by Hadley Hury
The
current run of After Play at Circuit Playhouse, through August 3rd,
affords theatre-goers the opportunity of seeing the work of Memphis actor
Gene Katz -- but not where or how they've come to expect. Instead of being
onstage, Katz has directed this production of Anne Meara's comedy-drama
that debuted two years ago at the Manhattan Club.
It's not that he hasn't done plenty of work behind the scenes in Memphis theatre. A longtime officer of the board of directors of Playhouse on the Square, he has been a driving force behind the Playhouse/Circuit theatres since their inception. A stockbroker by day, Katz occasionally also takes on local and regional commercial gigs. He has been an avid supporter of Memphis arts, especially theatre, for decades -- as a community actor (on most area stages), fund-raiser (most significantly with Playhouse), audience member (his laugh is a legend in its own time), and fixture at pre- and post-theatre parties and both high and low cultural events all around town (where he enjoys an unparalleled reputation as a anecdotalist without shame.)
But for only the second time since becoming active in theatre 50 years ago, Katz is watching a production go up from under the brim of the director's hat. And it's the first time he's intended it that way.
"The other occasion was an accident," Katz says. "Sometime around 1959 or '60, Memphis Little Theatre was doing Anastasia." A temporary but significant ailment forced director Eugart Yerian into the hospital. He asked Katz simply to take over rehearsals for a few days. "The next time we saw him he was in a wheelchair on opening night. I don't remember much about my `directing.'"
What made him think about trying it now?
"I've come to realize over the years that acting in a play really comes in two distinct phases -- rehearsal and production. When I was younger I enjoyed the production, the run of the show more. Among other wonderful things, it's very ego-satisfying. More and more, however, I began to enjoy the creativity of the rehearsal period -- the experimentation, the `making it happen' phase. And my appreciation for the director as artist grew."
While seeing After Play in New York, alone, at a matinee two years ago, Katz responded to its potential as an acting assignment ("All actors do!") -- since both lead male roles would be suitable for him -- but almost immediately afterward it struck him that the play might be a particularly good inaugural directing project.
"It just seemed a good place for me to start. I came back and told Jackie [Jackie Nichols, managing director of Playhouse/Circuit] he oughta see it when he was up. He did. He liked it. I said I wanted to direct it. He just roared. I said, `No, I'm serious.' The show was put on the Circuit season subject to availability. The rights just cleared in February."
Written by the woman who is a sometime actor but probably best known as one-half of the comedy team of Stiller and Meara (and now, perhaps, as the mother of up-and-coming writer/actor/director Ben Stiller), After Play is set in a Manhattan restaurant where two middle-aged showbiz couples are getting reacquainted over a late supper after attending a play together. Renee and Phil are successful television writers who live out on the Coast; Terry and Marty are veteran New York actors. There are three supporting roles in the play. The Circuit production runs approximately one hour and 20 minutes and is played without an intermission.
Katz says, "For my first time out being responsible for the whole picture, rather than one acting role, this play made sense for me -- the small cast, single set, the scale in general. And, of course, it spoke to me in so many important ways. It's theatrical. I know these people. And I care about them."
In the course of After Play, the audience is treated to some trademark Meara-esquely intelligent shtick, some very witty inside observations about life in the entertainment business, and some flat-out hilarious one-liners about aging, friendship, marriage, family, and life in general. More surprising are the dark tones of melancholy that occasionally seep through the late-night banter and the sudden shards of pain that seem alternately to close or widen the gulf between the characters.
The most challenging aspect of directing for Katz is getting out of the relatively subjective task of creating a character and "stepping back."
"You have to work with the total picture. You see the good, the bad, the indifferent, and you have to decide what to take out and what to put in and how to make it all work best for the whole. Of course," he says, "the key for a director is the cast. I couldn't help but notice that on the Tony Awards broadcast a few weeks ago, all of the directors more or less said the same thing -- that success in directing depends about 80 to 90 percent on the actors you have. In this case, for me, it's probably about 99 percent."
Katz has gathered a seasoned cast to interpret Meara's seasoned theatrical characters: Emily Angel Baer and Jim Ostrander play Renee and Phil, the droll, California-expatriated writers, and Jo Lynn Palmer and Ron Gephart are the entrenched, impassioned New Yorker actors Terry and Marty. Patti Hatchett, Bob McIntosh, and Larry Riley Jr. take the smaller but important roles.
Is the directorial experience one that seasoned Gene Katz wants to repeat?
"Yes. But it's very time-consuming. Instead of focusing on one character, you're focusing on the whole picture. And I want to be able to do the other things I like to do, you know -- like eat dinner and see people and drink whiskey and travel and stuff."
Such as going to New York to see new plays to mull over?
"Exactly. Maybe one directing project a year or so would be about right. But I have absolutely no idea what I'd want to do next." He pauses and then laughs, "Well, that's not quite true. I did see this little play just awhile back off-Broadway that I thought...."
With a head and heart powered by five decades of acting and all-around theatre love -- and now as new kid on the directors' block -- Gene Katz is off and running.