It is a Wednesday morning in some nondescript part of Brookfield, hard by Summit, and in an airy warehouse, performers from Candlelight Dinner Playhouse-fortified by coffee and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches-are going through their rehearsal paces. The show is ”Phantom,” the new musical that- no, no, a thousand times no-is not the Andrew Lloyd Webber version of ”The Phantom of the Opera.”
Looking very un-Phantom-like in a turtleneck, oversized sweater and jeans, the show`s star, Scott Cheffer, takes a needed break. He looks incredibly relaxed, although a bit bedazzled. ”I`m kind of the wild card in the cast,” he says. ”I feel like Ruby Keeler in `42nd Street.` ”
And well he should. On Monday night, the original leading man, Ken Ward, had fallen down the stairs at home and dislocated his shoulder. Veteran Candlelight producer-director Bill Pullinsi had to scramble to come up with a replacement, and the previous day had signed Cheffer-who now had a week to prepare for the first preview before an audience. (The production officially opens Wednesday.)
On that same Monday evening, Cheffer-an Elmhurst native who has appeared with such companies as the Indianapolis Opera Ensemble, Greater Buffalo Opera and Illinois Opera Theatre-had been working as a singing waiter in a restaurant in the Fairmont Hotel.
”It was pure luck we found him,” says Pullinsi. ”Panic had set in. We lined up three actors to audition, and one of our pianists and vocal coaches knew this gal who worked with Scott, and we auditioned him, too. It turned out he was a wonderful singer, as well as a very good actor. He`s very bright and a quick study. He`s also pretty calm under the circumstances.
”Scott is 6-foot-3, whereas Ken is 5-foot-9, so we had to make new costumes. We also had to make a new life mask-a model of the face-from which they create the special makeup, and we had to readjust a series of masks the Phantom wears.”
Besides dealing with an 11th-hour sub, Pullinsi also has to deal with a show that is Candlelight`s most expensive ever-$350,000, compared to the usual $150,000 to $175,000-and, in some ways, its most elaborate. Constructing the intricate sets, which involves the use of a huge hydraulic elevator and a 16- foot roundtable, was, as Pullinsi says, ”no lightweight deal.
”We`ve thought about using a two-story set like this for a long time. It had to be designed by an architect, who had to check all the iron for strength and support. The set will suggest the moments when you`re in the opera house and when you`re down below in the Phantom`s dungeon. There`s a special hydraulic trap that rides the Phantom up and there`s another area in the stage that brings up the organ and the boat. This is the first time this production has been done in the round, where the audience is close.”
Based on Gaston Leroux`s popular 1911 novel about the disfigured, reclusive musical genius who falls in love with the beautiful street singer
(played at Candlelight by Karen Leigh), ”Phantom” premiered in Houston a year ago-the Post critic noted it ”jerks enough tears to fill that Paris Opera lagoon”-then moved on to Seattle and San Bernadino, Calif.
It was created by playwright Arthur Kopit (”Oh, Dad, Poor Dad”;
”Wings”) and composer Maury Yeston (”Nine,” ”Grand Hotel”), and it should not be confused (but, invariably, will be) with the other ”Phantoms” that have been lurking on British and American stages. These include Ken Hill`s ”The Phantom of the Opera,” which uses the works of Gounod, Donizetti, Offenbach, Verdi, Mozart and Weber; ”The Phantom of the Opera,”
music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and libretto by Charles Hart, which opened in London in 1986 followed by productions in New York and Los Angeles, a national tour and approximately 10 worldwide companies; and ”The Phantom of the Opera,” book by David Bell, lyrics by Cheri Coons and Bell, which played last September through Christmas at the Drury Lane Oakbrook Theatre.
Pullinsi says he wasn`t apprehensive that the public would groan about still another ”Phantom.” ”Lloyd Webber`s played Chicago and did very well. Ken Hill`s played Chicago briefly. I understand it isn`t very good-a mixture of campiness and foolishness. I hadn`t known about Oakbrook, and by that time I was already committed to doing this one. Anyway, I think with good reviews and word of mouth, we`ll have a good run with it.”
Differences between this and the Lloyd Webber version range from the music to more developed characterizations to an inventive death through electrocution. What`s more, it was written-although, obviously, not produced- before you-know-who`s.
”I wanted to write a traditional American musical in which you could hear overtones of the old American musical going back as far as Kern,” says Yeston. ”I love that kind of book and score-the tradition of `Oklahoma!`, not the tradition of `Jesus Christ Superstar.` ”
Kopit says he went beyond the novel and film versions. ”I came up with a fresh approach, which handled what to me was the basic problem of the book and film versions,” Kopit says. ”And that was that you didn`t know why the Phantom was so interested in Christine. He`s not a vampire or a ghoul or a womanizer. It seemed to me that it was her voice that attracted him. That led to the idea that she had a natural voice, like Edith Piaf. And then we investigate why he has fallen in love with her voice; it must have been because it reminded him of someone else`s. It wasn`t such a large step to conclude that maybe it was the voice of his mother. Maybe she was a singer. It all fell into place quite nicely. Webber didn`t get into his parentage at all.”
In 1983, director-choreographer-costume designer Geoffrey Holder, who had the rights to the Leroux book in the U.S. and Europe, asked Kopit and Yeston to write a musical based on the novel.
”Initially, I thought it was a terrible idea,” says Yeston. ”I didn`t think it made sense to do a musical based on a horror film. You know, I wouldn`t have wanted to do a musical based on `The Wolf Man.` But we had extensive discussions and talked about the idea that someone might be terribly disfigured on the outside from birth-not from acid or anything like that-and that on the inside he was beautiful because he was raised underneath the Opera House and had heard that beautiful music. I thought the piece also should summon to mind a sense of being in Paris much in the same way that `Gigi`
does.”
”Unfortunately, we then ran into some kind of contract problem,” Kopit recalls. ”We lost a year over negotiations. And at the moment it was finally cleared up, there was an announcement in Variety that Webber was going to do a `Phantom` in London. At one point, I even met with him. Maury had gotten so upset with the contract delay that he bowed out completely. Webber didn`t have a book writer yet. He asked why I had made so many changes in the story. I said that if you didn`t, you wouldn`t ever be emotionally involved with the Phantom and Christine. He said he was taken more by the special effects. It was just a very different point of view. And then Maury came back in. So we did ours and Webber did his, and it was a kind of a race. By the time his was on the stage in London, we couldn`t raise money because no one was going to put money into a show that was competing with Andrew Lloyd Webber. And so we were, in effect, dead.”
Kopit proceeded to turn his ”Phantom” into an NBC miniseries that starred Charles Dance and Burt Lancaster, and Yeston went off to do ”Grand Hotel.” Later, the Theatre Under the Stars in Houston contacted Kopit and Yeston, and the result was a $1.5 million production.
”Obviously, through all this, there were times of frustration because we did write it first,” says Yeston. ”That really is show business. But our story and characters are so different, they really are two completely different shows. I mean, we`re not some exploitative production trying to bilk the public. We did our work honestly, and were hurt by capitalism, I guess. But in the final anaylsis, we`re here.”
As for ”Phantom” eventually hitting there-New York-Kopit says: ”It could possibly go to the City Center or BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music). But Broadway theaters are very different from other theaters and not particularly hospitable. So I don`t think it ever will. Which is fine. I just can`t see it playing in an open-ended run. I mean, enough of the Phantom is enough.”
