Author: Jane

Had a fun time with Sally Field and my Atlanta friends, Helen and Laura. I enjoy the lasting ties I have made with people from Atlanta, which has been my home for only 18 years. Sally and I just soaked each other up-we always have so much catching up to do about our family lives (she is a very involved mother and grandmother) and our acting lives. I could see all over her face how happy she is for me that I am in a strong, hit show and that I am really happy doing this. She reminded me of those 15 years when I thought I’d left the business forever. “See, Jane! You really are an actor!!” For complex reasons, I feel very close to her even though we don’t see each other that often. But when we do, it gets intense real quick. Fun! So, I said that today I’d write about my fellow actors. I have come to really love and appreciate actors from doing this play with these seasoned performers. They’re not in it for fame or money. It’s in their blood and bones. They are totally reliable, steadfast, loving, funny and sooooo talented. I know this is one of the things that drew my Dad to theatre. I have the great pleasure of standing next to Don Amendolia every night before the show starts. Both of us are usually in our places in the wings before places are even called. I am dressed in a sharp contemporary suit and he, as a rising music publisher in the mid-1800s, is dressed in a snappy, velvet jacket and ruffled shirt. Two different centuries side by side about to appear on stage together. It is his character, Anton Diabelli, who wrote the original waltz that inspired Beethoven to write his 33 variations. For 200 years Diabelli’s waltz was considered mediocre and my character, the musicologist Dr Katherine Brandt, is obsessed to find out and write a monograph about why Beethoven did this at the end of his life when he was going deaf and was ill and writing his most famous, important works-the Ninth Symphony and the Mass-why devote 3 years to all those variations on a mediocre waltz. Don’s home is in New Jersey but right now, for this run, he’s here in the city. He can sing (beautifully), dance and do many styles of acting. In this play he is wonderfully over-the-top as he pantomimes his frustrations to Beethoven who is going deaf. I am often in the wings waiting for an entrance, watching the scenes and Don always makes me laugh. On top of all that, Don is also a director. But being able to stand next to him every night before the show starts is a real pleasure-and reassuring. He’s a glass-half-full kind of guy, a perfect antidote to my tendency to fret about how the house (audience) looks, etc. He seems to almost chomp at the bit so eager is he to get out on stage. “Oh, I’m going to have such a good time tonight!” Like me, he likes to know who’s in the audience and as I can’t see as well as he can and am always complaining that I can’t find a particular friend or celebrity, he gave me some opera glasses last night and I had a ball scanning the crowd. (This totally shocked Sally who doesn’t like knowing who is out there.) Right before the house lights go down, we look across the stage and there, regular as clockwork, silhouetted against a blueish light, is Colin Hanks, waving overhead to us. Sometimes Samantha is there to. But always Colin. And right before we go on, Don and I whisper “En bocca del Luppo” to each other: “In the mouth of the wolf.” The opera’s equilvalent to “Break a leg. We haven’t missed this little routine once in the 2 months we’ve been performing. At the top of the second act, I make an entrance from back stage center and walk slowly down to the footlights. I’m usually in my place early and so most of the other actors cross behind me to get into their positions. First Don with an upbeat comment about how great the audience is or what a fun time he’s having. I tell you, I kvell at the sheer joy he derives from his profession. It’s contagious. Then comes Colin, squeezing behind me (it’s a narrow space) who usually whispers, “See you in Bonn,” because in the second act that’s where he has come so he can be of help to my daughter (Samantha Mathis). Colin plays a male nurse. Last, comes Susan Kellerman who plays Gertie, the keeper of Beethoven’s archives in Bonn. She gently pats my shoulder as she passes and says “Give ’em hell” or “You go girl.” (Usually in her character’s German accent) There are some scenes that I’m not in but that I get to watch from off-stage while I wait to make an entrance. I try to get there early so I can watch most of the scene and see the different audience responses. It’s amazing how very different they can be and how that doesn’t necessarily predict what the curtain call will be like-on their feet cheering or more subdued. There are some scenes that make me laugh so hard I’m afraid the audience can hear me. Like when Samantha and Colin bump into each other early in the play while they’re waiting to get their computers repairs. Or the scene in the second act when Susan tells Samantha she wants to find me a male prostitute, “I think he should be a Turkish man, zey are very gut with women. Zay take zere time.” That’s all for now. I’m going to nap with Tulea. Oh yes, turns out I lent “Man on Wire” to Don and he forgot to return it so today the kids and I watched “Himalayas”, an award winning movie that showed the terrain I will trekking through in a year and a half. I dropped the kids back off with their mother who is in a media training session at the Women’s Media Center. When we left, my apartment looked like a cyclone hit it due to the grandkid’s fondness for making forts using every pillow, bolster and blanket in the place. “Man on Wire” will have to wait till Sunday. See you next time