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Patti LuPone co-stars in Leonard Bernstein's "Candide" playing the feisty Old Lady, a former Polish princess with multiple woes in her colorful past. The singer-actress has appeared in a number of such staged concerts, including popular performances in "Pal Joey," "Passion," "Can-Can," "Sunday in the Park with George," and "Sweeney Todd." Among her musical credits on Broadway are Rosamund in "The Robber Bridegroom," Eva Peron in "Evita," and Reno Sweeney in "Anything Goes," as well as originating the roles of Fantine in "Les Misérables" and Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard," both in London. Equally successful in nonmusicals, she has appeared in such diverse plays as "Noises Off," "Accidental Death of an Anarchist," "The Old Neighborhood," and "Master Class." In addition to her one-woman concerts across the country, Ms. LuPone is familiar to television audiences for her work on FRASIER, REMEMBER WENN, LIFE GOES ON, and LAW & ORDER. Her next project is a staged concert of Marc Blitzstein's opera-musical "Regina," based on the play "The Little Foxes," at the Kennedy Center in March 2005.
GREAT PERFORMANCES: How did you first discover "Candide"?
Patti LuPone: When I was a kid and listening to Broadway musicals, that's when I first discovered it. It's my all-time favorite overture. "West Side Story" is my favorite musical of all time, so I am a true Leonard Bernstein fan.
GP: Is it a difficult score? You've done hard things. After "Sweeney Todd" and others, does this remain one of the challenges?
PL: In this one I don't have as much to do. The real challenges have been "Evita" and (Mrs. Lovett in) "Sweeney Todd," and now "Regina."
GP: What did you think when they asked you to play The Old Lady?
PL: My first reaction was "Oh my God! An old woman! Oh my God!" But she has great songs.
GP: One of the fun things about this production is that the opera singers and the musical theater people blended so well together.
PL: Yes, and that was true of "Sweeney Todd" as well.
GP: In your opinion, are such pieces as "Candide" and "Sweeney Todd" operas or musicals?
PL: I don't think the question is relevant. As long as it's done and people are listening to it, why label something? Who cares? Well, obviously somebody cares because I am asked that all the time. But when you walk into the building, whether it's the Booth or Plymouth theater on Broadway or Avery Fisher Hall [at Lincoln Center], you start to have a theatrical experience. You look around you and you see this glorious building, but once they start to sing, talk, move, dance, whatever it is, you forget what building it is. It is a theater event. It could be in a tent! What would you call "Candide" in a tent? Opera or musical theater?
GP: Do you change your approach if you are in a different kind of space?
PL: No. It's the same.
GP: You have done several of these staged concerts in New York and at the Ravinia Festival near Chicago.
PL: Yes, and most of them were staged by Lonny [Price]. They are fully staged productions. The only thing you don't have is the set. The orchestra becomes the set. Lonny is the one who broke tradition. He broke away from the music stands and the formal attire.
GP: You've played roles on Broadway for months and months, but these staged concerts have only a few performances. How do you feel at the end of one of these staged concerts?
PL: Exhausted. They're so exhausting. [We] rehearse only 10 days and sometimes the mistakes are glaring. It takes minutes off your life -- it is the hardest thing I've ever done. And [when it is over so quickly] it's very depressing. I don't know how long I can keep doing them. They hurt the body and the soul so much. The soul, because it's over so fast; the body, because it is really so physically brutal to assimilate all that information in so short a period of time. The one thing that's kind of wonderful is that everybody just loves each other because there's no time for any of that bitching and fighting.
GP: You've been able to move from musicals like "Evita" to farces such as "Noises Off" to serious dramas by David Mamet. Have you been lucky, or did you have to fight for that?
PL: That's how I was trained. I was trained as an actress [at Juilliard], and so "Evita" made my career take a left turn. Then I was considered a singer. When I did "Accidental Death of an Anarchist" [on Broadway], I was roundly criticized by [NEW YORK TIMES critic] Frank Rich for doing it, since I was a musical [theater] actress. But I never compromised and stopped doing what I was asked to do. Now it sort of happens.
GP: Did you learn this kind of versatility at college?
PL: At school, I was left off of cast lists because they didn't know how to cast me. It was heartbreaking. And I later found out that they wanted to throw me out of school, so they threw every conceivable role in my direction. I didn't know they wanted to get rid of me. But what they ended up doing was they trained one actress in versatility -- the rest they sort of pigeonholed into leading lady, character actor, ingénue, whatever. But I got to keep going back and forth from part to part and ended up being a versatile actress.
GP: For four years you were a member of the Acting Company, playing in everything from Chekhov and Saroyan to "The School for Scandal" and "The Robber Bridegroom." That must have been terrific training for a performer.
PL: I cannot begin to tell you! We realized it even then.
GP: What about "Regina" coming up? It's one of the giant roles of musical theater.
PL: Oh, yes. The one other Blitzstein I did, "The Cradle Will Rock," I loved. But he goes from 3/4 to 2/3 [time] in the space of a bar and I'm not a counter. Thank God I did "Cradle," because I can recognize the intervals. But rhythmically it's incredibly difficult. I know it sounds like a cliché, but the piece is truly character driven. I think it becomes less dissonant the more I understand the emotional thrust [of Regina Giddens].
GP: Any chance of "Regina" being recorded or put on video?
PL: I hope so. It will depend on the Kennedy Center and their finances.
GP: Well, thank goodness we have this "Candide."
PL: Yes!
An interview by writer Thomas Hischak for GREAT PERFORMANCES Online. (Photo of Patti LuPone [top] by Anna Thomson.)
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