared in the films Kissing Jessica Stein and Cradle Will Rock. Steitzer has worked mostly at regional theatres, including Seattle Rep, Long Wharf, the Old Globe, and Yale Rep, and has guest-starred on Law & Order. In his 35-plus-year career, Howard has appeared in close to 90 films and TV shows, including Malcolm in the Middle, Las Vegas, Cold Case, and Charmed, and at a roster of regional theatres. So, despite ambivalent feelings about their roles, they are consummate professionals always eager and ready to perform.
"One of the major drawbacks in being an understudy is just boredom—having to hang around without ever having a chance to perform," Ari says. "Usually when an understudy goes on, especially for a star, there's encouragement and support from the rest of the cast. They may also enjoy working with someone new. It may add a little spontaneity. As for the audiences, some are going to walk out. But those who stay are really interested in another actor's take on the character."
That brings up a major issue facing all understudies: Should his or her performance closely resemble the star's or offer a new interpretation? All the actors agree it's largely the call of the creative team—"though generally you have to stay within certain parameters," Ari says. "Understudies have to maintain the blocking, the dramatic arc of the scene, and the climactic moments that have already been established. Otherwise you're going to end up throwing off the other actors, and that's the last thing you want to do."
Ari faces a further challenge: Not only is he understudying a star, but a star playing a historic figure as recognizable, and as imitated, as Nixon. So whom is Ari attempting to capture: Nixon himself, Langella's take on Nixon, both, or neither? Soules has a similar conundrum: Is her performance inspired by Wilson's Edith Bouvier Beale, by the real-life Beale in the 1975 documentary on which the musical is based, or by her own imagination? The film presents the eccentric/comic/tragic lives of Beale and her adult daughter, "Little" Edie—the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy—as impoverished recluses defined by their failed dreams in a gothic Long Island home once grand but now decaying and overflowing with cats. Steitzer and Howard face an additional twist, understudying stars playing roles made famous on film by other stars (Fredric March and Spencer Tracy), who were in turn playing characters inspired by real people (William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow). So whose role is it anyway?
Steitzer admits to being profoundly influenced by Dennehy, who entered rehearsals determined not to repeat March's memorably over-the-top performance as Matthew Harrison Brady. "[Dennehy] felt the movie was skewed," Steitzer says. "He wanted Brady to have a chance to make his points with dignity. That interpretation made sense to me. Although my Brady may be louder and more forceful, like Dennehy I'm not commenting on Brady. I suppose in some sense I'm trying to do what Brian is doing—I'm inspired by what he's doing—though clearly we can't be doing the same performance, because we're different actors. Also, considering the kind of actor Brian is—he is constantly growing and never reproducing the same performance—I couldn't imitate precisely what he's doing even if I wanted to. Each night his performance is slightly different. Which one would I be imitating?"
Steitzer also plays the small role of the mayor, so he gets to see Dennehy's performance each night. "It's weird to have to stop myself from mouthing Brian's lines," he says. "My nightmare is that I'll speak up as the mayor saying Brian's lines. My other fear is that if he says something unexpected—'sacred' instead of 'blessed'—I might have a reaction on stage. Or if he goes up on a line and I'm standing at his shoulder, I don't give him the correct line. I know Chris' lines too. I have to keep reminding myself if they forget their lines, they'll find their way out without any help from me."
Howard is also on stage every night as one of the townspeople, and he's grateful for the chance to watch Plummer perform. Nonetheless, he's a little apprehensive about the prospect of playing Henry Drummond: "Christopher has created a real character, unlike any other Drummond I've ever seen. For me to imitate his eccentricities wouldn't be authentic. On the other hand, I've been struck time after time how clear and logical his choices are."
Of all the understudies, Ari is the one who was most encouraged to create his own character. After all, Langella doesn't impersonate Nixon; he evokes him, creating a brilliant, pathetic, borderline-likable man. "My take on Nixon is much darker than Frank's," Ari says. "My Nixon is more reclusive, but the feelings Nixon is harboring are more on the surface in my interpretation than Frank's. We both watched the tapes of the Nixon-Frost interviews to find a few mannerisms. Frank emphasizes the way Nixon used his hands. It's brilliant. I focus on the grimacelike smile, the dead eyes, but the upper teeth are showing as a way of covering up emotion. I focus on Nixon's Hollywood persona, a man who emulated Bob Hope."
From the time he auditioned, Ari recalls, he was encouraged to offer his own interpretation: "When I auditioned, I focused on the man's paranoia and the dark days he had lived through. But at the same time, I tried to cover it all up with a hail-fellow-well-met tone. I focused on Nixon's social awkwardness, his sense of failure, his hunched shoulders, crossed arms. My vocal timbre is similar to Nixon's, but I dropped my voice down an octave anyway."
