When John Leguizamo`s ”Spic-O-Rama” had its premiere in January in the Goodman Theatre Studio, it was simply meant to be the start of a quick, hastily arranged workshop engagement-a chance to let a rising young actor try out a problematic new work-in-progress in front of a Chicago audience.
Leguizamo, 27, though known slightly through his movie work (”Hangin`
with the Homeboys” and ”Regarding Henry”) and an HBO special based on his off-Broadway show ”Mambo Mouth,” was hardly a box-office name; and his show, about six members of the same Latino family on a crucial day in their lives, was an untested, unformed, unfinished piece that its author admitted had just ”popped out of me by accident.”
Nine weeks later, as ”Spic-O-Rama” enters its final weekend here, it has become one of the few runaway hits of the theater season in Chicago and one of those rare events in entertainment that deserve the word
”phenomenal.”
Beginning with a sold-out two-week run in the 135-seat Studio, then moving to the 400-seat Briar Street Theatre, which has averaged more than 90 percent capacity, ”Spic-O-Rama” has become an example of popular theater at its best, drawing a rainbow coalition of wildly enthusiastic audiences that range from traditional Goodman subscribers to first-time customers who had never experienced live theater before.
”Every night a standing ovation,” says Leguizamo, who still seems amazed by the response. ”It`s my best theater experience to date. I don`t know whether it`s the show, or the city, or me. But it feels like a miracle.” Miraculous though the experience may be, a number of practical, down-to-earth elements have contributed to she show`s success.
Ticket prices have been held to a $15 top, making the show affordable for a broad audience; and, in a smart marketing move, Goodman was joined in presenting ”Spic-O-Rama” here by Latino Chicago, an enterprising resident theater troupe that through its mailing list was able to tap into an audience not ordinarily acquainted with Goodman`s productions.
Early enthusiastic reviews helped, too, but the greatest force in hurling the show forward has been its excellent word-of-mouth, the simple process in which someone who has seen and enjoyed a play tells a friend to be sure to see it.
”Spic-O-Rama” generates such a broad appeal because it tells a good story with an inventive and accessible theatrical device. It`s the story of one unhappy family, the Gigantes, told from the perspectives of six members-mother, father and four sons-as they approach the wedding day of the eldest boy.
Leguizamo first enters in the character of Miggy-short for Miguel-the youngest son, a ferociously energetic and precocious 9-year-old who is all buck teeth and elbows. He introduces the family by way of a slide show he is presenting as a science project in school; and, at the end of the play, he reappears to bring the wedding day, and the drama, to a bittersweet close.
Olivier love child
In between, the other members of the family, all played by Leguizamo, have their individual turns: Crazy Willy, the raunchy, pistol-packing Desert Storm veteran whose marriage is the play`s pivotal event; Rafael, the effete, aspiring actor son who insists he is the illegitimate son of Laurence Olivier and a Puerto Rican maid; Xavier, the crippled, embittered brother all but abandoned by his family; Gladyz, the mother, who spends her time flirting, gossiping and sipping diet Coke at the laundromat; and Felix, the brutish, drunken father whose woozy wedding speech is a hilarious and immensely sad summary of his battered family`s history.
Peppered with Spanish phrases and anchored in Hispanic customs, the play has talked directly to the experience of its Latino audience. But its story of a family at war with itself appeals to audiences of all kinds. It`s very funny, but it contains much more than a high ratio of what Leguizamo calls JPM (jokes per minute). It`s also a quite moving story.
Leguizamo estimates that about 40 percent of the audiences he has been drawing in Chicago are Hispanic, way up over the average of 15 to 20 percent that ”Mambo Mouth” drew in New York. It`s an audience that enters into the spirit of his earthy monologues with whoops of approval and often talks back to and encourages Leguizamo as he hits his stride.
