![]() Marx Brothers stage shows were notorious for improvisation and irreverence, qualities that tended to get somewhat defused in the movies. "It requires a virtuosic ensemble," Kalina said. It's a familiar device in the theater, used most memorably in recent years in the Broadway hit "The 39 Steps." This "Animal Crackers" has 21 characters and something like 60 costume changes, but only nine actors in all. Most of the others in the cast get a chance to reveal their chops by taking on multiple roles. To spread that quality around, the "Animal Crackers" adaptation does not put all of the comic-engine weight on the actors in portraying Groucho, Chico and Harpo. That spirit is totally, disarmingly zany. "You can't live up to that," Jones, 62, said, "but you can live up to the spirit." "What made the process so lovely in this production was that everyone realized I've got to be in there somewhere."Ī perfect impersonation is not the goal of the production, anyway, especially since so many people still have clear memories of the Marx Brothers. "I wanted to get as close as I could get to imitating Groucho and then infuse my own sensibilities into the process," Nelson said. Unlike a typical play, this one is not so much about getting into character as it is getting into the character of the person who famously first portrayed that character. "I watched video clips voraciously, starting with Groucho's TV quiz show 'You Bet Your Life.' I marveled at his rapport and sense of improvisation on that show." "I watched the 'Animal Crackers' movie and read books about Groucho to get a sense of what he was about," said Nelson, 46. He did not come to the project as a lifelong Marx Brothers fan. Stepping into Groucho's aura and mustache for the Center Stage production is Bruce Randolph Nelson, a resident artist of Everyman Theatre making a return guest engagement. His accent and way of phrasing are very much a part of the picture. In the case of the Groucho role, there's not just the physical side to evoke - Groucho was wonderfully rubbery in the early years of the Marx Brothers - but the verbal one. "You have to drill it and drill it and drill it." "The physical part of this is so key," said Jones, the stage director. In a recent rehearsal, Kalina worked with them on minute details in scenes involving such things as dropping tools in just the right way to make the correct amount of racket, and how to get perfectly tangled in a ladder. In Baltimore, Kalina has been reunited with two of the Williamstown actors, Brad Aldous as the Professor and Jonathan Brody as Ravelli, both making their Center Stage debuts. ![]()
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