Ari was in the running for one of the play's other roles when the casting director asked him to read for Nixon, and he still marvels that he was hired to understudy, as he bears no physical resemblance to either the disgraced president or Langella. "I'm larger, lighter, and have blue eyes," he says. "Nixon makes a big deal about not liking light-eyed people who don't sweat. It might not be that big a deal if there weren't the giant close-ups of our faces during the Frost-Nixon interviews. My blue eyes on that giant screen are startling. I'm now in the process of having brown-eye contact lenses fitted in case I go on. I have never worn contacts before, so I may have a problem with them."
While she bears no physical resemblance to Wilson, Soules says, "it's not difficult for me to look like Edie. Either way, I approached Edie as I would any other role, emphasizing those aspects of her personality that I most relate to, though I watched the documentary to capture her physically, vocally, and rhythmically. Mary Louise did that too. But neither of us is doing an impersonation. I'm not impersonating Mary Louise either."
But Wilson has established a certain onstage relationship with her co-star, Christine Ebersole, that Soules does not want to violate. "The intimacy between mother and daughter is communicated in the way they talk to each other," she says. "They interrupt each other, they talk over one another, and they complete each other's sentences. That's all about timing. And it's very complicated, especially for an understudy who can't veer from the precise timing that exists between Mary Louise and Christine, who have been working together over a two-year period—from the readings and Playwrights Horizons production to Broadway. By the time I came on board for the Broadway production, the train was long gone from the station.
"I worked on the timing backstage by saying Edith's lines with the monitor playing in the background," Soules continues. "Then I worked with Maureen Moore [Ebersole's understudy] with the monitor playing in the background. There is a degree of imitation right there. Then Mary Louise coached me on some of the finer points of timing. And before I went on, I had an informal session with Christine in her dressing room. She gave me a wonderful compliment: She said it seemed like I had been playing the role for years."
One of the major challenges in being an understudy is the limited rehearsal time. Understudies usually rehearse a week or two with the other understudies, with the stage manager serving as director. Says Howard, "When someone asked me how the rehearsals were going, I have to say I felt like the village idiot cavorting around in the empty castle pretending to be king."
Some understudies, if they're lucky, will get tips from the stars. Howard, Steitzer, Soules, and Ari all comment on the generosity of the actors they're understudying, with Ari citing Langella's willingness to have him trail the star backstage during a performance, just to get used to the heavily trafficked behind-the-scenes routine. "I always try to give any actor I've understudied a wide berth," Ari says. "I avoid hovering. But Frank encouraged me to shadow him because he wanted me to be well-versed."
Ari has understudied before (he covered Nathan Lane in Laughter on the 23rd Floor) and acknowledges the danger of being typecast as an understudy. "It's a huge trap," he says. But it's also a steady job and, he hopes, a career steppingstone, whether or not he goes on: "I anticipate many tours and future productions of Frost/Nixon. Perhaps in one of these I'll get to play Nixon." But "to be an understudy," he adds, "you need an attitude adjustment. You've got to believe that you're there to help the production and feel fine about that."
Soules, who has also understudied in the past, says, "Every job in the theatre is just as important as any other. I'm not worrying about being typecast. In 1974, Mary Louise Wilson covered for Angela Lansbury in Gypsy." Admittedly, Soules' position is slightly different than the others', in that when she auditioned to be Wilson's standby, it was known that Wilson would be taking vacation days and the standby would definitely go on. Does that mean she was held to a higher standard? Soules won't say that, but "I was very flattered," she notes. "I was also overwhelmed by the amount of material I had to learn. But if you're going to be an understudy, that's the best possible scenario: knowing if you'll be performing and precisely when."
Howard and Steitzer haven't understudied before, and they approached the job with varying degrees of trepidation. Howard feared being pigeonholed as an understudy, "so for my next job I'll avoid it," he says. "But I have no regrets about doing this…. Since I had never been an understudy, I have to say, when my agent called with the audition, I was as intrigued as I was challenged. And just watching Plummer work on his role was a life-changing experience. I've been in the business 35 years, but I will never approach my roles the same way again. Christopher Plummer came in the first day knowing all his lines, and he used the rehearsal process to thoroughly explore each moment, eyeballing each actor he talked with on stage. It was authentic, alive, and deliciously real. He's masterful. With my next role I'm going to come to rehearsals having done all my research and knowing all my lines. So many schools of acting warn not to do that, because you end up making choices too early and then get stuck. That may be true if you're not a good actor. Christopher Plummer set the bar at a new height."
Says Steitzer, "If I had my druthers, I'd rather have a role, just because understudying is such an odd thing to do. You learn all the lines, you're constantly thinking about the character, but even if you do go on, the chances of your being seen by someone who's going to cast you in something else is very slim. Still, if I went on, I'd be playing a lead on Broadway." And that may be the first step toward next year's Tony Awards.