”They bring their babies sometimes,” the actor says, ”and if the kids cry during the scene where I`m doing Gladyz (who is seen tending her latest child in a baby carriage), I use that, too: `See, my baby doesn`t cry. Mine`s better than yours.` ”
No more stupid junkies
Leguizamo`s verbal adroitness goes back to his childhood, when his ambition was to be a standup comic. ”The reason I went to school was to try out my jokes,” he says. ”I`d write them the night before and then see how funny they were in school the next day.”
A school counselor, noting this craving for attention, suggested that Leguizamo try acting school, and so, by way of the drama program at New York University, ”I snuck into acting.”
He worked for a while with an improvisational comedy troupe (”And, believe me, you write that stuff before you get up and improvise”), then landed jobs in the theater and films, where, he says, ”It`s fairly easy for a Hispanic actor to get the roles of junkies and gang members. But once you get those stupid parts, it`s hard to break out of the type.”
”Mambo Mouth,” which presented a wide range of characters in a one-man show, gave him the chance to show his versatility, and became an off-Broadway hit as well.
A year ago, as the long run of ”Mambo Mouth” was beginning to wear him down, Leguizamo started writing the first sketches of ”Spic-O-Rama,” basing it on his own and other families` experiences. The character of the crippled Xavier, for example, is partly based on Leguizamo`s younger brother, who had a debilitating disease that left him paralyzed for several months. ”It was hard for me to see that he was not capable, and I didn`t help him,” Leguizamo says. ”I was not there for him. That`s why I dedicate that part of the show to him.”
Putting a large notebook, a portable podium and a slide projector that he had bought into a large shopping cart, Leguizamo trucked his incipient show into several East Village clubs, reading from his notes and developing the characters as he went along.
Robert Falls, Goodman`s artistic director, saw one of those readings at the request of Leguizamo`s agent late last fall and immediately offered the Goodman Studio for a workshop production.
Within a few weeks, Leguizamo and his ”Mambo Mouth” director, Peter Askin, refined the monologues and, with the participation of students in a comedy workshop that Leguizamo was leading in New York, taped the video segments that provide links between Leguizamo`s live monologues.
In an even shorter period, they arrived in Chicago with their small backstage team, quickly assembled all the production elements and opened their show, with Leguizamo rewriting, rehearsing and working out at a local sports club to get in shape for the production`s physical demands.
Lasting potential
On performance days, Leguizamo usually eats his customary tuna salad sandwich before noon, arrives at the theater about 3 p.m., dances about a bit to reacquaint himself with his characters, takes a nap, changes into his Miggy costume of cardigan sweater, cracked glasses and too-short wash pants, and gets ready to charge onto the stage with his first, awesome burst of energy.
After the show, Leguizamo says, ”I`m ready to be put away in my coffin;
but then I catch my breath and eat like a pig in a feeding frenzy.”
Roche Schulfer, Goodman`s producing director, acknowledges that ”Spic-O- Rama” has brought in a Hispanic audience Goodman had never enjoyed before, and he hopes that some of the enthusiasm the show created will continue. ”The problem,” he says, ”is that you can`t come up with a John Leguizamo every day.”
”Spic-O-Rama,” which finally cost about $150,000 to produce, including its move to the Briar Street Theatre, broke even in Chicago, with maybe a few thousand dollars to spare, and Schulfer estimates that it could have run here at least another profitable three months. But Leguizamo will soon be off to Los Angeles for a proposed five-week stint at the Mark Taper Forum, and in late May he expects to take his show off Broadway.
After that, he says, ”I won`t do any more one-man shows. I want to share the space with somebody else.” But he will continue writing (including a movie script still in rough draft), because ”it`s such an incredible accomplishment, to use language and say things in a way that moves people.”
He is clearly a young talent on his way, and Chicago (which Leguizamo charmingly refers to as ”New York, without the hostility”) has been but one stop along that way.
But it has been a revealing and invigorating stop for him. ”I just hope,” he says, ”that it`s not all downhill from here.”
One doubts that it will be.
